Cataclysm-dda: Sourdough bread creates calories from nothing.

[gynther]

Sourdough bread creates calories from nothing.
The recipe uses 4 flour, 1 sourdough starter and 3 water and creates 8 portions of sourdough bread aswell as an freshly fed sourdough starter.

In my case the flour had a calorie value of 34 so a total of 136 calories of base food was used.
The 8 sourdough bread had a calorie value of 174 each for a total of 1392.

I've confirmed that just 4 flour is used in the crafting process.

Versions and configuration

• OS: Windows
  
  
  
  • OS Version: 10.0 1909
  
  
• Game Version: 0.D-13361-g6fc9301 [64-bit]
• Graphics Version: Tiles
• Game Language: English [en]
• Mods loaded: [
  Dark Days Ahead [dda],
  Disable NPC Needs [no_npc_food],
  Magiclysm [magiclysm],
  Makeshift Items Mod [makeshift],
  More Survival Tools [More_Survival_Tools],
  Alternative Map Key [alt_map_key],
  Vehicle Additions Pack [blazemod],
  Tanks and Other Vehicles [Tanks],
  Craftable Gun Pack [craftgp],
  No Fungal Monsters [No_Fungi]
  ]

[natsirt721]

That seems fine to me. I could see the flour input increasing by a bit (4 flour is about half a cup, i would probably double that). Lots of those calories come from the starter. You're making a whole loaf of bread - thats a ton of calories.

I went on a deep-dive looking at caloric counts for flour and bread in general, and I think that bread from wheat flour should actually be doubled in calorie count - currently it gives 91 kCal per 60g serving, and this source suggests that it should be around 159 kCal. This one says 2000 kCal for 750g, or 160 kCal per serving. Unless my cooking 4 character is just bad at making bread.

[gynther]

I'm not knowledgeable enough to argue game vs real life here, you seem to have done some research.
But I will argue that internal consistency is important. lets compare some other bread recipies.

Bread: 20 flour (680cal) creates 10 loaves (970 cal)
Flatbread: 11 flour(374cal) creates 2 flatbread (528 cal)
cornbread: 4 cornmeal(188cal) creates 1 cornbread(188cal)
Humblepie: 20 flour(680cal) + 4 liver(276cal) creates 3 pies (1329)
and then sourdough that goes from 136cal to 1392cal

There is absolutely an increase in calorie for the wheat based products, but its about 50% for the others and a 1000% for the sourdough. I dont think the starter can be counted since its reusable and essentially free. And even if it was not reusable the starter costs 1 flour.

Also a quick googling shows several recipies using ~3 cups of flour per loaf, increasing the flour usage by 6 times for the sourdough recipie would bring it up to the same ballpark as the other flour based products.

[natsirt721]

Definitely agree about internal consistency. As I mentioned, I would actually like to see calorie increases for bread products in general, but that is largely going by the mass of the final product - reducing the mass (and volume, I suppose) would also 'balance' it, and bring the output more in-line with the amount of input material.
Sourdough starter is basically dough - you let flour ferment with the natural bacteria and yeasts in the air and keep feeding it flour and water.
The simplest solution I see is doubling the flour for the recipe and halving the number of portions in the results. Then we have 272 kCal in and 690 kCal out. That's a healthy gain, but you're also using ~half of a 250 mL starter which, as I said, is basically dough itself. So you get a cup of dough for 'free' from the starter, and another cup of flour and some water for the rest. I would also probably increase the amount of flour you need to make the other starters by a lot - probably 8 flour/1 cup each. With both of those changes, the total input is 12 flour or 408 kCal, which brings the gains in-line with the rest of the breads.