History Main / FoodPills

** Hardtack is likely humanity's earliest attempt to create a Food Pill, dating back at least to the Roman Empire's ''bucellatum'' (or even, possibly, the unleavened bread of [[Literature/TheBible the Exodus]]). It consists of thick, dense crackers baked several times to dry them out completely. If kept dry, it's nearly impervious to spoilage - and nearly impervious to consumption; the preferred way to eat it is to soak it in liquid first.

** The original ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' series had the automated variant of instant food. Crew were issued cards that would summon a given pre-programmed meal from the automated kitchen, which would quickly compose the dishes from stocked foodstuffs and deliver them via a dumbwaiter system that ran parallel to the turbolifts. ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Next Generation]]'' and onwards used replicators that would convert raw matter (i.e. rocks) into organic matrices via transporter technology.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation''

* May in ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' crates a special Pokeblock that can satisfy her always-hungry Munchlax.

* The healing items in ''VideoGame/BeyondGoodAndEvil'' are all "synthetic foodstuffs," from the slab-like Starkos to the more traditionally pill-shaped K-Bups (manufactured by the aptly-named Nutripills company). However, unlike most examples of Food Pills, real food definitely exists -- we just never see the characters eating it. For example, a ParodyCommercial for Starkos shows them being served with guacamole, and Pey'j at one point comments that an animal reminds him of his aunt's [[AlienLunch "Chocolate-covered squid tentacles with kiwi sauce."]]

* Given its post-apocalyptic setting it is no surprise that these appear in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}''. The most overt examples are in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', where food in the various DLC levels includes tranditional MRE packs as well as "[[BlandNameProduct Salient]] [[Film/SoylentGreen Green]]," a bizarre plant based goop that could be heated to recreate any of the 11 plants that had donated DNA to the mixture originally ([[AWizardDidIt best to not ask how that works]]). The idea was that players could cook the stuff and get some pinto beans or an ear of maize to make into other foods, but the Courier could also just as easily stockpile several jars of Salient Green and chug the stuff straight, which provided more hit points and is more in keeping with the spirit of this trope.

** British field rations used as late as the 1990's were designed to minimise the amount of time a soldier might spend out of the line attending to, err, ''personal maintainance tasks''. It was estimated a soldier might need to excrete once every three days, thus minimising the amount of time his mind might be on other things, during which time he could literally be caught with his trousers down. [[note]]There is a well-witnessed account of a British colonel who left the lines in North Africa to walk downwind into the desert armed with a spade and some toilet paper. A German sniper with a sense of humour elected not to kill him outright, instead shooting the luckless officer in the arse. He was carried away to be treated for a bullet that had cleanly passed through both buttocks and the gap in between, calling to his men, "See what I told you men about economy of fire? That Jerry fired one bullet. Four holes. that's what I ''call'' economy of fire!"[[/note]]. The flaw with this system was that all men in a unit are issued field rations at the same time. The black joke circulated that all an enemy needed to do was wait for the third day when ''everyone'' would be counted on to go for a shit. And ''then'' attack.

The change is no doubt due to the growth of the health-and-exercise industry and the subsequent general awareness that the human body needs considerably more than just a few milligrams of vitamins per day. Protein, fat, sugars, and carbohydrates require mass and can't be compressed into a tiny capsule. [[FutureFoodIsArtificial Today's science fiction food tends to have more body]]. If it's concentrated--such as the "[[SoylentSoy protein pastes]]" that may be Food Pills' more realistic spiritual descendants -- it tends to not taste very good, ranging from bland at best to [[EvenTheRatsWontTouchIt terrible at worst]].

* Behold the [[http://www.clifbar.com/products/clif/bloks-energy-chews Clif Shot Blok,]] a diminutive "fruit-flavored energy chew" that measures in at just over 6 cubic centimeters per block. A single one is said to be enough to power half an hour demanding physical exercise, and while the chews themselves are said to be tasty, they're also clearly not going to be the least bit filling (proving the trope's limitations quite nicely). They also look like [[Franchise/TheTransformers Energon cubes]].

* Exaggerated in ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' episode "The Safety". Darwin thinks all foods are unsafe (vegetables contain pesticides, meat contains hormones, etc.), so he forces his family to eat '''base molecules''' (hydrocarbons and such) of the foods.

* Somewhat subverted in the ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooWhereAreYou'' episode "Nowhere to Hyde," when Dr. Jekyll was working on a vitamin that a person would only take once in their lifetime.

* The spray can foods in ''Series/PhilOfTheFuture''.

* In the short film ''Tomorrow Calling'' (an adaptation of ''The Gernsback Continuum'' by Creator/WilliamGibson), after eating a 'crumbling diet pill', the protagonist has a hallucination of a ZeeRust future couple in [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas togas]].

Contrast the related trope "InstantMassJustAddWater", where pills or powders have water added to them to make glorious feasts. Compare FutureFoodIsArtificial and PlainPalate.

[[quoteright:212:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pillmeal.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:212: [[WesternAnimation/StreetFighter "This is DELICIOUS!"]]]]

* In the ''Duchy of Terra'' series, the standard meal served in space is Universal Protein, which is normal food processed down to a nutritional least common denominator that can be safely eaten by any known lifeform in the galaxy, seasoned with nutrients that the eater's specific species requires that get processed out of UP. While it's healthy, keeps well, and makes feeding as multi-species crew simpler, a UP meal is described as looking and tasting like a bowl of porridge with crushed vitamins stirred into it, which explains why most people prefer real food when they can get it.

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[[folder:Gamebooks]]
* The few ''Literature/FightingFantasy'' books set in the future instead of medieval times, like ''Literature/StarshipTraveller'', ''Literature/SpaceAssassin'' and ''Literature/TheRingsOfKether'' would have the Provisions and HealingPotion replaced by Pep Pills, where a swallowing a single pill would restore the player's STAMINA somewhere between 4 to 6 points.

** That's a ubiquitous military joke that invariably pops up whenever soldiers and field rations exist together, regardless of country and even millennium. Just remember all {{Fan Nickname}}s for [=MREs=]. Hint: ''Meal, Refusing to Excrete''[[note]]Early [=MREs=] were notorious for inducing constipation in their eaters — it turned out that they were originally designed to reduce the number of times the soldiers had to "unload", and thus intentionally were somewhat fiber-deficient. Unfortunately, it has GoneHorriblyRight, resulting in a lot of constipated soldiers and mountains of silent curses. They were later reformulated to contain more fiber and included a laxative chewing gum.[[/note]] is one of the mildest. ''Meals Rejected by Ethiopians'' was popular at the time news covered famine in Ethiopia.

* In the '70s sitcom ''Series/ComeBackMrsNoah'', a "nutrition pill" is inserted into a robot chicken, which after much clucking produces a string of eggs.

* [[http://davidszondy.com/future/futurepast.htm David Zondy's Tales of Future Past]] has a [[http://davidszondy.com/future/Living/futurefood.htm huge segment]] on [[FutureFoodIsArtificial Future Food]], and of course [[http://davidszondy.com/future/Living/foodpills.htm Food Pills]]. The best page is probably [[http://davidszondy.com/future/Living/synthetic_food.htm the one describing an attempt to put it into practice:]]

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13698945/15/Vow-of-the-King Vow of the King]]'', Mayuri Kurotsuchi developed a food bar that contains all the nutrients and energy a shinigami needs for a whole day. Unfortunately, it also tastes like "a size ten boot with depression".

Contrast the related trope "InstantMassJustAddWater" Pills, where pills or powders have water added to them to make glorious feasts. Compare FutureFoodIsArtificial and PlainPalate.