This article from the BBC dated October 2005 tells of a plan to freeze-dry (dead) bodies in liquid nitrogen in order to cut mercury emissions from crematoria. This Is London updates the BBC story in October 2006 by emphasising the benefits of freeze-drying corpses in relation to the now limited cemetary space in the UK.
The process, called promession, would seem to involve:
We are given to understand that promession will be implemented in the town of Jonkoping in Sweden at some time in 2007. At least 27 local councils in the UK will be watching events closely before deciding whether to consider the system themselves.
Apart from my inability to square this comment:
with this one:
I have questions, as follows:
(1) Would the powdered corpse/coffin combination be edible after being frozen in liquid nitrogen?
(2) If so, what nutritional value would the powder contain, if any?
(3) In theory (I hope) would it be possible to sustain human life by using the powder as food, probably bulked up with cheap and readily available supplements?
Please note this OP does not imply that I am on an economy drive.
I can’t answer your question directly, but I will venture a guess that it’s probably basically an effective way of turning people into goo (once it melts). It’s not going to be all that dry when it melts, unless you specifically dry it.
I think if your goal would be to produce something edible then the corpse is probably more so than the goo. If the theory is that freezing is safer than cooking, then I’d like to know why you would think so?
If I understand you correctly, your comment about goo is contradicted by several sources which specify the end result as powder.
Furthermore, I do not maintain here that freezing is safer than cooking. On the assumption that promession takes off as a means of body disposal then, in addition to burying the powder as described in the BBC link, I am asking if it would be possible to eat the stuff.
Tangential to the OP is the plot of the movie Soylent Green. I am curious to know whether, in a particularly dystopian society such as the story describes, a bulked up powder could be foisted on an unsuspecting public.
I would think that it would end up as a powder while still frozen (a “powder” of tiny frozen bits of body and coffin, that is), but that as the powder heats up from the environment the frozen water in it would quickly melt, turning the “powder” back into a bloody sludge.
Unless the process somehow removes all the water from a body, that is. But how would it do that?
I really, really, really don’t want to derail this thread. BUT. This whole thing just reminds me soooo much of the Batman movie where the United Nations members get dehydrated.
Ah, I see that my question is answered on the web site of Promessa (the Swedish company doing this procedure). After the body disintegrates, the frozen bits are sent through a vacuum chamber that evaporates the water and leaves you with a dry powder “that doesn’t decompose as long as it stays dry.” It takes up about thrice the volume of the cremains of a similarly-sized body.
So to answer the OP’s question, yes, you should be able to eat it and obtain nutritional value from it; it would contain bone and organ powder as well as skeletal muscle (“meat”) powder, of course, as well as all the nonmetallic bits of the coffin the body was frozen in. And it sounds like it would probably preserve at least any prions and viruses that might be present. Probably bacteria too, but I’m not sure about that – how fine a “disintegration” do you get from a vibrating pad when you’re frozen to liquid nitrogen temperatures? I wouldn’t think it would be enough to kill a bacterium, but I’m not an expert on shaking frozen microorganisms.
I think if you’re going to market the stuff as food, you need a catchy brand name; maybe something that suggests it’s made out of wholesome vegetables such as protein-rich pulses … LimaFava maybe or MungPea…
Oh, and it will probably need some kind of colouring agent to make it look nice.
Is there some misunderstanding as to what the term freeze-dried means? Probably the closest analogue to this process would be the mechanically seperated meat. Throw in a bit of binder such as the aforementioned corn starch and you would get a smooth, malleable meat flavoured paste. In otherwords, you would become a human cocktail weenie
But they’re not freeze-drying, at least not as I understand the process, and the articles in the OP didn’t mention the drying process (that I saw, anyway) – just the freezing and vibrating. Anyway, in this process, they’re freezing it (REALLY freezing it!), then shattering it, then drying it with a vacuum chamber of some kind. I thought freeze-drying involved freezing it and vacuum-drying it in the same step, then sealing it up so it won’t un-dry when it un-freezes.
Of course, I guess it’s pretty much academic, since you end up with the same thing (except for the slight difference with the whole “shattered to powder” business). But I had to go on to the company’s web site to verify that they actually were drying it and creating a dry powder from the remains.
Something is missing here. Freeze drying also requires vacuum dehydration of the frozen powder. If this step is omitted the powder will turn into a mass of mush which will decompose/rot in a matter of a few days.
Well, I understood as much, but I didn’t quite catch why you were wondering if the powder is edible when you have an edible human before you freeze dried it. I guess it’s harder to push “a newly discovered species of pig” meat on unsuspecting public than some freeze-dried powder, but I’m sure the taste and the texture issue would balance it out. Is this simply curiosity if the plot of Soylent Green is feasible?
I came across the linked articles and immediately made a connection with Soylent Green. I have seen the movie but it’s unclear to me exactly what processes were involved in converting people to food. As you say, it would certainly be harder to push a ‘newly discovered species of pig’ than a freeze-dried powder. I’m not sure about the taste and texture factors. Perhaps they could be disguised by another ingredient.
Hm, does anybody know if you dip a chunk of fresh meat (say beef) that has a very limited number of toxins but can potentially have a lot of bacteria ready to munch on it (or you) into liquid nitrogen and then vacuum dry it, are the bacteria guaranteed to be dead? As in, I’m assuming that if it wasn’t toxic in the beginning it’s not going to become toxic through freeze-drying, but can you get infected by something that survived freeze drying? I’m guessing some viruses might be able to survive that, right? What about fungi?
Personally I suspect the 61.8% - spurious accuracy, other sites say 60-75%
If they did not freeze dry it they might as well put the corpse through a liquidizer, and land up with 180lb of goo, rather than 70lb of powder.
From memories of freeze dried peas, the cellular structure would probably remain intact (otherwise the peas would have been mushy) so I guess that the water sublimes and the gas escapes through the membrane of the individual cells.
This would suggest that bacteria would remain intact, and viruse would not be affected. Possibly one could add a second stage, some sort of DNA ‘cutting’ agent, to break the dust down into raw molecules.
In that case it would be of limited food value to humans, as there would be no protein.
