Multiversal Yarns

Long while since my last story, I have been a sea quite a bit which I don’t find overly conducive to writing.  I had 80% of this story written for a long time and while visiting Portland Oregon I finally had some time in a couple of coffee shops to finish it and prepare it to be published.  It is a concept that fascinates me and that we are not far from, there are already several product coming to market that almost fit this description and I will be watching the market reaction closely.  This one is a little longer at about 4300 words, thanks for taking the time to read my work and visiting my site, I am grateful for the chance to share my stories.  Enjoy.

Ditch the plate, dine with Plait!

Around 1995 was the pinnacle of guilt-free eating, since then the other foot really fell in terms of the obesity epidemic and the long term health risks of certain foods.  As global communities grew in size and influence with the prevalence of the internet, access to information also grew.  This started with simple food information and a better understanding of food labels but in time proper nutrition was no longer something you needed a professional nutritionist to guide you through.  In the early 2000s online nutritional information made a shift, instead of just talking about how bad processed foods were or how much our eating habits were affecting out health, the topic changed to sharing information of good nutrition.  The word “Superfood” entered the global lexicon and the food industry was never the same. 

Superfood wasn’t a term used or liked by nutritionists or dietary scientists, it was created by advertisers and it took hold of the collective imagination and stayed there.  Many common foods were raised up to superfood status: Kale, Flax, Blueberries, Avocados, Oregano, Black Pepper, Spinach and many others.  With their new superfood moniker some new foods also entered the North American diet: Quinoa, Chia Seeds, Hemp Hearts, Goji Berries, Acai Berries, to name a few.  By 2010 the influx of new products became very hard to keep track of.  Peanut butter was replaced with almond butter, coconut butter, hazelnut, macadamia, pecan, pistachio, soy, cashew, even pumpkin butter.  Olive or Canola oil now had to contend with grape seed oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, sesame oil and oddly enough, peanut oil.  There were similar alternatives to every spread, spice, sweetener, baking ingredient and dessert, leading to a state of mass confusion about what you should actually put in your body.

Orthorexia Nervosa, look it up.  The food landscape in the mid 2010s became so complex and diverse that a new eating disorder had to be defined.  This was the extreme or obsessive occupation with avoiding foods that you perceived to be unhealthy.  The scary part here is that most of these claims about how unhealthy the food was, were false.  If you understand someone’s incentives you can predict how they will behave, most of these food claims came from the food industry itself.  Don’t eat their product, it has substance A which is bad for you, use our product instead with substance B which is a superfood and will make all of your problems go away.  The population ate up this kind of advertising and it really shaped their habits. 

So now instead of nourishing the body and pleasing the palette, food became a major source of stress and confusion for a large portion of the population.  Basic human nutrition now required a lot of research and investigation into the truth behind food claims and labeling.  Labeling was a joke in itself, you could bake a loaf of bread and while it was still warm sprinkle some oats on the top crust, then package it as whole oat bread.  Some people could keep up with the news and see through the ad campaigns to the ground truth about the food they were eating, but most people were lost.

Big change was needed to simplify the intake of needed sustenance and free up wasted time and money on eating too much of the wrong foods.  Dietary problems caused and long list of life altering diseases and conditions that people often didn’t find out about until it was too late.  That change came in 2023, Alfred Plait was a dietary scientist and he had dedicated his life to understanding what the body needs and finding a way to fill those needs with the foods available and then educate people on how they can do the same.  He ran a website with diet plans, nutritional information that was real and not influenced by marketing, recipes and examples of simple exercise routines to stay as healthy as possible.  He has a respectable following on his site but he felt that he could offer more to people, that he needed to offer more.  He often spoke to his close friend and colleague Jim Mayer about this.

“Jim, We need to do more.”

“More?”

“People are overeating and hurting themselves, people are eating foods that are essentially poison.  I walk through the city and watch people, I enjoy people-watching.  Have you ever done that Jim, just sat and watched people?  Like fish at an aquarium.”

“I can’t say that I have Alfred.”

“Well, it can be really depressing.  The percentage of grown adults that have no idea what they should put in they own bodies is alarming.  As a grown human, how can you not know at least the basics of what your body needs to live and grow?”

“It is our profession Alfred, some people just aren’t into it.”

“That isn’t acceptable!  If our profession was taxidermy then I would accept that not everyone likes the look of a stuffed racoon, but we are nutritional scientists, we study what the human body needs to survive and thrive.  How can you, as a human, not be interested in knowing what you need to feed yourself to be healthy, to live?”

“You know the answer to that question, confusion and laziness.  Wadding through all of the misinformation and knowing the right answer is too hard for most people and turning down foods that taste good and are convenient requires will power, some have it, some don’t.”

“The scary part to me is that we are talking about adults, this bad information and these bad habits are being handed down to children, our next generation is no longer getting slimmer and healthier thanks to our understanding of nutrition, they are getting fatter and more unhealthy because it is all too much work.  Too much work for the parents, the advertisers and the children themselves.  We need to change that, and fast.”

“What are you proposing?”

“We have been looking at the problem from the wrong angle, we have been trying to find foods that combine together to make up the nutrient metrics that the human body needs in a day, and even then, foods that we can persuade people to follow through with.  We are working with imperfect materials and expecting them to yield a perfect result.”

“So you mean…”

“Yes, No… Maybe.  I mean I want to look at what the body needs, I mean what it really needs.  1750 Kcal, 160g protein, so much of each vitamin, you name it.  Let’s catalogue the precise needs of the human body…”

“…and then find foods to make that work?”

“No.  Ignore foods, ignore the imperfect source materials, let’s engineer something that is exactly what the body needs, no extra sugar or calories, no waste, a perfect food.”

“That is way out of our depth.”

“You’re right of course, we need a team, keep this quite for now, I will assume that you are in, we need another four or five people, lab techs, a microbiologist and perhaps a chemical engineer.  I have some contacts”

“I am not sure if I agree with…” before Jim could finish, Alfred had left the room in search of contact phone numbers.  He knew that when Alfred was in this kind of mood there was no turning him back.  What harm could a little research do?

In short order a team was assembled and research began.  As it happened it was quite easy to find or manufacture specific nutrients and tailor them to human needs.  Rather than searching out foods from around the world and expecting people to source the same foods, they favoured the direct approach.  If the body needs Iron, give it Iron, same for Zinc and Calcium and Potassium, the list goes on.  Custom tailoring amino acids that were sustainable and thermally tolerant turned out to be quite tricky but in time they had made a marketable product.  The FDA was hesitant at first but in terms of purity, there was no comparison.  There is zero toxins, poisons, dangerous substances, or even artificial sweeteners; Nothing but what the body needs.

The web video marketing campaign really had people talking, it was very simple, no fancy graphics, no computer generated imagery, just Alfred Plait, in a lab coat (for authority) talking to a camera.  Alfred was an attractive, tanned, clean looking man in his early thirties, he seemed to glow a healthy vibe that made him the obvious choice to be the face of the new product, even if he hadn’t already made himself the CEO and President of the newly formed Plait Nutrition Company.  The slogan “Ditch the plate, dine with Plait!” was just too tempting to avoid.

The camera faded in from black.

“Hello, my name is Alfred Plait and What I am about to tell you will change your lives forever.  How is your relationship with food? Does your living situation allow you to get enough food for you to live and be healthy?  Do you worry about how you are going to feed your family?  Is your problem on the other side of the spectrum where you have access to all the food you want and your will power isn’t strong enough to curb your intake?  Maybe you just don’t know just how much food you should be eating or what foods you should be eating and it all seems so confusing. 

You are not alone!

I have dedicated my life to an understanding of food and the dietary needs of our bodies and I can tell you there is no easy way to teach every person on this earth, in this country or even in this room with me how to eat exactly right for their body.  At least not using the ingredients that we are all familiar with.  If you follow food health news at all you probably have as much false information as good information to guide you.  Blueberries are a “superfood”? Well, sort of, they are good for you but they don’t contain as many densely packed nutrients as half of the hype claims.  Even by saying they are good for you that instills this idea of black and white view where foods are classed as either good or bad and that just isn’t realistic.  All foods have good aspects and all foods are flawed.  For years you have been told that the key is to combine the foods in such a way that you get all the important nutrients that the body needs every day without going over any of the bad ones and keeping the total amount of food beneath an almighty calorie number. 

Sure that is fine to say but how do you do it?  How do you actually apply that to your life filled with work and friends and appointments and meetings and kids and pets and hobbies and chaos?  The only available answer has been, you hire someone like me.  A Dietary Scientist, a Nutritionist, a Physical Trainer, you hire yourself a whole separate team just to look back at you and tell you what to put in your body so that you can keep on moving.  I ask you, Is that realistic?  Is that sustainable? Is that attainable by the vast majority of the population of even the developed world, never mind the rest of the planet?

What then is the solution, I have thought long and hard about this and I am here to present you with the culmination of my life’s work.  I offer you the Plait Nutrition System.  I have taken away the guesswork, I have done all the legwork, I have hired a team of the sharpest minds in their field to build the only nutrition product you will ever need.  Is it a supplement? No.  Is it a Multivitamin? No.  Is it an occasional meal replacement? No. The Plait Nutrition System is a smoothie that you drink three times a day that will keep you feeling satisfied yet light on your feet, strong but not hyped, calm but not drowsy and healthy to a point you never thought possible.

(Short silence)

That is it folks, you drink three shakes a day from Plait Nutrition and nothing more.  This product has been engineered from the ground up to give your body exactly the nutrients it needs and it contains no toxins, poisons or unhealthy products such a trans fats or refined sugars.  All of the good stuff, none of the bad stuff, and perfectly tailored to your needs.  I know what you are thinking now, “OK Mr. Plait, you have our attention now how much does it cost?”  I have you covered there as well, you can have the Plait Nutrition System for as little as 75 cents a day, that’s less than 23$ a month.  For the price of one nice meal out you can eat for the whole month and feel more satisfied and healthier than you have ever felt before. 

Will Plait Nutrition System help you lose weight? Absolutely, it is tailored to ease you off of your current diet and down to something more appropriate based on what you should be consuming and in the process the pounds will drop off.  Will Plait Nutrition System help you put on a little meat if you have trouble with that? Absolutely, now that you are guaranteed to hit every nutrient metric you will no longer feel weak and there will be nothing holding back the development of strong muscle.

I will endeavour to read your mind one more time, you are now thinking “Ok but surely something so inexpensive and healthy must taste terrible.”  This one is an oddity for me because I didn’t factor taste into my design process at all but this beverage is truly delicious.  It is a taste unlike anything you have ever put in your mouth but it is absolutely gratifying.  I drink it myself three times a day and I feel great.

So that is the idea people, I want to realize my goal of feeding everyone on the earth, keeping them healthy and giving them the chance to live a long and happy life.  Here is the deal, call or go to our website and order a month worth of the Plait Nutrition System today, I guarantee you won’t regret it.  If you buy 6 month’s worth, I will donate one month for free to a developing nation in need of food, buy a year’s supply I will donate 3 month’s worth to people in need.  You can also choose to be a good human and at this cheap price sponsor someone, buy yourself and someone in need the gift of perfect health and nutrition. 

Gone are the days of a small populations stockpiling mass quantities of imperfect foods.  With the Plait Nutrition System you never have to worry about planning a meal again and you can help everyone on this earth be well fed as well.  No more missing time with the family while preparing supper or toiling over dirty dishes and wasting water to clean them.  No more Large appliances taking up unnecessary space in your house, Plait Nutrition System doesn’t need to be refrigerated or heated and you don’t need to add water.  No More!

I want you to join me on a journey of imagination for a moment.  Imagine a world without the need for other food.  No land wasted on agricultural space or the keeping of livestock.  No massive waste of clear freshwater to supply all of this farming.  Houses build without the needs for freezers, fridges, stoves, and dozens of cupboards to hold food, cooking and eating utensils and storage containers for leftovers.  No kitchens at all.  Imagine the developed world really giving something back and sending enough inexpensive Plait Nutrition Systems out to the developing world that no man, woman or child on this great earth goes hungry.  All of this is not just some flight of fancy, the technology is here, the time is now, I present to you, the future.  The Plait Nutrition System!  Ditch the plate, dine with Plait!”

As you can imagine the response from the video was rapid and significant.  The world jumped on board in a big way and before long production of the Plait Nutrition System was in full steam.  The international community was inspired by the spirit of nourishing the entire planet and most people opted to donate as much if not more than they consumed themselves.  Over time some of Alfred’s outlandish predictions came to fruition, houses and condos were build without sacrificing living space to a kitchen or dining room.  The medical community was astounded with the drastic drop in certain diseases and acute conditions such as diabetes, heart attack, stroke and obesity.

The revolution however was not without side-effects.  Farmers were the most affected, it wasn’t long before the demand for fresh fruit and veg or even meat products really dried up.  There was also a curious reaction within the human body itself.  Over millennia our bodies have evolved to deal with the food we eat.  The liver filters out toxins from our food. The kidneys filter our blood for impurities and waste products and produce urine.  The intestines process solid foods for stray nutrients while compacting the remainder into a simplified waste product.  This waste liquid and solid go to the bladder and bowel respectively to be stockpiled until it is time to evacuate them from the body.  None of these processes are required in the body of a person who consumes solely Plait Nutrition System shakes because there are no toxins or impurities or waste products. 

With slow changes in human diets over centuries, the body has a chance to react.  The sudden shift in global diet spun the bodies reaction into gear much faster than evolution would normally allow for.  Within only a few generations the now unused organ had atrophied to the point of near uselessness.  The now vestigial digestive tract couldn’t process what was once known as food if we needed it to, there is no requirement as Plait Nutrition systems provided everything the body needs with no waste.  No waste also meant essentially no going to the bathroom, once you had tweaked your nutrition and figured out the perfect proportions for your body.

With Generations passing on into human history so too did control of Plait Nutrition pass on, from father to son as Alfred Plait retired.   Jon Plait took over from Alfred and ran the company very smoothly, he made very little changes over his tenure in charge as there was no real competition in the nutrition market, they were the only brand and everyone in the world was eating their food.  There were exceptions, small group of people that didn’t believe the altruistic motives of Alfred Plait, but they didn’t make much fuss. 

Another generation passed and Jon’s son Phil Plait, was 22 years old and learning how to run the company from his father Jon.  Phil Plait was an energetic man who grew up knowing that his family controlled and produced the food the entire world ate.  Even as a boy he struggled with the idea of sharing and didn’t socialize well with other children.  His father Jon had hoped that this would be something Phil would grow out of but even now at 22 he had a real sense of entitlement that immediately grated everyone he came into contact with.  The concept of handing over the enormous responsibility or producing and dispatching the worlds food to someone so self-centred worried Jon. 

Fortunately he wasn’t yet looking to retire so Phil still had a good 10-15 years to learn and mature.  Jon’s hope was that by the time he was ready to step down, his son would also be ready to step up.  Phil had other ideas, he was too impatient to wait for his father to retire, he had no intention of waiting another 15 years to take the reins of the worlds sole food producer.  A plan was hatched and a dubious individual was contacted with the intent of expediting the transition from father to son. 

Weeks later Phil’s face was a mask of grief, disguising the ear to ear grin that he felt inside.  The world watched on as the funeral proceedings of a globally known business magnate  and voice for social change went through the city centre and on to his final resting place.  A vast tombstone was erected alongside his father Alfred’s.  The camera showed the visibly distraught face of Phil Plait, someone the public didn’t know a lot about.  Someone they were eager to learn about and sympathize with as they shared in his loss.

The wheels of the legal system turn slowly and it took months before Phil’s control over the Plait Nutrition Company was complete.  Control in hand he didn’t was much time, he had plans in place, he wanted to make some changes.  His childish selfishness had not worn off as his father had hoped.  The fact that he had the power to decide who gets to have food was not lost on him.  There was no regulation in place on Plait Nutrition Systems since his family line had previously been so forthcoming and altruistic.

Phil didn’t agree with his progenitors that the whole world deserved inexpensive and safe access to food.  In fact he thought there was entirely too many people on the planet to begin with and he had a devilishly simple plan to correct that.  The problem wasn’t that Phil was going to spike the price of food so that only the rich could afford Plait food, the problem was what would be left to eat for those that couldn’t afford it.  There were two aspects to this issue really. 

One: Food production and agriculture was a thing of the past, since the whole world was eating Plait food there was no need to irrigate or provide supply lines for the creation of so much food to feed the masses, the only places where food was still grown was in communes that didn’t believe in the Plait Nutrition System, people that were dedicated to natural, traditional foods. 

Two: Physiological changes, the now atrophied human digestive organs wouldn’t allow people to simply switch back to grown food.  Their bodies could no longer process the nutrients or evacuate the waste products.

The effect of the now exclusive cost of the Plait nutrition system had an immediate global impact.  Previously purchased stockpiles dried up quickly and hunger became an almost immediate concern.  The rich of the world were somewhat divided about Phil’s drastic move, they had the money to feed everyone they knew with little worry but there was a distinct concern for others.  Many among the rich cared deeply for the poor of the world but there was a sizeable percentage of people that didn’t disagree with Phil’s ideology that there were entirely too many people on this planet and this was a quick way to change that while protecting all of their friends.

The shift in pricing worked just like Phil predicted it would… but it also didn’t.  Within days the death toll was news-worthy in the poorest reaches of the planet as those people were relying on a steady stream of donated food that dried up almost immediately.  However, being a rash, impatient young man Phil hadn’t taken the time to really think through the effects of his plan.  He hadn’t raised the price of Plait nutrition by 30%, he had spiked it so high that only the wealthy like himself could afford to eat.  That threshold meant that the workers at his factory could no longer afford to feed their families or even themselves.

After an early foiled attack, Phil beefed up his security by bribing them with free food for the families of his security staff.  He thought he was safe.  Desperation does funny things to the human mind.  Faced with the concept of death by starvation, the idea of watching your family starve, you may think it would be easy to just give up and let go.  As it happens, despite crippling hunger pains and weakness from malnutrition, the human body is capable of remarkable things when the mind pushes it far enough. 

If you already know you are going to die, within days, you may find an overwhelming urge for that death to mean something, for it to have some sort of effect.  At times in history it can be difficult to figure out how to best have that desired effect on the world but at this moment in time, the decision was clear and shared by many people.  Whole swathes of desperate, hunger crazed people swarmed the factory and home of Phil Plait.  High walls and security guards can only protect a person from a total revolt for so long.

The people got in… They got to Phil… They did things, not in keeping with their normal character… Things they would never dream they were capable of.

In the end Phil was restrained and given the opportunity to experience the stages of death by starvation first hand.  The people took control of the factory and of the Plait nutrition system.  The people scaled the production and set the price so low that it just kept the wheels turning.  No more was there profit to be made from food production and no more would people go hungry.  The world would always remember the week when millions of people died and control of the worlds food production was put in the hands of the people who relied on it.

So if ever you feel you have power over people, power to control life and death, take the time to consider their numbers, think things through and instead be good to people less fortunate and you may find their numbers working in your favour.