History Main / FoodPills

* This machine is spoofed in ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy''. The Nutrimatic Drinks Despenser analyzes the user to decide what drink would be perfectly suited to his or her tastes and nutritional needs. However, no-one knows ''why'' it does this, since it invariably (and much to the tea-loving Arthur's irritation) produces a liquid which is "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea". In [[Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy2005 the movie]] Trillian more diplomatically says it "resembles tea".

* ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'' introduces Willy Wonka's Three-Course-Dinner Chewing Gum...if you don't mind inflating into a huge juicy blueberry. This ''does'' manage to avoid the conventional problems with food in pill form--it's clear Wonka thought both of the psychological need to do something resembling eating over a period of time and of the physical need for stomach fullness. He's just not through with the new set of problems created by the solution.

* A very dark example is the eponymous ''Film/SoylentGreen'', green wafer-like protein crackers that are the sole source of food for nearly all of humanity. They're supposedly made from sea plankton. Presumably their less nutrition-dense predecessors Soylent Yellow and Soylent Red were, but as the oceans are actually dead, [[ImAHumanitarian the true source of Soylent Green is a hell of a Franchilot less savory]].

While once ''de rigueur'' for the Kitchen Of The Future during the first few decades of science fiction, they're a ForgottenTrope today--though a character ranting about how [[IWantMyJetpack the future has not delivered the wonders we expected from it]] will probably mention the lack of these as an example.

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 "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]].

What a lot of writers don't realize though is that human beings simply enjoy real food way too much to ever replace it with a synthetic alternative, no matter how economical it might be. For as long as humans have existed, we have gained pleasure from cultivating, preparing, and consuming food, and one of the key aspects of a culture is what they eat and how. Even if food pills could replace the need to get nourishment the old-fashioned way, they can't replace a romantic dinner for two or a holiday feast for the extended family. Even if synthetic food could taste exactly like the real thing, there's still texture to consider. "Fried chicken paste" just doesn't sound very appetizing. There's also the physical consequences of not eating actual food. Replacing solid food entirely with liquids (consumed or intravenous) can result in hair loss and sudden shift in body weight, as well as not properly absorbing many types of nutrients. And literal pills have the problem of not being very filling, leading to constant hunger which causes hormonal imbalance and can be psychologically torturous.

Contrast InstantMassJustAddWater, where pills or powders have water added to them to make glorious feasts. Compare FutureFoodIsArtificial and PlainPalate. See also MicroDieting, for actual food that's the size of a pill.

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

* Parodied in the Spanish comic ''ComicBook/ZipiYZape''. In one story where the twins travel to the future, they're given pills that make them instantly learn their school lesson.
* At least one Silver Age comic has ComicBook/{{Superman}} end up in the far future where the sun had turned red, the oceans had baked away, and very little life was left on Earth. While travelling to find the Fortress of Solitude in order to work out a way back to the present era, he stops in a conveniently close abandoned city where he stocks the pouches of his cape with Food Pills and Water Pills.

* In Suzanne Martel's French children's novel ''Surréal 3000'', everyone is bald, lives under Mont Royal and eats food pills.

* In a variant that actually works well, Creator/JamesPBlaylock's heroic scientist Langdon St. Ives invents ''coffee'' pills decades before (and much, much better than) instant coffee was developed in RealLife. On several occasions in ''Lord Kelvin's Machine'', he uses them to bribe coffee-loving ObstructiveBureaucrat or Mook characters for favors.

* 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 a 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.

* 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 traditional 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 is that players can cook the stuff and get some pinto beans or an ear of maize to make into other foods, but the Courier can also just as easily stockpile several jars of Salient Green and chug the stuff straight, which provides more hit points and is more in keeping with the spirit of this trope.

* Mongoose Publishing's ''Franchise/StarshipTroopers The Roleplaying Game'' had MI Field Rations. They had all the calories, nutrients and minerals needed to sustain an athletic man or woman for a single day. However, they were almost flavorless, white, chalky bars and were usually a trooper’s last choice for food.

* In ''Film/TheFifthElement'', Leeloo pours a small amount of food pellets into a bowl, puts the bowl in a microwave-like device, closes the door, presses a button, and opens the door again, pulling out ''an instant roast chicken with all the trimmings''. Forget faster-than-light travel, ''that'' is clearly the pinnacle of human achievement.

* Stephen Leacock's short story [[http://www.online-literature.com/stephen-leacock/literary-lapses/10/ "The New Food"]]: An entire Christmas dinner for 13 people, concentrated down into one small pill... that then gets eaten by the baby. [[spoiler: InstantMassJustAddWater is a plot point. A ''[[PopGoesTheHuman messy]]'' one.]]

** Parodied. Leela and a date go to a restaurant, and seem to have nothing but small tablets on their plates. Leela compliments the place for its "generous portions". Her date responds "If you liked the meal, just wait 'til you try these after dinner mints."

-->'''Mr. Horse:''' [[CatchPhrase No sir, I don't like it]].

* In ''Series/TheOuterLimits1963'' episode "Counterweight", the participants in a simulated space voyage are fed nothing but unpalatable meat and vegetable concentrate, designed to save weight and storage space. The stewardess sprays the scent of real food from aerosol cans to try to compensate for the lack of flavor and texture.

* ''Series/LostInSpace'': Episodes "The Hungry Sea" and "The Space Trader" had "protein pills", a complete nutritional emergency substitute for whole foods.

* Parodied in a ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' skit where the Observers sent Mike their super-advanced Food Pills. Mike assumes that they're the traditional version - one pill gives you all the essentials for a whole day. The Observers say that no, you need to eat a whole bowlful, [[AdjacentToThisCompleteBreakfast with milk and juice and other stuff]]. When Mike puts on a pseudo-CookingShow routine with the pills, the Observers go from [[CulturalPosturing smugly boasting about their superiority]] to openly drooling.
** Of course, to get a full day's nutrients, the Observers must consume three or four bowls. Or maybe fifteen.

** 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. [[IAteWhat biological waste]]) into organic matrices via transporter technology.
** Except in the episode "The Trouble With Tribbles", when the Tribbles infest this system, and arrive piled on Captain Kirk's tray; one of them has even jammed itself into his drinking glass.
** In "By Any Other Name", enemy aliens who were new to human bodies asked why the crew just didn't use food pills like they did. The crew then goes out of their way to subvert them by showing them the pleasures of [[ThroughHisStomach eating, drinking]], and other things. As to what they were eating and drinking? [[GargleBlaster "It's... it's green!"]] ([[PaletteSwappedAlienFood among other bright colors]]).
---> '''Spock:''' [T]hey have taken human form and are therefore having human reaction.\\

** Starfleet has combat rations, seen in the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode ''[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS02E03TheSiege The Siege]]'', which, while [[DownplayedTrope slightly larger]] than actual pills, have a comparable nutritional density. According to Chief O'Brien, they are time-released to keep a person fed for a full three days. He's the only one who appears to enjoy eating them however.

* Searching the storage compartment in one's own escape pod, as well as the wrecks of other escape pods and the wreck of the ship the player escaped from in ''VideoGame/{{Subnautica}}'' can yield Nutrient Blocks, a dense processed food and complete source of nutrition and calories that happens to refill the player's hunger bar the most compared to literally any other consumable in the game. Nutrient Blocks plus water make up the standard ration for space explorers in the game's setting, although food resembling "normal" food exists as well and was offered aboard the aforementioned ship before it went down. Nothing is said in-game about how the blocks taste, but their in-game appearance does resemble compressed shredded wheat, or perhaps the kind of food fed to captive rodents and monkeys.

* During the ColdWar, US Civil Defense planners not only were building fallout shelters, but were including packs of All-Purpose Survival Crackers in them. Despite the fancy name, these were plain corn and wheat flour biscuits, sealed in metal tins. Cheap, easy-to-make, long lasting, and apparently all the calories you'd need to survive at least two weeks after TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

* In ''Manga/{{Dragonball}}'', the Senzu ("Sage Bean") not only heals any and all physical injuries (not counting diseases or viruses), but it keeps you full for 10 days. It even works for [[BigEater Goku]].
* May in ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' creates a special Pokeblock that can satisfy her always-hungry Munchlax.

* Inverted in Scott Westerfeld's Literature/{{Uglies}} series. Food is plentiful in the future, so there are calorie-binging pills that you take so you can eat even more.

* All the human space navies in the Literature/TheLostFleet series use nutritional bars of various alleged flavors when they're away from base. The Alliance forces trapped far behind Syndicate lines end up raiding rear-echelon bases for supplies and quickly discover that as bad as their rations are, Syndic ration bars manage to be worse. The Danaka Yoruk-bar is considered particularly inedible.

* ''Series/AlmostHuman'': In "Straw Man", the homeless shelter is serving supplement pills that are tailored for the need of each person, it is suggested that it equates a meal when the villain baits his victims by saying that they could have a "real" meal in another shelter.

* The nutrition bars in ''Series/DarkMatter'' fit this trope; they come in several varieties in differently-colored packages, some of which apparently taste absolutely horrible. Six says the [[Film/SoylentGreen green ones]] are the most palatable, and is eventually discovered to be hoarding them, much to the chagrin of Three. They appear to be futuristic emergency rations rather than a primary food source, as the crew doesn't eat them when supplies aren't tight.

'''Doozer #1:''' Again? Yuck!

* Emergency rations included in liferaft survival kits are engineered for efficiency. They come in brick form and are calorically dense so that a small chunk will keep a survivor fed for a day. They are designed to not crumble (so as not to waste any) and not absorb moisture (so as not to increase thirst). Their flavor is also specially balanced -- providing just enough taste so as not to be unpleasant but not enough so that survivors won't be tempted to eat more than necessary.

* [[http://www.compactforlife.com/seven-oceans-food-rations/ Sea survival food rations]] for use in lifeboats and liferafts are designed to be eaten once daily while surviving at sea after abandoning ship. They tend to taste very dry, but will give you the nutrition you need to get through the day. This also applies to the similar [[http://www.gcrieber-compact.com/product-range/malnutrition/emergency/bp-5/ disaster relief rations]]. There's actually a practical reason why survival rations taste so bland: to ensure that you would only eat if you're actually starving.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' episode "Future Lost" had food discs (which also included drinks). Later, Timmy [[ChekhovsGun used the juice food discs to give brain freeze]] to the [[BrainInAJar Big Brain]].

* This machine is spoofed in ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy''. The Nutrimatic Drinks Despenser analyzes the user to decide what drink would be perfectly suited to his or her tastes and nutritional needs. However, no-one knows ''why'' it does this, since it invariably (and much to the tea-loving Arthur's irritation) produces a liquid which is "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea". In [[Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy the movie]] Trillian more diplomatically says it "resembles tea".

* In the ''Xtended'' GameMod for ''[[Videogame/{{X}} X3: Terran Conflict]]'', food pills appear in a [=GalNet=] news article. The pills are designed for SpaceTrucker and SpaceFighter pilots to get a meal down quick when a SpacePirate attack can come at any minute. The end of the article then states that the food company's next goal is [[AssShove to make a non-suppository pill]].