Patreon Blog Takeover: What Equestria Eats (Emil) · 12:44am Dec 1st, 2023
I tend to take long walks. Part of this is from sheer necessity: I still don't have a replacement car and local mass transit defaults to 'joke'. But quite a bit is in the name of plotting, because there are days when I think best on my feet. Chapters, one-shots, novels have been constructed in the course of such journeys. There are people who wonder what was going through my head on some of the stranger concepts, and it's rather hard to tell you -- but if you want to know what was going under my feet, it was probably a road shoulder.
Some sponsored blog questions require walks. Time spent in trying to figure out what I'm going to say.
So, I figured I'd request as a blog topic: everyday and favorite foods in the 'Verse, as well as your own personal everyday faves and splurge faves. But if you're generally not a fan of food, I can pick something else.
I'm not going to talk about my own tastes in dining. (People have been known to send food to the dropbox. Like powdered crickets, which apparently counts.) I don't feel like anyone would find that interesting. But when it comes to what ponies eat... how do I write about that and make it into something which was worth Patreon-sponsoring for?
As questions go, this one was a three-miler. And I'm still not sure I came up with anything which might have been wanted in the first place.
(There are worse fates. I have to start looking for a phone tomorrow. That's gonna be around twelve.)
So let's talk about what ponies eat -- and a little bit more.
Ponies are equines. But they're not horses. Not the way we know them. Because a horse is a creature which has been optimized for speed and like so many things which have been ultra-conditioned towards a single purpose, they're built from a tremendous number of intricate moving parts. It's safe to look at an Earth horse as biology's perfect racecar and just like the mechanical version, all that's needed to trigger a complete breakdown is for one component to fail.
And with a horse, one of the most frequent sources of catastrophe is digestion.
A real horse eats a lot. Not necessarily large meals: they may not take that much mass in at once -- but some of them graze almost constantly. They need a lot of fuel to power that speed, and getting calories from grass requires extracting that fuel with fearsome efficiency. The digestive system is complex, sophisticated, and incredibly fragile. Want to make a horse ill? Change its diet. Any significant alterations have to be gradually worked in over the course of several weeks. They can't vomit, so eating the wrong thing means the possibility of requiring surgical extraction. It might get all the way through, but it could sicken the horse. Death is possible.
So many things can kill a horse. The act of eating may be an active defiance of death, or daring the end to bring it. You can't give a horse water too soon after feed, or it could wash undigested food deeper into the system and create a blockade.
Colic exists. One piece of fruit per day is a snack. So is two. Anything beyond that risks laminitis and yes, that very much includes apples. Anything in the cabbage family turns them into the world's fastest fart factory. Give them fruit with a stone pit and watch the core get stuck in the throat. And bowel torsion? It is so easy for a horse to get bowel torsion.
Living as a horse means grazing in contentment, because they're not sapient and so don't recognize that every bite they take has a non-zero chance of killing them.
Our ponies are somewhat hardier than that.
Thank goodness.
But I wanted you to have a baseline. Because ponies regularly do things which horses can't, and that's when we look past the whole 'think' and 'magic' bit. A normal horse can't eat pastries without risking total blockage of the digestive tract. Equestrians can.
Good thing, too. Celestia would be pissed.
The three major Equestrian races are natural herbivores. However, in the course of their normal diets, they will regularly eat things which a truly pure herbivore might question. A pony isn't going to eat meat, but the average bakery is going to crack a few dozen eggs per day -- and that's not something most customers would ever think to question. That's just how cakes work and, for that matter, how the Cakes work.
A 'normal' horse, depending on their level of physical activity and state of health, needs to eat A Lot. An 800lb working horse might have to consume twenty-four pounds of plant matter in order to maintain their own mass and for those who just graze, that's gonna take a while. Ponies can work with somewhat smaller percentage numbers if necessary, but -- not by much, and they'll often match for ratio. After all, an Earth equine isn't trying to power magic -- and in order to make any effect work, calories need to be converted into thaums.
So how does this all work in practical terms?
Ponies can graze. Metabolizing grass can get them through the day, but it takes a lot of it. A pony who decides to live entirely on naturally-found foodstuffs isn't going to have a life: they're going to have a very extended lunch. Just about anypony might put their head down and bite up a quick snack, but only the most desperate will try to make it into their sole source of sustenance. The fuel just isn't efficient enough.
All three species essentially share the same basic dietary requirements -- but they don't necessarily have the same needs. Unicorns serve as a sort of baseline. Earth ponies, who typically have one aspect of their magic running constantly, eat more. (Shutting down the Cornucopia Effect for a while will appropriately lower their consumption requirements, and an earth pony in dire food straits is advised to turn the Effect off and leave it off.) By contrast, pegasi tend to have the fastest metabolisms. Their meals may not be all that large because they don't want to take on too much weight at once, but they'll be high-calorie and in a cloud community, there may not necessarily be a mere three of them.
Somewhere in Stratuston is a road lined with vapor burrows, and everypony there is extremely keen on the concept of Second Breakfast.
(One thing to remember: a cloud settled zone has no natural farmland. While pegasi have a few confections which resemble vapor, they get no nutritional benefit from their environment. Their only advantage is being able to extract water from the very streets -- and they can't push that too far, or there's no more street. Getting soil up to cloud level and keeping it producing is a major enterprise. No matter what they try, pegasi remain inextricably linked to ground: a complete severing of that connection would mean starvation -- and that's why the Discordian Era flocks kept raiding.)
Mixed communities tend to default into a three-meal system, with snack breaks. Pegasi frequently carry quick sugars in saddlebags, just in case they need a little extra fuel for flight. (Despite what Rarity has made a few ponies believe, the most likely candidate for a faint is a pegasus, and it typically comes because they've pushed the internal engine beyond the available power supply.) A few have been known to mooch.
So what do ponies eat? What are their favorite foods?
Whatever they can, and 'ask the individual'.
(Celestia will hire the world's best breadmaker out from under their current employer. Luna won't kill for great ice cream, but electrification is a possibility. Rarity's love of orange slices has to be kept private, because the juice does harsh things to fabrics and Applejack might have a few questions. Twilight is on a quest for the perfect sugared hay twist, and nothing matches that one carnival booth. The one a filly was never able to find again. Also, taste buds on the tongue are not 'zoned'. A pony, like a real horse, can experience a flavor on any part, and the tongue itself is a much more complex muscle than it would be for a human.)
But in terms of overall diet...
As with 'true' horses, Equestrians can use hay as a baseline: timothy and alfalfa are good selections for keeping them going. But flowers serve as both decorations and garnish. They have no issues with anything bread-based, are smart enough to spit a plum stone out, can deal with chocolate, bran isn't an issue, and -- well, too much cabbage is still going to trigger gas. But in general, if a non-meat material isn't poisonous or toxic, it's likely that they can deal with it.
...of course, there's a third category: poisonous, toxic, or magical. Being a herbivore on Menajeria isn't the soft option. Some of the plant life fights back.
A wise pony will mix up their diet. (You can't live on apples, and excess consumption there is going to trigger diarrhea.) They'll also have seasonal preferences -- although with the Cornucopia Effect in play, 'seasonal' is partially artificial. An earth pony who can use a greenhouse to set the right temperature conditions can effectively keep a number of crops in production year-round. Some things are allowed to 'go out of season' just to make sure ponies don't get sick of having them full-time.
(Incidentally, this includes apples. In theory, the Acres could produce for all thirteen moons of a year: it just needs multiple greenhouses which can get cold -- apple trees need regular exposures to low temperatures -- and ponies willing to put in the work. It's not being done because even that family recognizes the need for the market to get some time off, along with a certain requirement for ponies to stop working. And if there is a seasonal shortage or absence, then Mr. Bunko stands ready to rip someone off over the last supply.)
Some meals are traditional: these tend to center around major events in a pony's life, or get associated with major holidays. Earth ponies communities tend to make wedding salads. As holidays go, the Greening has some obvious requirements -- and because it isn't quite spring yet, most of them are covered by food coloring. Homecoming puts out the largest spreads, to the point where a true meal can make the attendees feel overstuffed. Grouchy. And very much like they need to burn some of this off in a hurry, which is an arguable contributing factor for some of the fights.
After all, if you're going to have the annual family argument anything, then nothing gets rid of a few calories like kicking in a little magic...
Earth horses have their digestive systems built around a basic concept: fuel into speed. Equestrians have to figure casting into the equation.
Let's glance at a few factors.
* When powering magic, it's current fuel, not stored. Basically, you're working with whatever you're recently eaten. A pony cannot turn body fat into casting thaums -- with one exception. Because field booster potions cannibalize power from the entire body, a pony using them can potentially burn off a degree of fat. However, as pure weight loss strategies go, this is somewhat less effective than amputation and in terms of body shock, carries around the same amount of risk.
There's been more than a few ponies over the years who decided to follow exactly the wrong idiot theory and concluded that their best tactic for approaching a major feat of magic or battle was to put on a lot of weight first. The survivors reported a certain decrease of effectiveness in dodging.
* An army really does travel on its stomach. This applies to every sapient species: if you're going to be using magic in a fight, then you need to eat. 'Military cook' is a revered position across the entire planet. And a world which doesn't quite come up to modern tech invented the concept of 'energy bar' very early.
* If you're out of calories, you're probably out of magic. A pony who goes hungry is going to have trouble casting, and whatever they can dredge up with is probably going to be distorted by lack of focus.
* Mark magic, as the most subtle effects, generally requires the least fuel -- but it isn't free.
* Some food is more effective. Bluntly: booster potions have base ingredients. There are plants out there which can lightly enhance magic when consumed, and you do not want to eat too many of them. (Want a dangerous sub-profession from the overall explorer group? 'Marked taste-tester.') The most effective military-grade energy bars will include a tiny amount, and those aren't nosed over lightly.
* Speaking of effectiveness: ponies can eat meat, but won't. Herbivore digestion is complex enough to break down those proteins and fats -- but the average pony doesn't want to know about it, and has no intention of proving it the hard way. It can take an extraordinary level of desperation to make an Equestrian investigate on their own, and the experimenter is typically either on the verge of starvation or decided to date a griffon and really wants to make a good impression. In either case, it's best to start very small and then build up slowly.
Griffon cuisine (modified) requires soaking vegetables in meat juices and cooking them together. Protoceran ponies indulge. It's generally not a good idea to tell an Equestrian what they just ate until two hours later.
* Alcohol can be consumed. An Earth horse can get drunk. An Equestrian has language suitable for complaining about the resulting hangover, and most of it can't be used around foals.
* Ponies can vomit. See 'consumption of alcohol' -- but the capacity for doing so can save a life.
* It's inadvisable to use the term 'blast-furnace metabolism' around Celestia. She eats more than anypony else in the realm -- but it's simply a matter of trying to support her overall mass.
* Just to mention it: quite a bit of kudu magic centers around food. Not production, but location and acquisition.
* There is a persistent delusion which says that the rarer the foodstuff, the better it must taste -- and the more expensive it should be. Unfortunately, root angler lure really is that tasty. Hop shoots, however...
* There is no truth to the rumor that if you modify a Prance recipe by so much as a thousandth-bale for any ingredient, a Prench chef will spontaneously appear and try to kick you to death. Many ponies have tried this. On purpose. The usual goal for those who made the mistake of visiting that nation is that it would give them the chance to take out their lingering frustrations on a Prench chef.
Civilization, in part, requires the existence of a consistent food supply. The less anyone has to do in the name of gathering the resources required for simply making it to tomorrow, the more time they'll have for other things. A number of wars have been fought over access to the right soil. And when crops collapse, so much else goes with them.
In Equestria, this makes earth ponies into the nation's lifeline. Because it's easy to get food. You plant, tend, guard, and harvest -- but the growing part comes unnaturally. It's so unnatural as to be perfectly natural, because it's also universal. And nopony really worries about that.
Should all earth pony magic abruptly stop working, it would be possible to feed the entire realm -- after a few years. Switching over to pure agronomy wouldn't exactly be instant and without help and relief aid from those nations who use it more regularly, Equestria would be facing its own version of the Dust Bowl. Some would graze -- but there's only so much 'safe' land to use. Others might starve. And for those who risk the wild zones -- there's food there, and there are also things which look at ponies as food. The lucky ones bring back discoveries. Those who are less fortunate don't come back.
In the economic supply chain, the local food solution is 'earth pony'. There's a lot of power in that, and it's mostly unrecognized outside of certain theatrical productions and a few lingering concerns within the commodities market. But most of the other nations are going at it alone.
...partially alone. There's earth ponies outside Equestria. Some of them specialize in producing exotic foodstuffs, and that's fine. Those nations with an integrated pony population are happy to have them.
Others will take immigrants. But... not too many.
Farming comes from science. You do it the hard way, and that's how you make a living.
If too many others arrived -- if there was an endless supply of those for whom it was just about automatic -- then what happens to the markets? To your livelihood? An excess of earth ponies moving into another nation can turn into an economic threat --
-- but it would take tremendous numbers, right? More than would ever leave their original borders. So it's fine to welcome a few. It'll only be a few, ever. The magic is only universal in their home. In small numbers, in your part of the world... it won't change anything.
It's safe.
There's this idea I had for G5.
It's a world which lost its magic. Three separated pony races each had to find a way of getting a food supply system in place. And that meant normal farming. Pure agronomy. Eventually, it all balanced out. Three cities, three production chains for meals. And of course, a trio of commodities markets -- although Bridlewood's isn't exactly formalized. And everywhere you look, there's marked farmers making a living.
Then the magic comes back. And earth ponies can grow anything. Instantly. Any and all of them can do that.
What happens to the supply chain?
You're a marked farmer. You're also a pegasus. What is your life, now that the newcomer can make the ground glow green and outproduce every acre you've got in less than three heartbeats?
Does the commodities market crash?
Implode?
What happens to civilization when there's a potential for too much food? And if those who feel the call to produce in their soul are no longer needed...
I had an idea for G5. I haven't written it because I don't have a resolution.
I sort of need a way to keep this from wrecking the economy.
If you want a chance to pick a blog topic, sponsor me on Patreon at the $7 level and wait for the request box to open -- or drop a large Ko-Fi tip, then tell me what you want the topic to be.
Some such blogs turn out better than others.
Maybe I should have tried for five miles. Just to let the seed germinate.
I could really use some carbonara right now.
And that's how Joyous' parents are still alive.
Which still ends up reducing the necessary resources of their community. Look, you're talking about the apocalyptic scenario of The Magic Goes Away, we already know what happens because you've published G5 fics.
For Sweet Apple Acres
That's a LOT of pigs for just hunting truffles & composting garbage. If pigs aren't sentient, I'd say they're selling the meat. Apple trees need trimming (IRL, they're kept to a fixed height for ease in harvesting) and the wood is considered ideal for smoking meat.
Apple scraps can be turned into vinegar. Apple vinegar can be used in pickling things. Typically sold in gallon jugs or 4 gallon mini barrels.
Apple cider vinegar can be used in cooking, dips, & sauces as a substitute for white vinegar or pickling but white vinegar is preferred for cleaning.
As for pegasus farms, there are a few arboreal plants (orchids , for instance) and maybe hydroponics for high profit items like vanilla.
Oh & potatoes are POISONOUS. Humans are one of the few animals that can eat them. (1632 universe.) Although, if Vodka is a thing......
Sort f reminds me of Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy where the ships full of middle managers and telepphone sanitation engineers etc crashed on what was to become the planet Earth, and they decided that the unit of currency would be the Leaf, and evreyone was rich because it was autumn and all the leaves were readily available and someone managed to invent a Rolodex because fire was more difficult.
If a farmer can grow enough food to feed a fraction extra person than just themselves, then for just themselves they can run that little bit lighter, which leaves them personally a little bit more to use. A better farmer can grow more with the same, and so personally can get away with less. What about teh farmer tat can grow enough for 50 others? Do they get to the point where their internalised Cornucopia field works so well on their digestive contents that the fermentation products of their gut biota generates enough to keep them going at a couple percent mass, or even a chubbier farmer with more relative internal mass can generate and keep supplied an external excess? Sort of the Nuclear, or Core Link equivalent? If they get a digestion problem, does their body use the Inverse Cornucopia to keep them going, and the hyper efficint Inverse sufferer becomes Apocalypse Famine, draining crops from the ground it walks over?
Would Equestrian Camels be so hydrologically efficint that their fur pulls humidity out of the air so they literally never have to drink?
Which different Earth Ponies would be best for various cargo runs between destinations? Fast runners could do a few miles, endurance runners could go all day over the horizon and back, but what kind of routes and cargo would the Kinwoods be hauling, never stopping, day and night, country to country, accross entire continents? At the head of the haulage firm maybe Duck Kinwood, an Earned, or Inherited, or Voted Position?
>Infinite food glitch
Complain about how unnatural it is, get a bunch of your similarly minded neighbors, and start wrecking shipments? I feel like that's the most depressingly reasonable.
I'm also going to toss in "Free Sampos" as a title suggestion.
I wasn't sure what to expect, but this was more than satisfactory!
First question would be does the magical food taste the same as non magical grown food, I expect the magic effects the food.
Second question would the infinitely repleshing food cause a population growth, as that could offset a market collapse in the long run.
Third are ponies capable of opening foreign markets to other races? That could be a factor as well
Food says a lot on both personal and cultural levels. Fascinating stuff across the board here. (And I do appreciate that brief mention of what kudu can do.) The pega-hobbits are an especially delightful mental image.
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And then the magical generator with all the resilience of an Earth horse shuts off due to excess disharmony. That arguably solves the problem, but then you have to deal with something even worse: Protagonists.
>You're a marked farmer. You're also a pegasus. What is your life, now that the newcomer can make the ground glow green and outproduce every acre you've got in less than three heartbeats?
almightypopcorn.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/merchandising.png
Do you want mass produced earth pony 'taters, or do you want potatoes lovingly grown in the clouds, hoof-tended by artisinal pegasus sky potato caregivers? Surely the most refined palates will taste the difference that the critics assure them are there, and while the prices on the mass produced potatoes that fill plebian bellies might drop, the value of Special Boutique Sky Potatoes grown at just the right altitude over some special region of Prance will drastically increase.
a quotation i read somewhere:
"every civilization is always only three meals away from anarchy."
This is really embarrassing to say, but reading your stuff when I was going through a tough spot in high school and the attention you semi-regularly drew to food being required to exist, since existing itself burns calories- that one part of Goosed! comes to mind- actually helped me break out of a really negative mindset I had about eating. So, I just wanted to say thank you for your writing.
Hey, a blog about pony food. This reminds me - what the buck are "consumable diluted rainbows" mentioned in Tryptich-Naturalism?
@Sweetolebob18: pigs are tenants. If I recall correctly, the Treaty of Menagerie forbids eating their meat.
And because you want variety in your diet and a healthy economy, you need more and more fields to get that variety of crops. Which lead to expansion of the settlements and in MLP, it's dangerous business. We see enough ponies in the show with vegetables and fruits marks that indicate how Ponyville is a farming community so there are probably competition amongst them for the good soils or right kind of soils and as see with old established families, some respect is given to the oldest colonizers. Since each community is surrounded by dangerous land full of monsters and wild weather, it's almost a self contained bubble. Changing zoning laws because of urbanization must take some consideration if you can't naturaly expand your town in a direction where there is no farmlands, that mean you will need to convert farming land to something else but they still need the food that farm was providing which mean relocating the farm. Those kind of problems seem like an Apple family story or a mayor Marigold story.
And since Ponyville is growing in the Tryptichverse, the farming land need to expand as well or they need to import food from elsewhere.
Expanding locally mean reclaiming the dangerous wild and pushing back the magical borders that protect the settlement inch by inches, and for that you need a big enough Earth Pony population if I remember correctly.
This expansion would take place along rivers for access to water and where the right type of soils are found but it also happens along the roads between the settlements and eventually, the safe zones would connect, right? I am guessing that's the long term plan the Princesses have for re-conquer the land from chaos, it's will just take very very long with problematic pockets of chaos that will always be too dangerous to do anything with.
The train probably created a boom in expansion and creation of new settlements as well as trade. There is probably a Princesses story in there somewhere where they have to deal with ponies trying to settle somewhere they shouldn't.
And I mentioned this before but a story where they try to bring in the science of agronomy in Equestria will meet push back from the Earth ponies. We saw some of these in previous Estee stories and I think there is potential for a story somewhere in there. Either we could see someone trying to educate themselves or the Princesses starting a program where they bring in farmers from outside to teach or try to grow their own field as test beds for examples.
And the mention of ponies being able to eat meat reminds me of that one Pony in one of Estee story that was eating salmon row almost in secret. Can't remember which one it was.
I just realized what this implies about Rainbow Dash. It would help explain why her canon parents are the way that they are. Bonus points: it makes her essentially Pony Teddy Roosevelt when she overcomes that sickly foalhood to become as badass as she is today.
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In DELWMG, Cerea repeatedly notes that the produce she eats tastes off, as though it's lacking something. Magic probably stands in for the natural minerals in the soil since food is basically brute forced into growing. I imagine most things taste like grocery store tomatoes- you know it's a tomato, but it tastes like nothing.
As for the return of magic; pony magic has returned, but the knowledge of how it works has been lost. Earth ponies have the Cornucopia Effect, sure, but they don't know how to guide it properly. They won't be seeing Celestial Era yields for at least a decade or two while they relearn their craft. At the same time, just as the power to produce is introduced so too do dietary needs spike. Magic takes calories, after all. Mundane farmers will still be needed in the short term to meet that need. Farmers who knows their craft will be needed for a generation to teach their new, magically enhanced farmhands how things work.
Some crops may grow in places that earth ponies just aren't suited for such as plants that root themselves in clouds with their own variation on cloud walking, drawing energy from the strong winds and unfiltered sunlight of high places. Such plants may be used in pegasus furniture, such as cloud-stable textiles that can be used for blankets, carpets, and the bases of furniture. Such plants could probably still be Cornucopia'd by a determined earth pony, but it would take expertise that certainly won't exist for a while.
In short non-earth pony farmers will be outcompeted in due time, but there will be time to adapt and some types of farm may remain pegasus run indefinitely.
On the topic of foodstuffs, I was just thinking about the passages where they talk about how griffons prefer to eat meat taken from things that fight back, and I got to thinking "Okay, but how big a population can you actually support that way? There are reasons we mainly eat passive game animals in real life". We know from Fleur's backstory that ranching monsters for meat requires extensive (and expensive) precautions: reinforced metal pens and doors, flame walls as emergency deterrents, protective enchantments that require rare unicorns to cast and recharge, and so on. Not to mention the risk of disasters like what happened to Grace, which incentivizes monster ranchers to push for higher profit margins so that they have a solid bank balance when something goes spectacularly wrong.
I've been thinking that chicken and rabbit might be poverty food for Protocerans (bit like grass for ponies). Sure, Protoceran griffins prefer meat taken from things that fight back, the same way that most Eurasian humans prefer tenderloin or New York Strip. But if the good stuff costs enough, a lot of people will be willing to settle for the cheaper alternative. Doubly so if all the precautions and dangers mean that there literally aren't enough edible monsters raised to feed everyone.
Plus, I would imagine that at least some of the edible monsters would require meat for their diets (in whole or in part), so there might be ranches that specialize in raising chicken, rabbit, turkey, and other prey animals for resale as monster or pet feed. Come to think of it, that could actually be a big business opportunity for a griffon immigrant to Equestria: raise animals to sell the meat as pet food.
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Now I'm imagining a century or two down the line with UNIT or X-COM style forces making excursions into those dangerously chaotic regions. Presumably they'd be using advanced kit to find, assess and where practical eliminate the sources of the chaos.