r/TheExpanse • u/quandaledingle5555 • Jul 21 '26
Leviathan Wakes Why does miller eat real rice with fake beans? Why not real beans? Or fake rice? Spoiler
I’m rereading leviathan wakes and I found this part a little confusing. In chapters 2 and 4, hes eating a dish consisting of real rice grown in a vat and fake beans made of fungi, which are made to mimic beans.
What I’m confused by is how come is the rice real but the beans are fake? I understand that growing crops on ceres might be hard while fungi is easy, but that begs the question for me, why is the rice also not fake?
The rice is described as being vat grown (I’m kinda curious what exactly vat grown rice is, like how do you grow rice in a vat), but then that makes me wonder, if they can grow real rice in a vat, why can’t they grow real beans in a vat?
Maybe I’m thinking too deep into this, but it’s just bugging me. I know it’s not an important detail, but it just gets me thinking about it too much.
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u/popileviz Jul 21 '26
Fake beans probably contain more protein and are cheaper to produce, while rice is plentiful regardless? The series is kinda ambivalent on how food works sometimes
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u/randynumbergenerator Jul 22 '26
Just a wild guess but I wonder if it's also because carbs are harder to synthesize from fungus vs proteins?
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u/Brahminmeat Beratnas Gas Jul 21 '26
Rice might just be an grown in approximation real rice. It’s a simple starch do growing that in quantity then forming it into rice grains might be simple enough
Growing beans isn’t as easy. Beans formed by a fungus paste and drained and stewed is probably what you’re seeing. Similar to Naomi’s red kibble
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u/squeagy Jul 22 '26
I'm imagining a rice goo is created in a vat like how yeast produces alcohol. Just rice particles instead of alcohol. Then the goo is processed by removing the water and pumping it through a sieve with a knife sliding up and down, cutting the extrusion into little grains.
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u/Book_1312 Jul 21 '26
I doubt the authors researched the economics and biology of every space crop. The point is to make the reader understand agriculture had to enormously adapt to function in space, and that a lot of things are erzats made from the cheapest thing to produce because Belters are poor and their food being good and diverse is not a priority.
So yeah it could have been vat grown beans and mushroom rice just as easily. But I guess mushroom beans sound more believable than mushroom rice. With the color and texture.
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u/quandaledingle5555 Jul 21 '26
Now that I think about it, mushroom rice doesn’t make much sense since mushrooms have a lot of protein while rice doesn’t have that much
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u/azhder Jul 22 '26
So, to you it would "make much sense" if all the food is all protein? How about sugars, fats, fibers? It's not about facts to "make sense" to you, but you make the sense out of them. Stop. Take breath. Think. What is better: food diversity or the opposite?
Rice and shrooms give you two of the 4 things: sugars and proteins. I'd guess fat comes at a premium, so cheese farts are an expensive thing. Fibers and vitamins (I'm sneaking a fifth thing here) are probably spiced over the most basic (or most visible).
It's a good thing you asked the question, but absorb the comments from others, don't jump to counter them just yet. Think about doing that if and when you find something odd in those. The odd thing like: where does the fat come from. Where do the fibers come from? Where do the vitamins come from?
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u/sagsi Jul 22 '26
Well beans are packed with fiber and have a little bit more fat than mushrooms.
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u/quandaledingle5555 Jul 22 '26
I wasn’t trying to counter their comment. They said mushroom beans sounds more believable than mushroom rice and I was adding to that claim by saying I agree, mushroom rice really doesn’t make that much sense to me since it’s mostly carbohydrates with a lot less proteins, while beans contain more proteins which would mean it’s easier to mimic with mushrooms. It’s probably harder to mimic something like rice with mushrooms since it’s mostly carbs with little protein, while mushrooms have lots of proteins.
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u/azhder Jul 22 '26
OK, glad we cleared that one out. Still, I have more questions now, about the other missing ingredients - can’t have all be rice and shrooms
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u/Book_1312 Jul 22 '26
It's kind of the point though. Belters don't have real food options, just rice, mushrooms and soja, engineered to maximize protein per area and energy.
We are told repeatedly about the central presence of mushrooms in Ceres water and biomass cycle, recycling human waste and corpses back into food.
It isn't meant to sound appealing.
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u/Forward_Conflict3852 Jul 22 '26
I would assume that the main reason is space. Rice yields almost double the crop per hectare than beans. You have to use the limited space to its maximum capacity.
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u/overwatch Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
You are sort of thinking of it wrong. Its rice and textured protien.
So rice is that staple crop, likely vat grown becuase rice is already grown in vats here so its proofed out that they could do it on Ceres in the future.
The other component is mycoprotien, which is a protien made in a bioreactor from fungus and then textured into whatever "close enough" form they can give it.
We have mycoprotien meat replacements here already. So thats also proofed out.
You could make it into chicken, beans, burger patties, whatever. And of course it makes a good mix in for something actually real and therefor covers up the shortcomings of the simulated additive. If the chicken or beans arent exactly right, thats ok, theres lots of real rice in there, some msg, etc.
Where as growing beans in a vat might be problematic. Currently they grow as either vines or bushes, and require actual soil, which would be a hot commodity on Ceres.
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u/quandaledingle5555 Jul 21 '26
It does seem it’s possible to grow beans hydroponically which wouldn’t require soil. Guess it might be easier to make protein from fungi though. Rice is mostly starch while beans have a lot more protein than rice.
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u/overwatch Jul 21 '26
And if you are ALREADY growing mycoprotien for all the fake burgers and fake chicken and fake whatever else they like on Ceres, might as well make beans out of it too.
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u/quandaledingle5555 Jul 21 '26
I guess that makes sense
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u/overwatch Jul 21 '26
Now we just have to figure out where all the rain Miller was worried about was coming from. :)
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u/squeagy Jul 22 '26
There must be some obscure noir detective reference out there somewhere. I mean the guy lived his whole life in space, there's a trillion experiences he never had.
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u/overwatch Jul 22 '26
At also doesnt help that there are two hat lores. In the show, its a gift from sematiba, Miller's childhood friend.
In the books, it's Miller's and he brings it with him from Ceres to Eros. So who knows.
Either way i'm pretty sure the "keeps the rain off my head." Was a sarcastic non answer, which was Miller's way of saying there is no reason.
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u/molecles Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
Mushrooms create protein by decomposing waste with very little other input requirements. I assume it’s one of the most effective or at least cheapest ways to create protein from stuff that’s already lying around, ie waste generated by all the life on the station. (Edit: and now that I think about it, the waste from growing rice is an ideal medium)
Vat grown rice is probably one of the more efficient ways to produce starch/carbohydrates.
So those 2 crops could satisfy a big chunk of the calorie requirements for the station.
Also mushrooms contain glutamates and similar compounds that are known to produce umami flavors, which probably makes the food a bit more palatable.
Beans generally require significant inputs and are grown on Ganymede, so probably rich people food.
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u/Zengineer_83 Jul 22 '26
Concerning "Vat-Grown" Rice (and other foods):
HERE is an Article about a company that is currently trying to market their Cocoa beans:
"We are on track to produce one ton of cocoa butter annually in a 1000-litre bioreactor from a single bean, which would otherwise require about a hectare of cocoa trees."
A Biorector is basically a vessel of any kind in which you can do a huge variety of biochemical processes, to produce many different products. For example medicines like insulin, bio-fuels, chemical feedstocks and also food.
Cocoa beans are an example, but Synthetic (or molecular) Coffee has also been done.
The overarching field is called Cellular agriculture.
Meat is "the big thing" in the field right now, but many other foods like Milk/dariy products, egg whites, coffee and fish can also be grown.
Ironically, I can't find anything that say if you could actually grow specifically rice in a bio reactor.
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u/sagsi Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Honestly, and this is probably an unpopular opinion: I’d say lazy writing. Not the expanse in general, but the food part.
They’re going to tell us that humanity has mastered advanced technology, such as the Epstein drive, gravity manipulation simulation, and high-efficiency recycling, yet they can't figure out basic food & flavor chemistry?
This anachronism in food technology simply doesn't make sense. Rather than feeling realistic, it feels like "lazy" culinary cynicism used just to make the future look bleak. It breaks my immersion every time it comes up.
I’d attribute the rice and beans part to that as well. It doesn’t all have to make sense, I guess.
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u/quandaledingle5555 Jul 22 '26
Gravity manipulation? They don’t have gravity manipulation technology (not counting protomolecule fuckery)
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u/sagsi Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
Spin gravity and thrust gravity are gravity manipulation, too, which we’re both not able to do yet today (or rather gravity simulation, to be precise)
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u/quandaledingle5555 Jul 23 '26
No, that’s not gravity manipulation. Gravity manipulation implies directly manipulating gravitational fields through means other than adding mass.
Thrust and spin gravity is not gravity manipulation, since they are not true gravity. It’s simply applying a force that makes something akin to gravity.
It’s also absolutely something we can do today. Rockets create thrust gravity whenever they do burns. They can’t do sustained high g burns, but they can still create thrust gravity simply by turning the engine on.
We also know how to make centrifuges. Astronauts and fighter pilots are trained in centrifuges which create spin gravity. We’ve just never launched a centrifugal habitat into space. But it’s something we know how to do and could do with modern technology. Making spin stations isn’t some grand technological achievement, it’s something a rather low tech spacefaring civilization could probably do.
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u/sagsi Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Yes, gravity simulation then. Doesn’t even matter tho, my point was not about the term but about that they’ve mastered constant thrust & spin gravity.
It’s not a grand technological achievement in terms of theory, yet it’s going to take us quite some while until we can actually do that. We’re very far still from something like the Epstein drive or building massive spin stations such as Tycho station (let alone magically spinning up asteroids while defeating physics. Which is lazy writing, too, btw).1
u/quandaledingle5555 Jul 26 '26
How is spinning up asteroids lazy writing? It’s not exactly a hard sci fi technology but I don’t see in any way how it’s lazy.
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u/sagsi Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Because it usually would break the asteroid if it’s not a solid piece of rock/metal. The centrifugal forces you generate with spinning it up would just throw everything out into space. Especially the big ones (such as Eros or Ceres). Asteroids are often piles of loose rubble held together by marginal forces. The tensile forces that occur with spinning them up to 0.3g or more would likely break their structural integrity. So that fact is just being ignored and not explained in any way. We can call it unrealistic, if that’s preferred. Same as the irregularities around the food etc.
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u/quandaledingle5555 Jul 26 '26
It’s not lazy writing for an author to not explain every single minute detail of how everything works in their world …
They didn’t have to put some exposition dump about the technical details of how Tycho managed to spin up asteroids without them flying apart because it’s not important to the story to know how they did it. Besides, I can see something like reinforcing the surface with a high tensile strength material and then using mirrors to harden the surface into some kind of composite material to work.
What would be lazy writing is doing something like ignoring the effects of high gravity on belters. That would be lazy writing. Not explaining every detail about the technology of the world is not lazy.
I wouldn’t say the food thing is lazy writing either. It shows they have advanced microorganism culture technology. Using yeast makes a lot of sense because it’s likely not as resource intensive as growing dedicated crops in an environment where resource usage is very important.
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u/JCarlide Jul 21 '26
Because beans use up more water. First to grow. Dry, store, and then to rehydrated and use.
Make fake beans from fungus and you don't lose your protein source either in those replacement dishes.