This post is a must read. I did not expect anything in it. It’s hard to pick a quote because the whole thing is quotable. Anyway:

There are two main sources of bacteria that we looked at. There is a methane-digesting bacteria that you basically grow on natural gas. And then we can either eat that directly or process it or say, feed it to rats and then eat the rats. Then there’s the bacteria that we can grow directly on wood. Or on leftover mushroom waste. And so this would be taking down a tree, pulverizing it, turning it into a slurry, and then letting the bacteria go at it.

So for instance, there are bacteria that secrete sugars they then use to feed themselves. You can pull out the sugars, and eat those ourselves and leave the bacteria and the partially decaying wood pulp. And we can feed that stuff to other things. So for instance, rats digest wood to some degree, particularly after it is partially broken down that way. This makes a fairly good solution. We could feed something similar to chickens. And chicken is something maybe people would maybe be happier to eat than bacteria milkshakes.

So – we’re going to cut down all the trees, which is going to be hard because they will be frozen. Then we pulp them, feed the pulp to bacteria, then to rats, then eat the rats. Please people, let’s not let it get to this point.

It also reminded me of the yeast vats in The Caves of Steel. Also how certain yeast strains can make wheat beer taste like bananas, even though there are no bananas in there. It has occurred to me before that fungi could be a key to feeding people in a world that was photosynthetically limited for one reason or another.