Micronutrient Availability in Alternative Foods During Agricultural Catastrophes

Abstract

Several catastrophes could block the sun, including asteroid/comet impact, super volcanic eruption, and nuclear war with the burning of cities (nuclear winter). Previous work has analyzed alternate food supplies (e.g., mushrooms growing on dead trees, bacteria growing on natural gas). This was shown to be technically capable of feeding everyone with macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and lipids) and minerals, although economics and politics remain uncertain. The present work analyzes vitamin availability in such alternative food scenarios. The vitamin content of various alternate foods is compared to the US recommended daily allowance (RDA) as well as the average requirement defined by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and insufficiencies of single food sources are discussed. Single alternate food sources are always deficient in some vitamins, and the problems associated with this are discussed. To prevent disease in an alternative food scenario a wide range of foods must be consumed, or the diet must be supplemented. Backup plans discussed include chemical synthesis of vitamins, plants grown with artificial light and growing bacteria rich in certain vitamins. Finally, insights from this analysis are provided for combating existing micronutritional deficiencies using alternative foods today.

Long-term cost-effectiveness of interventions for loss of electricity/industry compared to artificial general intelligence safety

“…Since there may be scenarios of people eating primarily one food, micronutrient sufficiency should be checked, though it would be less of an issue than for food without the sun [ 35 , 59 ]. Higher priority future research includes ascertaining the number and distribution of unplugged shortwave radio systems with unplugged power systems that could be utilized in a catastrophe.…”

Rapid repurposing of pulp and paper mills, biorefineries, and breweries for lignocellulosic sugar production in global food catastrophes

“…It would be technically feasible to produce enough calories to fulfill global human caloric requirements. Initial estimates also show that it could be possible to provide a nutritionally balanced diet to maintain a reasonable level of health (Denkenberger and Pearce, 2018b).…”

Open source software toolchain for automated non‐targeted screening for toxins in alternative foods

“…Previous work has shown alternative food supplies made from converting fossil fuels, wood and leaves to human-edible food could feed humanity even in the event of a GCR that eliminated all conventional agriculture [2] , [3] , [4] . Using a variety of alternative foods can provide a balanced diet of macronutrients [5] and micronutrients [6] to maintain human life. It is also cost effective to prepare for alternative food production both globally [6] and in the U.S. [7] .…”