Bone Broth and Bone Meal

[DeadSilent]

As the title suggests, this would add an additional food source to the early game and a mid game product that boosts crop production. It would add two new techs to the tree and give you a use for bones once you get to the copper age.

*Bone Broth would be unlockable in the Mesolithic or the Neolithic age. Maybe require a stone pot to be built which holds 3 food that can spoil if not eaten, costing 2 bones and 1 water.

*Bone meal would be unlockable in the Copper Age or Iron Age. Require a grinder akin to the one you use to make flour and provides 2 units of bone meal per bone. It gets used when planting seeds in the spring and each plant fertilized will give either 2 grain or 2 hay instead of 1.

Maybe bone broth could be a famine food that only triggers once you've run out of all other food sources, kinda like how the grain triggers to feed animals when you run out of hay, or maybe it's only desired and consumed during the winter months and can add a small warming bonus(maybe half the strength of what beer gives).

I'm interested to hear if this has been suggested already or what others think.

[Mk Z]

bone broth has a very low caloric value, according to this
https://www.nutritionix.com/food/bone-broth
seems more like 1 food per 2 water, 3 bones and 3 fuel

bone meal is more interesting
ancient Israelites used it and obtained very high yields in result, like 4.5 tons per hectare

[Greifenstolz]

Fertilizer would certainly be a great idea, with all the bones that keep lying around.

[DeadSilent]

Originally posted by Mk Z:

bone broth has a very low caloric value, according to this
https://www.nutritionix.com/food/bone-broth
seems more like 1 food per 2 water, 3 bones and 3 fuel

I agree it would take more water units than I originally stated. I wasn't thinking about it in the correct sense, as I do bone broth at home in a pressure cooker and can get away with use much less water than boiling the heck out of it over a flame.

I want to point out that the recipe you linked is for chicken bone broth, which is a leaner protein than beef. 1 cup of the chicken bone broth in that recipe is 11 calories, whereas 1 cup of beef bone broth is 69 calories.

https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calories.asp?recipe=2041648

Bone broth from animals like Moose and Caribou would have an even higher caloric value, depending on the animal and its diet. Caribou seems to the best choice.

https://skipthepie.org/ethnic-foods/caribou-bone-marrow-raw-alaska-native/compared-to/moose-meat-raw-alaska-native/

That's why I suggested bone broth as a famine food or something your people will drink in the winter to keep warm. You know, 3.5oz. of raw Caribou marrow has 786 calories and 84g of fat so
what if we change the bone broth to bone marrow instead? I use this recipe to grill bone marrow at home and I love it.

https://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/recipe/2603988/2

It just seems a waste that we only use bones for making weapons and nothing else. It's even been argued that early man was a scavenger and bone marrow was already part of his diet.

What do you think about Bone Marrow instead? It can still work as a last resort meal for when your people run out of other stuff to eat.

[buds]

My favorite food soups from meats but not with noodles.
Fertilizer is a great idea as more resources decay!

[Ronald Gordo]

The increase in bone use is almost mandatory in DoM.

Breaking bones to eat the marrow were probably the first tasks performed with "tools" (simple stones used as hammers).

Boiling the bones to make broth, at a later time, was certainly part of the diet.

Of course, the introduction of these foods should be accompanied by the reduction of the meat of animals (to maintain balance in the game).

Fertilizers of bone should also exist, accompanied, of course, by the possibility of the field not producing grain without fertilization.

Basically, your ideas are perfect ... and I still think DoM needs cats.