I can see Selkie developing a liking for marinades once she gets past the psychological “OMG IT’S PLANTS” hurdle.
I considered mentioning an off-camera moment where Selkie got sick from eating meat with too much barbecue sauce on it, but I don't want to confuse the "can she or can't she" issue.
“In the strict scientific sense, Doctor, we ALL feed on death. Even vegetarians.”
– Spock, “The Wolf In The Fold”, Star Trek: The Original Series
This.
A photosynthetic alien should have walked by after that. I know Trek has them.
Do you mean a sentient hologram like Voyager’s Doctor, or a sentient being evolved from plants?
hehe, photo-synthetic.. i never thought of it but that is a term you could use for a hologram.. and that WOULD be an exception to that rule. though actually by their future they can make energy out of antimatter, and food out of energy, so nobody has to kill anymore..
no i meant photosynthetic as in, you can convert light directly into food, like a plant, yeah. or a green alga. For that matter maybe a chemosynthetic creature like a fungus or those sulfur-vent microbes..
I’ve read/seen some sci-fi where the alien race has chlorophyll in their skin in place of human melanin, allowing them at least partial photosynthesis (they still need to eat; not a lot of vitamins in light). Green skin, naturally.
Now that’s making me wonder about Star Trek Orions… though IIRC, in their case the green skin was due to their having purportedly evolved from the reptile branch of their planetary evolution tree.
The death of SUNS!
interesting fact plants communicate
by chemical signals ejected into the air.
especially when stressed, or ripening.
the smell of fresh cut grass is the grass screaming in agony.
Omnivores like to kill our food before we eat it.
Vegetarians prefer to eat their food alive,
which is something they share in common with Carnivores.
Is Todd also a german crossfitter?
All carnivores eat some plant matter – even if it’s only in the stomachs of vegetarians they eat.
Actually some carnivores will eat grass, the same way dogs occasionally do.
Great. My dog does eat grass, but only to make herself throw-up when she isn’t feeling well to begin with. But wait, here it gets interesting: she doesn’t eat round bladed grass– only flat bladed grass, and not the short bladed variety, only the long-flat type. And never the weeds, like violets, dandylions, or plantains. She probably doesn’t like weeds like dandylions because, … You know, CATS!
Yeah, I noticed that about my dogs too. They don’t just eat grass, they eat a very specific kind of grass only.
Besides that, my dogs really enjoy sweet potatoes (which isn’t all that weird, since dogs aren’t obligate carnivores after all)
Yeah, pretty much anything that isn’t nailed down, she’ll eat.
Oh, and she carries a hammer, Justin Case something IS nailed down, but is too good to leave uneaten.
I don’t know who to credit either of these to, but….
“If it’s not nailed down, it’s mine. And if I can pry it loose, it wasn’t nailed down.”
and “You get what you can take.” (generally attributed as the “Viking” version of “You take what you can get.”) ;-}}
One word: Catnip.
Healthy adult dogs can actually be fed a vegetarian diet. Cats are obligate so they need some meat (mostly for taurine), but they can eat non-meat products. Mine enjoy potato chips. 🙂
Ferrets, who are obligate carnivores, generally adore raisins. One must, however, be careful not to let them over-indulge.
And yet, be very careful with grapes around dogs. Depending on the breed, they are poison.
Basically little kidney failure pills. 🙁
So Selkie might prefer very mild tasting veggies in the beginning. Maybe even introduce her to the glory that is MUSHROOMS
…just don’t tell her where they come from…Oh who am I kidding this girl’s smart she probably already knows.
Mushrooms aren’t actually plants. How would she react to those anyway?
Mushrooms have chitin in their frames, just like bugs! Wooo!
….I did not need to know that.
Mmmmm… Grilled portobello burgers with swiss cheese. <3
He should give her kombu. Sea plants ftw!
And, seconding the mushrooms idea.
Just make sure they’re badger- and snake-free.
Kombu, meh, it’s ok, I prefer Hiziki or arame, what ever that junk has in it- I don’t know, but my body thinks it’s drugs the way I crave it. It’s a body hunger I cannot explain. After the first bite, my body wants the whole plate of it.
well, i honestly find the concept of eating anything alive horrifying, not just for me- dying by being digested is probably one of the worst ways to go
Maybe this is the time to ask them exactly what’s toxic and what’s merely “icky” to her. Maybe get a profile of the typical Sarnothi diet and adapt cuisine accordingly. All he got from the orphanage was a list of stuff they tried that didn’t go over so well.
That’s a really good idea! Very curious to see where this conversation goes.
A place to start. Egg bearing mammal, Platypus. Canivore.
I feel like selkie would totally start referring to all her meals as “The corpses of my enemies!”
I think probably what sets off Selkye’s stomach is the sugars, wich both grapes (in the form of fructose) and barbecue sauce (again, in the form of fructose -if commercial- or sucrose -if handmade) contain in liberal amount. Carnivores in general tolerate very badly sugars: dogs and cats have very high chance of becoming diabetic and having digestion problems, while specifically dogs find some sugary compounds to be deadly toxic.
Naturally brewed teas cointain near to none of sugars and mainly are composed of aromatic compounds (called flavonoids), that should not be harmful to any carnivore.
As for the rest of plant matter, think about us eating paper. Paper is made of wood fibers and we cannot digest it, so small amounts just fills us without nourishing us, medium amounts make us queasy because the stomach has a very hard time trying to break down something we cannot break down, and large amounts in the best case it probably will make us throw up (as the stomach will not be able to digest it and will try to expell it), while in the worst case it may block our bowels and we may end having to go to the hospital for surgery.
So, don’t feed too much vegetables to Selkie 😉
Ok, I’ve re-read this (and the previous page) a few of times now and I don’t get something. Why did Pohl get offended by Todd asking about Sarnothi being able to drink tea?
It seems a perfectly valid question to me, even if Todd overreacted a bit. We also know Pohl has some idea of how little information Todd has on Selkie which is why his family have been helping. This comes across as really weird to me. Is this an American joke or something?
It – at least to me – at first came across as “Wait, you aliens drink TEA? Just like you were people?” Pohl isn’t Selkie’s dietary consultant – yet – so he wouldn’t know that Todd meant “Wait, your species CAN drink tea? Nobody tells me this stuff, and I really need to know it.”
Weak teas, light marinades (not citrus fruit) mushrooms, weak broths, and seaweed/nori with meat. Avoid the strong sweet flavors like fruits. I can see this working with mild root veggies like potatoes, parsnips, turnips and cauliflower at first.
I wonder what the sarmothi equivalent of candy would be. Lumps of strongly flavored congealed fat?
Probably, yes, or very fatty meat or fish. Ootoro maybe, in the sushi/fish department.
…Unagi.
Mmmmmm, unagi…
Perhaps beef jerky. I know I loved the stuff as a kid. And many blends don’t have fruit flavors.
Well, we know about fish eyes!