Random Thought

[debka_notion]

I just realized that I've almost never seen anyone deal with food allergies or particular diets in SF/F literature... One wonders how people would get by...

Comments

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

Forget food allergies. How do all those SF/F characters go for months or years without going to the bathroom?!

(That aside, good point. Hmm.)

[carnilius.livejournal.com]

There are plenty of books that mention going to the bathroom. Look at A Song of Ice and Fire. It was a big issue for one of the characters, because it gave away her sex.

[tovaks.livejournal.com]

Clarke's 2001, A Space Odessey has a passage in which the main character reviews the instructions for the anti-gravity toilet.

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there's a planet whose ecology requires that there be no difference in weight between the amount one eats and the amount one excretes, and that the difference will be removed surgically upon one's leaving the planet if necessary--hence why it's so important to get a receipt each time one visits the lavatory there. Sorry for the paraphrasing--couldn't find the passage for direct quoting.

I can't off the top of my head think of actual food allergies, though there are definitely characters who state preferences for certain foods (Gimli scoffs at Lembas until he tries some; I recall a passage in some book somewhere in which bread is used as bricks because it's so hard--again, sorry for the vagueness :-p).