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Vegans and the Replicator

Energy as such has particles... those particles ARE the base elements in a different state (what we and they perceive as ENERGY - or plasma running through the EPS system) than those found in solid objects.

Why would replicated food have to rise above 'acceptable'?
As I already said, it's probably replicated in a specific way so that it comes out as if a professional chef made it.
BUT, if you want it to taste a bit different, you would have to modify the recipe by telling the computer how to adjust the pattern.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Comes down to how it's prepared. It CAN be programmed to come out 'SUPERB' ... but that is very individual as people's tastes differ, so the phrase 'I slaved over the replicator for hours' could even be interpreted as 'I spent an amount of time fiddling with the recipe so it comes out the way I like it'.
 
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I assume that the quality of replicated food is dependent upon the pattern used to create it. A better programmer would probably be able to make a pattern that would more accurately reflect the 'real' taste of the food.
 
Mr. Laser Beam said:
Vanyel said:
While the Nazi Party may no longer be around, its ideology is still carried out by the Neo-Nazi's.
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Who are so scattered and ineffectual as to be effectively irrelevant. There will never again be a Nazi Party on the scale of the one that once existed in Germany. Nazism is as dead as Communism.
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Ignoring the rest of my post? Silence does speak volumes.
 
Mr. Laser Beam said:
I assume that the quality of replicated food is dependent upon the pattern used to create it. A better programmer would probably be able to make a pattern that would more accurately reflect the 'real' taste of the food.
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It would taste 'real' either way (as the vast majority of people in Trek don't 'complain' about replicated food - most complaints (shown only a few time) were induced by nostalgia in the first place or because the characters emphasized higher value on manually prepared food.
An individual would only have to adjust the recipe/pattern to suit THEIR OWN personal taste buds.
So to sum up... the meal would in fact come out the way it was programmed - say as if a professional chef made it.
BUT, that doesn't mean it will conform to EVERYONE's taste buds.
 
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Deks said:
why would replicated food have to rise above 'acceptable'?
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Well let's see. Acceptable, as in meeting only minimum requirements; barely adequate, capable of being endured, hardly tolerable.

Sounds yummy.

As I already said, it's probably replicated in a specific way so that it comes out as if a professional chef made it.
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No, it probably comes out as good as it's ever going to get. It isn't just like real food "down to the molecular level." What it actually is, is something that looks like the real thing, the shape and external appearance. The internal composition is a approximation. Not a side by side genetic duplication.

BUT, if you want it to taste a bit different, you would have to modify the recipe by telling the computer how to adjust the pattern.
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Then explain why Starfleet personnel don't do just that? They been eating replicator food for years, they understand how to give verbal instruction to a computer, they could order dish after dish, take a small taste, making small incremental changes to the "recipe."

But there is no sign that anybody ever has. Or that a replicator can be adjusted in this fashion.

Comes down to how it's prepared. It CAN be programmed to come out 'SUPERB'
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Except, by dialog replicators don't dish up anything worth raving about.

Next time you watch the episode New Ground, listen to the enthusiasm in Geordi's voice as he speaks of the soliton wave. How many times can you remember people going on that way about replicator food?

Enthusiasm. Picard speaking on archeology. Riker as he plays jazz. Crusher producing her theater. When people talk with enthusiasm on the subject of food, it's because it is being prepared "by hand."

But not a word of enthusiasm on what falls out of the hole in the wall.

:)
 
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It's become a rather dynamic thread, morals, taste, programming, even Nazis. Jump in the waters warm. What say you?
 
Yeah, but for some reason, I didn't think this thread would bring them up.
 
I gave my close friend, a diehard vegan (and Trek fan), the same premise a few years ago.
She was forced to conclude that the replicated meat was never alive and that she'd eat it.
 
Regarding the actual quality of replicated food, let me get this right - replicators use the same basic technology that allows you to interact with live beings and complex objects in the holodeck so well that it is nigh on impossible to tell the difference from the real thing.

The same technology that can disassemble you and reconstruct you somewhere else with your brain, body and nervous system unchanged to the extent that you still retain your personality and memories.

But it can't materialise a decent piece of cooked meat ?
 
Relayer1 said:
replicators use the same basic technology that allows you to interact with live beings and complex objects in the holodeck ...
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No, holodecks uses holograms and force fields to project forms. Transporters sends actual people and objects from place to place. Replicators creates physical forms by manipulating a matter stream (similar to a transporters) and materializing a "finished product."

But it can't materialise a decent piece of cooked meat ?
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Okay, some of the characters on the show indicated that "something" was off in some way. Their comments varied. Not everyone commented. But, with the exception of Deanna Troi no one seem to overly be enjoying what they were consuming.

That's about as neutral and fair as I can put it.

:)
 
Something I posted elsewhere a while back that is connected to the subject at hand:

Something I fear may be coming soon (within the next couple of decades) to high-end grocery or specialty shops: Some vegans and vegetarians won't eat meat for moral reasons - an animal died for it. Cloned meat may make the killing unnecessary, but the moral objection will still be that the animals did not volunteer their cells for the cloning, so like meat and cheese, some people still won't eat it. But they will WANT meat, because it is a biological imperative to eat it. This opens up a possibility: some celebrity will begin offering cloned steaks made from *their own* cells. I can totally see a Paris Hilton or a Snooki being vain and kinky enough to do this, but will there be an actual market? Would something like this ever become a generally accepted meat source? Would YOU try one? And another possbility, beyond that: everyone could eat meat cultured from *their own* cells?

And now I'll add this, here - could this be the reason replicator food is off? It's people, like Soylent Green?
 
USS Triumphant said:
But they will WANT meat, because it is a biological imperative to eat it.
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No, it is not. I don't feel such an imperative, so it doesn't apply to all.

And I would find eating human meat as yukky as eating animal meat. Volunteered or not, replicated or not, it still would be a piece of flesh.
 
You think it's cheaper to buy food that are hand grown or tell the replicators to make it. For the replicator to make something like a meatloaf it needs a lot of energy make it so.
 
Given how Robert Picard felt about replicators in general, it unlikely his food comes from a replicator in town. So, someone is growing food. Worf spent part of his childhood on a Human "farming colony."

Joseph Sisko serves real shellfish in his restaurant, perhaps implying all real food items on the menu.
 
Paradon said:
You think it's cheaper to buy food that are hand grown or tell the replicators to make it. For the replicator to make something like a meatloaf it needs a lot of energy make it so.
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Federation starships, space stations and planets seem to have energy in abundance. While the energy used to make a meatloaf may be great, it helps starships by allowing them to keep small amounts of perishables and small parts, freeing up room for added fuel, supplies that are not easily replicated or are too large or dangerous to replicate and allow the ship to be more multipurpose.

The ship, for example, can stop at Starbase XYZ, pick up medical supplies and doctors and bio beds and whatever else is needed to help a planet facing a biological or natural disaster, or even wounded from an attack. It can carry them in space that would otherwise be stocked with food, parts, and other items. A controlled matter antimatter explosion provides plenty of power to keep the ship running, the replicators replicating, the lights on, the phasers charged and the warp nacelles going. And it must also split duty with the impulse engines fusion reactors, so it has plenty of power, and power to spare.

The only ship that had to conserve power was Voyager since they weren't sure when or how often they'd be able to trade for anti matter.

T'Girl said:
Given how Robert Picard felt about replicators in general, it unlikely his food comes from a replicator in town. So, someone is growing food. Worf spent part of his childhood on a Human "farming colony."

Joseph Sisko serves real shellfish in his restaurant, perhaps implying all real food items on the menu.
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Picard also kept a supply of real caviar on board too, implying that - despite Riker's statements about enslaving animals (please correct me about that if I'm wrong) - fish eggs are harvested as well as shellfish.

O'Brien's mother cooked real meat, no replicator used as implied by the Chief himself.

I guess Earth still farms animals, perhaps in a more human way than we do now, and people who grew up on non replicated food, could tell the difference. Kind of like how I can tell the difference between homemade tortillas and store bought or when a machine makes and rolls out the dough while a person cooks it.

This in no way answers my question about Vegans and replicated meat, but I do like how the conversation has progressed.
 
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