Food Poisoning

Food Poisoning is a disease germ type that can accumulate on food and ingredients. When a Duplicant eats contaminated food or drinks something made from contaminated ingredients, they are considered to have been exposed to Food Poisoning germs, and may become sick when they wake up the next cycle.

The most important way to remove the germs is to process the contaminated item into a recipe. Any recipe that uses the food as an ingredient, including recipes made in the Microbe Musher, completely removes Food Poisoning germs from the ingredients. This makes cooking a reliable way to sanitize contaminated food before it is eaten, although it also consumes labor and, in the case of the Microbe Musher, significant water.

Food storage matters because germs can remain on items while they sit in the colony. Food is only fully preserved when it is kept in both a Deep Freeze and a Sterile Atmosphere, which also slows spoilage as much as possible. Sterile atmospheres include Carbon Dioxide, Chlorine Gas, Hydrogen, and Vacuum; any other gas, liquid, or solid counts as a normal atmosphere, while Polluted Oxygen counts as a polluted atmosphere. Temperature still affects spoilage in all cases, but sterile storage prevents the atmosphere itself from accelerating decay.

Food spoilage follows a base decay rate modified by both temperature and atmosphere. In general, food above 4 °C spoils at the unrefrigerated rate, food between −18 °C and 4 °C is refrigerated, and food below −18 °C is in deep freeze. Normal atmosphere, polluted atmosphere, and sterile atmosphere each change spoilage speed differently, so a cold room alone is not enough to fully preserve food if the atmosphere is not also sterile.

Practical implications:

• If contaminated food is available, cooking it first removes Food Poisoning germs.
• Storing food in a refrigerator or cold room slows spoilage, but full preservation requires Deep Freeze plus a Sterile Atmosphere.
• Polluted Oxygen is especially poor for food storage because it speeds spoilage more than normal atmosphere.
• Food kept in Vacuum or other sterile atmospheres avoids atmosphere-based spoilage penalties, leaving temperature as the only spoilage factor.
• Food can remain contaminated until it is consumed or processed, so raw ingredients should be handled carefully in farms, storage, and meal preparation chains.

In play, Food Poisoning is less about direct damage than about food handling. A colony with good cold storage and reliable cooking can turn contaminated food into safe meals, while poor storage can let germs persist long enough to threaten Duplicants who eat raw or improperly handled ingredients.