# Best way to store food
**URL:** https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816
**Category:** The Bunker
**Created:** [May 30, 2020, 10:00pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816 "2020-05-30T22:00:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Valase](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Valase)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2020, 7:03pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816/41 "2020-07-18T19:03:30Z")
> [@TheZoneWizard](#):
>
> Another caveat is that they are not exactly flavorful raw and most people may find them kinda funky. A very low morale debuff of -1 per unit would be fair when eaten raw.
Well, they do have a “ew” taste to it right now (-12 morale per piece, to a max of -25)…:
> [@TheZoneWizard](#):
>
> They like to suck up parasites and bacteria […]
While they can possible contain toxic elements or compounds because of their filtration effect on water/ground and have microorganisms that live on the plant/rhizome, I can’t find any information that they can contain parasites or bacteria harmful to the human body (that can’t be washed away quickly).
> [@Wikipedia](#):
>
> Baby shoots emerging from the rhizomes, which are sometimes subterranean, can be picked and **eaten raw**.
> Also underground is a carbohydrate lump which can be peeled and **eaten raw** or cooked like a potato.[[19]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typha#cite_note-Nyerges40-19)
> Plants growing in polluted water can accumulate **lead** and **pesticide residues** in their rhizomes, and these **should not be eaten**.[[18]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typha#cite_note-nova-18)
If you provide a source, we could add this to the game (using either parasite or food poisoning mechanics)…
---
### Author:  [@TheZoneWizard](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/TheZoneWizard)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2020, 7:13pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816/42 "2020-07-18T19:13:15Z")
Hmm good to know more about what is in the game.
Your own comment seems to indicate an understood inference. Micro-organisms that live in and around the plant. Road side living suck up vehicle emmissions as do most similar plants at just about any road side.
The exact percentage is more for game mechanics than real life hard fact. As these are wild plants that are edible and not something taken into a lab for study. But rinsing something off in water isn’t much different than shaking dirt of your pants. You are likely to have something remain that you do not perceive with the naked eye.
Since we are on the topic. Check out this thread. Add to it as you like:
> [@The Chef o'da Woods!](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/the-chef-oda-woods/18150):
>
> Came up with this out of boredom and some people like it. So here is a bunch of stuff in the New England area. I am hoping the thread will show the variety of stuff people often walk bye in the woods. The survival skill should allow you to find a scaled amount of stuff to eat. Low levels should not find much and yet they learn. Being able to find a wider variety the higher the level of the skill. While only my opinion. This information should help if anyone wants to code any of it. Most can be …
😊
---
### Author:  [@Trigon](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Trigon)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2020, 8:27pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816/43 "2020-07-18T20:27:41Z")
Oh for sure I would never just eat one raw in real life. Just noting that it’s far more efficient to do so in game due to the very long and laborious process of rendering them into flour taking more calories than you would get gain.
---
### Author:  [@Valase](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Valase)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2020, 10:46pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816/44 "2020-07-18T22:46:50Z")
> [@TheZoneWizard](#):
>
> Micro-organisms that live in and around the plant.
There are also many bacteria, virusus and various forms of mold and other lifeforms around us in the air, our drinking water and on our body. Yet not all of them make us sick and the amount of them we ingest that do make us sick is also important. That’s why i specifically asked for “harmful to the human body”.
> [@TheZoneWizard](#):
>
> Road side living suck up vehicle emmissions as do most similar plants at just about any road side.
Vehicle emissions are toxins (potentially) and not bacteria/parasites. While toxins can be harmful, in this concentration this would mostly cause long-term effects and not immediatly hurt you. The game has no cancer functions (yet) that I know of, so even heavy radiation has no long-term effects to speak of (well, there’re mutations, but that’s not really the same thing).
> [@TheZoneWizard](#):
>
> As these are wild plants that are edible and not something taken into a lab for study.
Well, there’s a lot of weird stuff that get’s studied in the labs around the world… We have historians here that have excavated an old monastery’s outhouse and counted the blackberry seeds… and concluded that they have eaten over 200,000 of them (if I remember correctly). Not sure what anyone wants to do with that info, but there you have it.
> [@TheZoneWizard](#):
>
> But rinsing something off in water isn’t much different than shaking dirt of your pants. You are likely to have something remain that you do not perceive with the naked eye.
The Bundesamt für Gesundheit der Schweiz (health department of switzerland) recommends to wash wild picked strawberries (and other ground fruits / vegetable matter) to prevent the ingestion of (widespread) fox tapeworm eggs/larva.
It can and will reduce or even completely eliminate attached parasites and bacteria (unless they are inside of it, as you stated in a previous answer (“They like to suck up parasites […]”), which I can’t find information about), making it probably safe for consumption.
> [@TheZoneWizard](#):
>
> Check out this thread.
I will, thank you 😃 . But as I’m not familiar with the flora of New England, I probably don’t have much to add…
> [@Trigon](#):
>
> Oh for sure I would never just eat one raw in real life.
Yeah, I’ll have to agree on that. I would try one washed, peeled and cooked. Otherwise it’s good to know for an extreme emergency situation that they could be eaten raw, but until then… no thanks.
---
### Author:  [@Fload](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Fload)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2020, 6:05am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816/45 "2020-07-19T06:05:11Z")
> [@Trigon](#):
>
> Though I’m of the same mindset as you. I just eat the wheat and cattail rhizomes raw. It takes too long to process to be worth it, and it’s not like processing it nets extra calories.
Yeah this is a flaw(imo) in the calorie system. It also means lower volume foods are op af because you can consume way more total calories before getting full. Otherwise you get ‘full’ much too quickly. Two sausages with nothing else isn’t a huge meal, especially if you’re physically active. I understand this is trying simulate stomach volume but it is very confusing from a player feedback perspective. The “hungry” notifier is not actually giving you any useful information. It’s not telling you if you’re getting enough calories in a meal, and I can just open the character screen to get the only info it conveys at any time. Slightly deviating from the topic, apologies.
---
### Author:  [@Sir\_Scarfalot](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Sir_Scarfalot)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2020, 5:33am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816/46 "2020-08-23T05:33:39Z")
> [@Valase](#):
>
> Second fun fact: I don’t see anything stopping you from reaching an age of 65+ at which, with almost no fat reserves and the smallest possible height, you’d never again need to eat, as you will actually gain kcal just from existing and even more from exercising. Just… don’t do anything that modifies your stored calories directly, like digging/mining or cutting wood… or you’ll starve to death.
Wai hol up wha?
Are you saying that the formula for ‘kcal in the body’ has some variables that increment stored energy independently of diet? What forumula even is that?
---
### Author:  [@Valase](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Valase)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2020, 2:52pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816/47 "2020-08-23T14:52:00Z")
> [@Sir\_Scarfalot](#):
>
> What forumula even is that?
It’s [the one](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/2eef30cd1cfd4fa1fab9fb4b4ceeb4284281ae1e/src/character.cpp#L7678) you can find in the function Character::get\_bmr() of character.cpp:
```
base_bmr_calc = metabolic_rate_base() * activity_level * ( units::to_gram
( bodyweight() / 100.0 ) +
( 6.25 * height() ) - ( 5 * age() ) + equation_constant );
```
Or, to write it as a shorter formula:
`r * a * ( ( w / 100 ) + ( 6.25 * h ) - ( 5 * y ) + 5 )`
Simplified it looks like this:
`r * a * (x + y - z + 5)`
As long as `z` is larger than `x + y + 5`, the amount of kilocalories lost will be negative, which will let you gain weight/fat by exercising.
---
### Author:  [@Trigon](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Trigon)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2020, 7:45pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816/48 "2020-08-24T19:45:59Z")
This does explain a few of the sixty-five year old people I know who survive on nothing but cigarettes and coffee.
---
### Author:  [@Vastin](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Vastin)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2020, 11:19pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816/49 "2020-09-02T23:19:14Z")
As a note, is it still true in the game that processing food doesn’t increase its effective calorie value? Because it should - in some cases by a lot.
Note _effective_ caloric value. You never really increase the number of calories a given pile of ingredients will ultimately yield by processing them, but you will sure as hell reduce the number of calories you will have to BURN to ingest and digest them by processing and cooking them first.
You would have a pretty hard time getting fat just chewing on raw sugar cane, even if you just ate for much of the day - but pound back a few 32oz cokes and the pounds will start adding up real quick. Same stuff, different form factor through processing.
Even grass has calories (just ask any ruminant), but as a human you will literally starve to death eating it because the burn rate to process it is simply too high for our digestive system.
So yeah, you can get calories by just eating cattail rhyzomes, but the 60 minutes of processing you put into turning it into starch \> flower \> pancakes should dramatically increase the effective caloric value of that component.
---
### Author:  [@Trigon](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Trigon)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2020, 12:19am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816/50 "2020-09-03T00:19:09Z")
It should, but at the time I posted that it doesn’t really. I haven’t played in a bit so I’m not sure what the exact circumstances are in the current experimental though.
---
### Author:  [@Valase](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Valase)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2020, 1:33am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816/51 "2020-09-03T01:33:50Z")
> [@Vastin](#):
>
> As a note, is it still true in the game that processing food doesn’t increase its effective calorie value?
Assuming that the calories shown in the description of the food represent the effective calorie value and there’s no hidden modifier I don’t know of, then yes…
[The math I’ve done](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816/32) with the rhizome to flatbread process is still the same in experimental build 0.E-10968, it seems…
But there are some other foods that are worth the trouble of processing it.
---
### Author:  [@PALU](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/PALU)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2020, 7:20am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816/52 "2020-09-03T07:20:11Z")
There are a number of reasons for processing food in the real world:
- Extracting “locked” calories. This seems to be missing in the game, even though it seems to have been of a huge importance to the development of the human species. My rather rudimentary knowledge of how recipes work indicates that’s not something that’s inherent in the recipe mechanics, but rather something that the recipe constructors haven’t added.
- Improve the taste: Included in the game.
- Preservation: Included in the game.
- Calorie concentration: Cheese (the only thing I’ve looked at) is much denser in calories than the milk it’s derived from, but instead of producing calorie dense chunks of cheese, the recipe produces tiny slivers of cheese (34 g), that still somehow has the volume of 250 ml, while having 60% or so of the calories of the milk serving as the source.
It ought to be possible to overhaul the recipes to make more sense, but it’s a large task, and it also would need to be balanced against game play. Such an overhaul ought to look at ingredient sizes as well such that a single batch would produce a reasonable amount of the product with a reasonable input of time. Boiling 10 eggs takes essentially the same time as boiling 1, while making 10 makeshift lockpicks really requires you to make one after the other.
[Previous page](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/best-way-to-store-food/23816.md?page=2)