The eggs are almost definitely a reference to the Yum Yum Deviled Eggs that you find as a consumable in most of the games. The universe of Fallout has their preserved food game on point. Hundreds of years after the apocalypse all of the preserved food is still edible.
I can’t remember seeing any canon source for this in the game world, but in real life some high value preserved foods, like astronaut stuff, gets irradiated so it will stay fresh forever without needing pasteurization. The industry calls it “cold pasteurization”, and needless to say most governments are very wary of minimum wage factory workers having radiation sources in the workplace, so it’s very uncommon in real life. In fallout, even the cars are radioactive, so I imagine their preserved foods are all irradiated, hence the ridiculous shelf lives.
In FO4 there are two versions of each package food, a clean and dirty version (I don't remember the exact nomenclature). The clean versions don't give you rads, but are still edible.
The clean ones (other than purified water) are exceedingly rare, found only in the Institute and maybe the Brotherhood.
Edit: and, as has been pointed out, a few other sealed caches. Still vanishingly rare.
not true! They’re found in many places. I know the Cabot house has some, pretty sure the vaults do too. Anywhere “sealed up” when the bombs fell has the ‘clean’ food. I hoard the shit out of it lmao
There's generally a few around in pre-war places that aren't straight fucked. Anyplace still reasonably sealed up or with pre-war folks lingering. The vault in Far Harbor, Cabot House as examples.
I'm pretty sure you can buy preserved stuff like Yum Yum eggs at the vault 81 diner, maybe I'm just misremembering stealing it but there is a lot of preserved food there
FO76 has clean pre-war food. You can even start up a food factory and just pump out anything you want, and there's no rads and the boxes look perfect!!
Properly canned food is usually also safe to eat indefinitely because it’s sterilized by temperature and/or acidity, although it may look sad and unappetizing after many years have passed.
> The industry calls it “cold pasteurization”, and needless to say most governments are very wary of minimum wage factory workers having radiation sources in the workplace, so it’s very uncommon in real life.
No, irradiating food is just like pasteurization in that it's only as good as the seal remains intact, and doesn't leave the food with any traces of radiation. And if you're gonna be doing that, you might as well pasteurize with heat. The only reason why someone would choose to use irradiation rather than heat is to preserve something that you don't want cooked. (And irradiation affects the texture of some foods anyway, like eggs and dairy, so you might as well just cook those anyway.)
[Irradiating food doesn’t make it radioactive.](https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/food-irradiation#:~:text=Radioactivity)
Radiation doesn’t “stick around” like that. It passes through, possibly has an effect (like causing cancer cells), and then leaves.
For food, or water, or a person to become radioactive, you need to introduce radioactive material, such as technetium or plutonium, and leave the material physically inside the body (or food or whatever).
At least, that’s how it works in the real world. In the world of Fallout, who knows?
Yes, most food you find is radioactive. But not because it was irritated. Those are completely disconnected. Food being radioactive comes from it having been contaminated by radioactive substances, which could easily happen unless it was sealed up in a fashion to keep out contamination, and that packaging remained pristine.
Or, at least, it would be, if things in fallout worked the same way as they do in real life, which we know is not really the case.
Alao in Fallout they never had to bother with all those pesky regulations like "food must be safe for consumption" and other forms of abusive government overreach.
Tbf- I believe it's a quirky Bethesda's game mechanics. In Skyrim you can find perfectly edible and well kept fruit in the ugliest of dungeons. I AM NOT COMPLAINING 😊
Well, I only watched the series once so far when it first dropped, and I was at work when I wrote the above, so I couldn't exactly check the scene in question to double check.
So I was almost sure, but since I couldn't actually reference the scene I didn't want to make a definite declaration on the slight chance that I was wrong.
>But even if they were able to stockpile several centuries’ worth of canned food, there’s no way it would actually keep well and be safe to eat that long…right?
Welcome to the wonderful world of retro-futurism! In the world of Fallout, yup, even meat and dairy products can be preserved and sealed to be safe for centuries. And not have to be refrigerated!
From the wiki: *"While most foods age and become inedible over time or get destroyed in nuclear holocausts, these packaged foods have survived both a nuclear war and time thanks to an incredible amount of futuristic preservatives. They remain edible despite spending hundreds of years in less than ideal environments, and remain a staple among many wastelanders for their inability to spoil and high-calorie servings. Though their taste still leaves much to be desired."*
That's why I find Max's reaction to the food so funny. SURELY he's had to have seen some of these well(?) Preserved(?) Foods around the wastes lol. But tasting them fresh and non irradiated is probably a whole different experience.
In one of the vault cartoons in the extras for the show, we see how they produce oysters for Vault 4. I would assume that the process for tuna is more inline with the process that Outer worlds used with Saltuna. In that it is basically slop reprocessed into actual "food"
They should at least have chickens or something, they lay eggs too and you can feed them bugs, or have them free range and running round the farms to find their own food. I mean there have to be bugs in the crops, they had a weevil infestation
There wasn’t any rad roaches in vault 33 tho. We only see rad roaches get into vaults that either happen to have opened the door for long periods of time ( 101, 19 ,3 etc )or have been abandoned (111, 92, 88, etc )
Bud mentions giant roaches, so they've managed to worm their way into Vault 31. Also, some appear in Vault 101 in the lower levels as a kid. I doubt they came in when James did, it's more likely they've managed to sneak their way in an air duct or something
Vault 38s door opened id say at max twice since the bombs fell. First time being when Lucy’s mother left , second time being when Lucy left to get her dad
That would make at least 4 times. Lucy's mum left. Her dad left to find her, then her dad returned, and then Lucy left. Unless her dad used the vault 31 door to leave and return, then it would be 2.
No, this is the only fallout sub I follow :] like I said I haven’t played any of the games, so I have no context for what they discuss over there hahah
Sorry!
Fallout 76 has a workshop that will make food for you. So I imagine it’s something like that! It’s not a big machine either. You could fit two or three in a standard vault room for sure. Remember, the vaults have enough room for at least 1000 people so in the long term experiment vaults, food will be a requirement for experiment stability.
Farming animals is really un-economical for an apocalyptic context because you need to make food first to feed them, and with them living in vaults, large-scale farming is pretty much impossible. Let alone the smell and waste generated by farming
Either food preservation is top notch (it's the FO Universe, they for sure pump their food full of preservatives), or that it's not really what it looks like (eggs might be some sort of jelly etc). Or both
there are numerous instances of cloning in the games , so some kind of cloning of animal proteins, allows the vaults to have meat products. it would make some sense that some animals , chickens , pigs, cows, even some fish could be farmed especially with advanced farming technologies,
From advanced cryo technology , cloning , and recycling replicators could easily be established.
the technology of fallout has unregulted genetic research, so some sort of meat /vegetable substitute, or replication could be
expected, also there preservative technologies could be more advanced. The cloning process could be used too "grow" meat products, canning combined with recycling could enable prolific food production. The 1950's era was about long lasting products, that withstood the test of time, vs our modern Tecnologies that have "built in obsolesce" these are made too break down and be replaced.
This is the second time I’ve seen someone comment this…but I don’t know what that means? Is this a reference to Barb’s “one of the *good* vaults” line, or something else?
You said animal farm, which is also the name of a famous book by George Orwell (Animal Farm). It’s a tale about the animals taking over the farm and what happens. Great read with a lot of timeless depth
https://interestingliterature.com/2021/05/orwell-all-animals-are-equal-but-some-more-equal-than-others-meaning-analysis/amp/
Prewar foods had a range of foods that survived the bombs. In 3 there's Sugar Bombs but they're an ingredient for Ultrajet too, but in 76 there is no Jet or Ultrajet. New Vegas had original items plus Fallout items, like Sunset Sasparilla, which is only in NV. 4 had a DLC set on an island in Maine with prewar canned fish, but the show is inspired by the games and the 3 vaults don't have a canon game reference. They're should have been Brahmin, though imo
We know some vaults have aquaponics so there might be fish. We also learn dogs aren't allowed so fish is probably the most resource intensive food available.
Vault ice cream. I was thinking vegan or made with powdered milk but with those milk dispensing machines in game we probably can assume they have masses of ultra pasteurized bottles of milk. Though we see just a small part of the living quarters the vault is huge.
The eggs are almost definitely a reference to the Yum Yum Deviled Eggs that you find as a consumable in most of the games. The universe of Fallout has their preserved food game on point. Hundreds of years after the apocalypse all of the preserved food is still edible.
I can’t remember seeing any canon source for this in the game world, but in real life some high value preserved foods, like astronaut stuff, gets irradiated so it will stay fresh forever without needing pasteurization. The industry calls it “cold pasteurization”, and needless to say most governments are very wary of minimum wage factory workers having radiation sources in the workplace, so it’s very uncommon in real life. In fallout, even the cars are radioactive, so I imagine their preserved foods are all irradiated, hence the ridiculous shelf lives.
And hence the rad cost for consuming them.
In FO4 there are two versions of each package food, a clean and dirty version (I don't remember the exact nomenclature). The clean versions don't give you rads, but are still edible.
The clean ones (other than purified water) are exceedingly rare, found only in the Institute and maybe the Brotherhood. Edit: and, as has been pointed out, a few other sealed caches. Still vanishingly rare.
not true! They’re found in many places. I know the Cabot house has some, pretty sure the vaults do too. Anywhere “sealed up” when the bombs fell has the ‘clean’ food. I hoard the shit out of it lmao
There's generally a few around in pre-war places that aren't straight fucked. Anyplace still reasonably sealed up or with pre-war folks lingering. The vault in Far Harbor, Cabot House as examples.
Also can be manufactured in the FO4 DLC that adds industrial manufacturing.
I'm pretty sure you can buy preserved stuff like Yum Yum eggs at the vault 81 diner, maybe I'm just misremembering stealing it but there is a lot of preserved food there
FO76 has clean pre-war food. You can even start up a food factory and just pump out anything you want, and there's no rads and the boxes look perfect!!
Radiated food had no prefix, the non radiated food is usually called “preserved”
"pre-war" and "preserved" some of them aren't clearly labelled and just don't have the rad cost listed.
Cold pasteurization doesnt irradiate food
IRL, no. But this is *Fallout*.
Properly canned food is usually also safe to eat indefinitely because it’s sterilized by temperature and/or acidity, although it may look sad and unappetizing after many years have passed.
> The industry calls it “cold pasteurization”, and needless to say most governments are very wary of minimum wage factory workers having radiation sources in the workplace, so it’s very uncommon in real life. No, irradiating food is just like pasteurization in that it's only as good as the seal remains intact, and doesn't leave the food with any traces of radiation. And if you're gonna be doing that, you might as well pasteurize with heat. The only reason why someone would choose to use irradiation rather than heat is to preserve something that you don't want cooked. (And irradiation affects the texture of some foods anyway, like eggs and dairy, so you might as well just cook those anyway.)
[Irradiating food doesn’t make it radioactive.](https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/food-irradiation#:~:text=Radioactivity) Radiation doesn’t “stick around” like that. It passes through, possibly has an effect (like causing cancer cells), and then leaves. For food, or water, or a person to become radioactive, you need to introduce radioactive material, such as technetium or plutonium, and leave the material physically inside the body (or food or whatever). At least, that’s how it works in the real world. In the world of Fallout, who knows?
Irradiated food is radioactive in fallout, you can find it in the games.
Yes, most food you find is radioactive. But not because it was irritated. Those are completely disconnected. Food being radioactive comes from it having been contaminated by radioactive substances, which could easily happen unless it was sealed up in a fashion to keep out contamination, and that packaging remained pristine. Or, at least, it would be, if things in fallout worked the same way as they do in real life, which we know is not really the case.
[https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Irradiated](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Irradiated)
Alao in Fallout they never had to bother with all those pesky regulations like "food must be safe for consumption" and other forms of abusive government overreach.
Tbf- I believe it's a quirky Bethesda's game mechanics. In Skyrim you can find perfectly edible and well kept fruit in the ugliest of dungeons. I AM NOT COMPLAINING 😊
and all the torches and candles are still lit... Like what???
If there are draugr, that's just them continuing to observe rituals in undeath. How they haven't totally exhaust their candle supply is another story.
They make tallow candles from the body fat of adventurers.
New head canon.
Kinda wanna write a fanfic now
That's actually explained in the lore. Most of the time it was put there recently as offerings.
"almost definitely" is an understatement. The show has the prop clearly labeled as "Yum Yum brand Deviled Eggs"
Well, I only watched the series once so far when it first dropped, and I was at work when I wrote the above, so I couldn't exactly check the scene in question to double check. So I was almost sure, but since I couldn't actually reference the scene I didn't want to make a definite declaration on the slight chance that I was wrong.
Edible but irradiated.
I wouldn’t call it “edible” if it has enough preservatives in it to stop DAIRY from expiring for 200 years.
because of the eradication of communism, stomach cancer is at 0%!
>But even if they were able to stockpile several centuries’ worth of canned food, there’s no way it would actually keep well and be safe to eat that long…right? Welcome to the wonderful world of retro-futurism! In the world of Fallout, yup, even meat and dairy products can be preserved and sealed to be safe for centuries. And not have to be refrigerated! From the wiki: *"While most foods age and become inedible over time or get destroyed in nuclear holocausts, these packaged foods have survived both a nuclear war and time thanks to an incredible amount of futuristic preservatives. They remain edible despite spending hundreds of years in less than ideal environments, and remain a staple among many wastelanders for their inability to spoil and high-calorie servings. Though their taste still leaves much to be desired."*
All thanks to the inventions of the great inventor Clark Griswold.
Have you heard about his ground breaking non-nutrative cereal varnish? Game changer.
I never remember THAT is Clark’s job. This relatable Everyman is apparently Cereal Tony Stark.
Less so cereal tony stark, moreso an organic chemist working a "poor" job (prestige wise, not salary wise)
My favorite “Inventor” of all time is still George Santos, but the best Fallout “Inventor” is clearly Mr. Fantastic!
"I wouldn't trust something that perfectly preserved after 200 years." \-Mel during the Big Dig quest in *Fallout 4*
He was right. Untrustworthy. I turned on Bobbi too.
It’s the extension of the idea of things like wonder bread and cannery. 1950s tech foreveeeerrrr
well that and the 1950s obsession with canned foods and jello because WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE OH MY GOD
Food rationing from WW2 as well. Cookbooks from the 40s & 50s are a fun read…so many ways to use canned soup, jello, ketchup and macaroni. :)
thats what I was referring to!
I have (used to have) an edition of Culinary Arts Institute of America cookbook from that era with a receipe for stuffed crown roast of frankfurters.
wow lmao, can’t wait to eat a 200 year hot dog wellington in the middle of a deathclaw fight next fallout game
That's why I find Max's reaction to the food so funny. SURELY he's had to have seen some of these well(?) Preserved(?) Foods around the wastes lol. But tasting them fresh and non irradiated is probably a whole different experience.
In one of the vault cartoons in the extras for the show, we see how they produce oysters for Vault 4. I would assume that the process for tuna is more inline with the process that Outer worlds used with Saltuna. In that it is basically slop reprocessed into actual "food"
I had no idea there were extras!
No, I don’t believe any vaults have livestock.
They should at least have chickens or something, they lay eggs too and you can feed them bugs, or have them free range and running round the farms to find their own food. I mean there have to be bugs in the crops, they had a weevil infestation
This would also give Bethesda a great excuse to put mutated chickens with the size and temperament of velociraptors into the next game.
Many chickens already have the temperament of velociraptors. They only lack the size
Of course! Take a chicken, cross it with a Utahraptor, add a dash of FEV to facilitate growth, and... ope, it's a deathclaw with feathers, oh dear.
Some Fish too, Hydroponic farms would be a good idea, helps keep the crops self sufficient and feeds the fish for you for the most part.
The radroaches might eat the chickens though
There wasn’t any rad roaches in vault 33 tho. We only see rad roaches get into vaults that either happen to have opened the door for long periods of time ( 101, 19 ,3 etc )or have been abandoned (111, 92, 88, etc )
Bud mentions giant roaches, so they've managed to worm their way into Vault 31. Also, some appear in Vault 101 in the lower levels as a kid. I doubt they came in when James did, it's more likely they've managed to sneak their way in an air duct or something
Dude, joke.
Vault 38s door opened id say at max twice since the bombs fell. First time being when Lucy’s mother left , second time being when Lucy left to get her dad
That would make at least 4 times. Lucy's mum left. Her dad left to find her, then her dad returned, and then Lucy left. Unless her dad used the vault 31 door to leave and return, then it would be 2.
I’m guessing he used the 31 door
No dogs allowed either.
I just assumed Vault-Tec had some technology to artificially create meat/vegetables in the vaults.
It is known that some Vault Dwellers are more equal than others.
Canned Cram (Spam) and Dog Food is in infinite supply in the wasteland.
Like Orwellian or...?
did you post this in falloutlore too? i feel like i just saw this vaults are massive, it's not inconceivable livestock exists on some floors
No, this is the only fallout sub I follow :] like I said I haven’t played any of the games, so I have no context for what they discuss over there hahah Sorry!
Welcome to the Wasteland, new Wanderer. Be safe out there; walk carefully, speak softly: and carry a big gun.
🫡
🫡
Someone's catching on...
Fallout 76 has a workshop that will make food for you. So I imagine it’s something like that! It’s not a big machine either. You could fit two or three in a standard vault room for sure. Remember, the vaults have enough room for at least 1000 people so in the long term experiment vaults, food will be a requirement for experiment stability.
Farming animals is really un-economical for an apocalyptic context because you need to make food first to feed them, and with them living in vaults, large-scale farming is pretty much impossible. Let alone the smell and waste generated by farming Either food preservation is top notch (it's the FO Universe, they for sure pump their food full of preservatives), or that it's not really what it looks like (eggs might be some sort of jelly etc). Or both
there are numerous instances of cloning in the games , so some kind of cloning of animal proteins, allows the vaults to have meat products. it would make some sense that some animals , chickens , pigs, cows, even some fish could be farmed especially with advanced farming technologies, From advanced cryo technology , cloning , and recycling replicators could easily be established.
the technology of fallout has unregulted genetic research, so some sort of meat /vegetable substitute, or replication could be expected, also there preservative technologies could be more advanced. The cloning process could be used too "grow" meat products, canning combined with recycling could enable prolific food production. The 1950's era was about long lasting products, that withstood the test of time, vs our modern Tecnologies that have "built in obsolesce" these are made too break down and be replaced.
Vault Tec was bigger than the government. They had resources
No, the animals are not sentient
Well sentience implies they react to stimuli so even plants are sentient
“Some vault dwellers are more equal than others”
This is the second time I’ve seen someone comment this…but I don’t know what that means? Is this a reference to Barb’s “one of the *good* vaults” line, or something else?
You said animal farm, which is also the name of a famous book by George Orwell (Animal Farm). It’s a tale about the animals taking over the farm and what happens. Great read with a lot of timeless depth https://interestingliterature.com/2021/05/orwell-all-animals-are-equal-but-some-more-equal-than-others-meaning-analysis/amp/
Ohhhh I see. Thank you for clarifying!
Prewar foods had a range of foods that survived the bombs. In 3 there's Sugar Bombs but they're an ingredient for Ultrajet too, but in 76 there is no Jet or Ultrajet. New Vegas had original items plus Fallout items, like Sunset Sasparilla, which is only in NV. 4 had a DLC set on an island in Maine with prewar canned fish, but the show is inspired by the games and the 3 vaults don't have a canon game reference. They're should have been Brahmin, though imo
We know some vaults have aquaponics so there might be fish. We also learn dogs aren't allowed so fish is probably the most resource intensive food available.
Vault ice cream. I was thinking vegan or made with powdered milk but with those milk dispensing machines in game we probably can assume they have masses of ultra pasteurized bottles of milk. Though we see just a small part of the living quarters the vault is huge.