No Biochemical Barriers: Difference between revisions

* In [[Roger Zelazny]]'s ''[[Doorways in The Sand]]'', the main character stays on Earth, but gets run through a dimensional inverter, resulting in him being mirror-flipped. The first time he tries to drink beer he realizes that [[Mirror Chemistry|all molecules are now backwards to his physiology]] and he had better stick with food and drinks that have symmetrical molecules, or else he'll poison himself.

* Averted in the Corean Chronicles. The world was colonized and mildly terraformed to allow humanity to survive. The majority of the surviving fauna and flora is completely alien to their biology, consisting largely of [[Life Energy]] interwoven with the natural elements of the land. The meat of nightsheep, the only known fleshy creature able to subsist on native flora, is poisonous to humans.

* The Apicians in the [[Cordwainer Smith]] short story "From Gustible's Planet" are capable of eating Earth food (and think it's delicious). This is specifically said to be unusual, though.

* In addition to the disease issue, this is also brought up in the ''[[Sector General]]'' novels. Specifically, the cafeteria at the hospital has a very wide selection of foods on the menu, with notations as to what foods can be safely eaten by what species. Occasional problems come when a diagnostician comes in for lunch after having a tape personality active for awhile, and as a result has to force himself to pick a meal that is suitable for his actual body rather than what his alternate personality thinks he is, and then force himself to eat what looks to be a highly unappetizing substance from the tape personality's perspective.

* Played straight in [[Borderlands]]. The occasional spit-roasted Skag seen at raider camps can be [[Hand Wave|Handwaved]] as the ill-educated locales (i.e. [[Acceptable Targets|Rednecks]]) not knowing any better, but then you find that there is industry devoted to producing canned Skag meat which is quite popular.

* Played straight with the Mothership Zeta DLC of Fallout 3. Throughout the exploration of the titular alien spaceship the Lone Wanderer finds numerous alien delicacies like squids and worms that when consumed restore your health with no obvious side effects, not to mention there is an alien equivalent to Stimpacks that heals you just as well. Though the game in general does function on what people of the 1950s '''thought''' a world after nuclear war would be like, so it is most likely also showing what people from that era thought aliens would be like.

** The Forerunners can safely eat earth-based food as well