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[scrdest]

Cellulose is specifically what cows' gut bacteria are evolved to do to enable them to digest it.

Yes so why can't we put lots of grass in a big tank with those bacteria, wait a while and then make smoothies with whatever the bacteria turn the grass into?

You can. Though it'd almost certainly require the same kind of environment as an actual cow gut to work reasonably, and, well, that'd still just be a sugary grass-and-hydrochloric-acid drink from hell.

[LARD]

As an interesting side note, cows also digest the bacteria that are at work digesting their grass.  It helps them get enough protein. They also will chew the cud to grind up the grass at various points and make the chemical digestion more effective.   They have conscious control over their stomach muscles too.  Cows are cool.

[Sheb]

As an interesting side note, cows also digest the bacteria that are at work digesting their grass.  It helps them get enough protein. They also will chew the cud to grind up the grass at various points and make the chemical digestion more effective.   They have conscious control over their stomach muscles too.  Cows are cool.

Yeah, I prefer to think of cows as animals that raise and eat bacteria rather than eating grass.

[Helgoland]

How difficult is it to culture these bacteria?

[Sheb]

Not hard at all. You just need a cow.

[Baffler]

You probably could culture them outside a cow, but chances are they aren't very well equipped to survive in other places and wouldn't interact in the same ways.

[LARD]

You can. Though it'd almost certainly require the same kind of environment as an actual cow gut to work reasonably, and, well, that'd still just be a sugary grass-and-hydrochloric-acid drink from hell.

This is most probably the answer you're looking for. It wouldn't be terribly efficient because cows aren't very efficient. Something like an 80 hr process.  I don't think it's practical for biofuels.
That and bacteria are remarkably resilient. They'd probably survive in a grass soup like they do in a grass composter, but again, it'd slow them down.
I don't know how many people would line up for a silage smoothie.

I have a question.  What was the american medical safetynet like before obamacare? The internet has failed me in this regard.

[Frumple]

Worse.

More seriously, it varied by state -- there was some federal options available, but only for folks in fairly specific circumstances, and access and whatnot usually depended (well, still depends -- the ACA helped a lot, in a lot of areas, but it still isn't exactly a complete safety net.) on state-level stuff. So it depended on the state in question. Low-income with kids, disabled (though good goddamn luck qualifying for that -- FL, ferex, takes 2-4 years of a documented debilitating condition before they even consider counting you as disabled), you had a not entirely terrible chance of getting some assistance (if not full coverage or whatev'). More or less everyone else was just kinda' buggered, so far as governmental assistance re: medical coverage. Generally you just sucked up whatever insurance costs you could afford, and if you couldn't afford any, you didn't go to the doctor.

Honestly, for a lot of people the "safety net" was "rack up uninsured hospital costs and then don't pay them." There's a reason bankruptcy due to medical costs was/is a very substantial portion of the states' current bankruptcy numbers, heh.

[LARD]

I worked as an intern in the american medical system for a year under medicare recently and I was always confused what the huge divide was about medicare. So thank you.

[scrdest]

In the UK we have a 'five a day' thing for fruit and vegetables (I think a lot of countries have this, but varying by number)

Anyways, this tropical fruit juice I have is apple, mango, banana and pineapple. Regardless of how much you drink, it only counts as 1 of the 5 a day. (it's understandable for, say, apples because an apple won't have all the nutrients required)

Is this because they all have similar minerals/vitamins in them, or does the 5 a day system not take into account things made up of multiple fruit/veg properly?

That sounds like an extremely rough guideline. The nutrient contents will vary between fruits/veggies, definitely, but whatever it is, it'd scale with the amount your drink. I'd guess it has more to do with legal ass-covering, so that people will have to diversify if they want to meet the dietary recommendations.

[LARD]

Tropical fruit juice is usually mostly apple or pear with only a bit of the others and you're missing the fiber when you drink juice.  Juice is surprisingly like soda.  The sugar in it can bypass your digestive tract entirely and enter your bloodstream across your mouth, just like all simple sugars.  Wrapping it up in a ball of fiber and roughage tends to help slow it down so you don't get as much of a sugar hit.
I think that a variety of colours is a good indicator of the health of your fruit intake.  Dark greens, tomatoes, mangoes, etc. Bananas are good for potassium or something. Juice just isn't really the way to go. 
I think those smoothie things that claim to stuff six kilos of fruit into a 500 mL bottle are better.
In short, yes it's because of the vitamins.  Vitamin C is present in all most fruits and vegetables, but spinach is high in iron, bananas in potassium, etc.  The thing with most vitamins is that if you have enough, more won't help you.  They often pair up with your enzymes to make them function. But if your enzymes are saturated, there's no use.  The required amount of vitamins is actually quite low and all you really need is a variety.   Don't take lots of vitamin A, D, E, and K.  By lots I mean the amount found in overdosing on vitamin supplements, not the amount in normal food.

This 5 a day thing, is it a government sponsored health initiative? That's pretty neat.

[Rolan7]

Stupid simple question I really should know, but sorta on topic:
I don't have to do aerobic exercise to lose weight effectively, right?  If I start walking/hiking more again, and cut down on delicious carbs a bit, that should be just as effective or maybe more so?

I don't really want biceps or anything, I just want to burn off some fat (I'm not obese, but I've gotten heavier than I'm comfortable with).  Also aerobic exercise is a bit problematic with all this pollen...

[Sheb]

Well, doing more exercise and eating less is the way to go. Walking is exercise. So, yes.

[Frumple]

It'd work, yeah. Weight loss is mostly just increasing activity and keeping an eye on the diet. The kind of activity is somewhat irrelevant if you're not after specific results muscle/etc. wise. Walking, gardening, whatever really, so long as you're doing more than you were.

Though it's not just eating less! How you eat matters, too, often just as much as what or the amount. I'd be losing weight, ferex, if I'd just start eating more and smaller meals, instead of one or two large-ish ones a day. As is I'm just maintaining, heh.

[scrdest]

spinach is high in iron

Well, only as much as other leafy greens. Which isn't to say they aren't, but if you hate spinach...

Stupid simple question I really should know, but sorta on topic:
I don't have to do aerobic exercise to lose weight effectively, right?  If I start walking/hiking more again, and cut down on delicious carbs a bit, that should be just as effective or maybe more so?

I don't really want biceps or anything, I just want to burn off some fat (I'm not obese, but I've gotten heavier than I'm comfortable with).  Also aerobic exercise is a bit problematic with all this pollen...

No, you don't have to do that. In fact, I really started losing weight after I stopped going to the gym (...because I started losing weight, mind you) and I'm currently down about 9 kg/20 pounds since last year.

Losing weight is, in the end, about a simple expenditure > intake calculation. While there are things in play (e.g. if you exercise and eat more but have the same caloric deficit as someone who doesn't do either, you *may* have a surplus of non-energetic nutrients) exercise just works to increase the left part of the equation while eating less the right.

From experience, pro tips:

a) GLORIOUS COFFEE: is actually an appetite-suppressant and boosts catabolism (i.e. metabolism yells at stored fat/sugar to gib energy instead of hoarding it). Just make sure it's a proper coffee, at most milk and sugar, not a vaguely coffee-ish dessert. It's theoretically caffeine that does it, but I never noticed that working for tea, and caffeinated drinks are full of sugar.

b) Might seem to run contrary to the above, but go to sleep hungry. Unless I'm a traitor commie mutant, if you go to sleep hungry, you won't be once you wake up.