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I am an orc warboss called "The Beast" who has invaded earth and enslaved humanity. You humies are a worthless sprcies that have accomplished nothing of note in your civilizations throughout history. Your only value is to be used as food. I have decided to turn The planet into a ranch-like system in which humans are farmed as livestock in order to feed my troops. It is a source of amusement for us and provides some meaningful existence to your useless lives.

To accomplish this, we use a combination of growth hormones, synthetic steroids, and drug cocktails to make humans larger and more meaty. This is similar to how humies raise chickens and or other animals to make them bigger and tastier. The point is to make an end product that is heavily muscled but also heavy in fat, like the milkmaids from Fury Road.

How can I modify chemical hormones of today to create human livestock?

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    $\begingroup$ I was going to recommend issuing U.S. Citizenship to your herd as a fattening technique, but according to this Obesity by Country list, we Westerners aren't as bad as I thought we were. $\endgroup$
    – Henry Taylor
    May 1, 2019 at 21:57
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    $\begingroup$ @HenryTaylor, I'd slap you for your U.S. Citizenship comment but I'm seriously hankering for a Big Mac right now. $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    May 1, 2019 at 23:35
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    $\begingroup$ With the exception of Egypt, every country ahead of the US is much smaller in population. For example, Nauru (first) is a tiny island. And note that if we limit to just men, the US is ahead of Egypt. It's unclear why they would raise humans though. Humans raise chickens, cows, and sheep for food because they are particularly dumb animals. They might eat humans because they're there. But they would raise livestock for the same reasons that humans do. They're already plump, meaty, and dumb. Humans have no advantages over pigs as food and many disadvantages. $\endgroup$
    – Brythan
    May 2, 2019 at 1:34
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    $\begingroup$ @HenryTaylor, it doesn't look so good if you discount the countries where to run a marathon you have to do a couple of laps of the entire country. $\endgroup$
    – Separatrix
    May 2, 2019 at 9:55
  • $\begingroup$ @Brythan Unless they want there meat smart, like the Great Old Ones. $\endgroup$
    – Ash
    May 6, 2019 at 15:19

2 Answers 2

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Assuming they have similar tastes as humans, they will prefer a meat where the fat is marbled inside the muscle. If that is the case, you'll want a diet similar to the one's the strongman have: about 12.000 calories with about 35% protein / 35% fat / 30% carbs. Of course a newborn human cannot eat this and survive, but with accelerated growth hormone you may be able to have an specimen ready to be harvested in seven to ten years.

Maybe they'll like fatter animals, in which case you can alter the protein to carb ratio in favor of carbohydrates, and make the speciment exercise less. This will probably be best for harvesting younger specimens: They will have less meat but it will be cheaper to feed and more tender.

One Caveat, though:

Humans are not exactly the best cattle: our kids are born sooner than they should, so they need at least several months of care before being able to feed by themselves. Also, we tend to need several years to mature, so the RoI is... not good. Think of us as whales: we reproduce too slowly to be bred.

So if you want to raise humans as cattle... you better have one good reason. Maybe the orcs like to hunt the food they eat? They like to hear the screams of self-aware species? They prefer or benefit for eating smarter animals?

If not, would be much better to exterminate us and replace us by cows(or pigs), or kill the 90% of us and put the remaining 10% to raise cows (or pigs).

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First, you would need some sort of hormone to make humans grow up faster. Pigs for pork and bacon are typically slaughtered at ages of 4-12 months, at which point a human child will still be a small baby. This slow growth makes humans very unfit as a food source.

Second, you could make genetic changes that reduce the amount of brown fat (which burns fat for energy) in favor of white fat. This would allow the build-up of muscle through exercise without reducing fat. Then feed your human livestock on lots of fast carbohydrates like potatoes, white bread, pasta, and glucose syrup. You could also look at the diet of sumo wrestlers for inspiration.

Thirdly, you could add genes like CREBRF, which is responsible for Samoan's obesity.

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    $\begingroup$ Fatter animals are not necesarily more tastier animals. We usually seek fast-growing, with a good muscle to fat ratio. $\endgroup$
    – Stormbolter
    May 2, 2019 at 8:40
  • $\begingroup$ Well the asker did state that "The point is to make an end product that is heavily muscled but also heavy in fat", and that was what I addressed. And besides, meat fat usually has more taste than muscle, which is why you generally don't cut off fat until after roasting. At any rate, it is not clear what orcs would find tasty. $\endgroup$
    – Klaus Æ. Mogensen
    May 2, 2019 at 9:10
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    $\begingroup$ (sorry, doesn't let me point at you somehow). In the end I decided my comment was too long to put it here and made my own answer, but the thing is we usually like our animal fat, not obese, that's why we make them exercise. But I agree with you, we are not orcs :) $\endgroup$
    – Stormbolter
    May 2, 2019 at 9:29

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