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Soylent Coffee: Nootropics, fat, carbs, protein

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Re: Soylent Coffee: Nootropics, fat, carbs, protein

#71

Post by force_reboot »

chjohasbrouck wrote: post #41

One problem with products like Soylent is that the nutrition label is used for marketing, and as a result they consciously engineer the product to optimize for that. Nutrition facts labels and recommended daily intakes vary by country, and they're backed up by a lot of bad science and guessing games. Consider that the USDA recently lifted their recommended maximum intake of cholesterol from 300mg/day (1.5 eggs/day) t…

Maybe I'm just a third level contrarian, but I don't think one can reject mainstream advice on, for example, saturated fat simply because the USDA changed their mind on cholesterol.

Mainstream medical sources have never claimed to have strong evidence on the link between dietary cholesterol and heart disease, mortality etc. However since the link between serum cholesterol and these things is so string, it seemed prudent to advise limiting dietary cholesterol. However no, with more negative studies, this advice no longer makes sense. But at no point was limiting dietary cholesterol claimed to be as high of a priority as limiting saturated and trans fats.

That said, apart from saturated fats, total calories and protein (for people looking to build muscle) I don't think the rest of the label is useful for most people.

Re: Soylent Coffee: Nootropics, fat, carbs, protein

#72

Post by toasterlovin »

Kalium wrote: post #69
toasterlovin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that you like Soylent. More power to you. But I don't think most people are already aware of the alternatives to Soylent and how much cheaper they are. For instance, you said, in response to my comment about buying food from a grocery store every day, "doing that is almost certain to nullify the intended cost advantages". According to Soylent's website, their drink is $2.69 per 400 calories. That same amount of…

Any real grocery store near me will set you back $5-$6 for a gallon of organic whole milk. That's without factoring in that neither of them are along my commute, adding time. I think most people who are willing to consider Soylent are well aware of the costs of the customary diets they have been eating for many years. I also think that most people who are willing to consider Soylent are looking to optimize differentl…

Several things:

1. I know that organic whole milk is more expensive. I mentioned it in my response. It's still 3x less expensive per calorie than Soylent.

2. I understand that going to the grocery store is a non-starter for you, but that is not the case for the vast majority of North Americans, who already source a huge portion of their calories from grocery stores (and have refrigeration). Perhaps being able to get the main component of your diet from a grocery store is a benefit for many people, not a drawback.

3. You keep suggesting that perhaps I am unaware that other people have different priorities than me. But I'm not. I was not addressing all users of Soylent. Instead, I responded to somebody who said that Soylent was too expensive for them by mentioning an alternative which has more or less the same benefits as Soylent, but which is much less expensive.

4. Perhaps there are people interested in Soylent who are trying to optimize differently than you. Maybe somebody has zero extra time and is spending a small fortune on delivered lunches at work, so they're interested in something which is just as convenient but much less expensive. Maybe they don't care that they have to buy supplies at the grocery store (or, crazy enough, maybe they would prefer that to having to remember to replenish online). Maybe they're not fully thought out on the subject yet, but they've heard about this Soylent thing. Maybe the information I shared would be useful to somebody like that.

Re: Soylent Coffee: Nootropics, fat, carbs, protein

#73

Post by antisthenes »

dpritchett wrote: post #46
antisthenes wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that every sugary breakfast cereal and energy drink would seem quite healthy if all you looked at was the nutrition facts label. That is factually false, since their labels do quite accurately reflect that they consist of nothing more than carbs (and a bit of protein, for some cereals). I'm not sure how one would come to a conclusion that energy drinks are good for you from their nutrition label, unless you're assu…

Some people don't balk at the sight of a mostly-grain ingredients list. Lots of people aren't into macronutrients.

It's interesting that one of the first books I read as a child ~5-6 years old was describing how a human body works.

It had a full chapter on macro-nutrients.

Re: Soylent Coffee: Nootropics, fat, carbs, protein

#74

Post by yladiz »

I guess it's good that they're branching out beyond their initial Soylent brand and trying to get more consumers, especially breakfast users who are used to coffee, but I still don't appreciate the notion that this is somehow better or more efficient than making a meal for yourself, when it's not been proven that it's any better (and may be worse, it's hard to know because it's so new). To me the Soylent brand just seems like a startup version of the supplement shakes that I saw my mom drink when I was a kid, and marketed to a different demographic.

Re: Soylent Coffee: Nootropics, fat, carbs, protein

#75

Post by MicroBerto »

kbd wrote: post #34
MicroBerto wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we don't know why. Just like we didn't understand omega fatty ratios a couple decades ago. So this has everything to do with it. There's more to diet than numbers, yet if you're on a pure Soylent diet, you're clearly not getting some relatively-unknown things that are almost conclusively beneficial to your body. Absence of proof is not proof of absence. Eat your fruits and vegetables or, statistically speakin…

> yet if you're on a pure Soylent diet... Soylent's marketing puts... people at serious long-term health risk. Even Rosa Labs doesn't recommend a pure Soylent diet. I liked Soylentconor's comment on reddit the other day, pointing out that the right way to look at Soylent is that it's "just food"[1] I'm obviously not arguing Soylent is perfect, but it's almost certainly better than what most people eat most of the tim…

> You seem awfully certain given that you can't say what "relatively unknown [but] conclusively beneficial" things Soylent is missing.

Some ideas proposed with several sources cited:

* Antioxidants and polyphenols from fruits and vegetables – like Vitamin C, carotenoids, and flavonoids – have been linked to lower cardiovascular disease rates. They’re known to prevent cholesterol and other lipids from oxidizing in the arteries.[14]

* Concentrations of another group of antioxidants, alpha carotene and beta carotene, are also elevated when eating fruits and vegetables[15,16]

* Fruits and vegetables slightly decrease blood pressure[16,17]

* Fruits and vegetables typically contain good doses of magnesium and potassium, both already linked to lower mortality rates[18,19,20]

* Vitamin C, carotenoids, lycopene, and other phytochemicals/phytonutrients (likely some that we haven’t yet discovered) were explained as the success from one mortality study[21]

(https://blog.priceplow.com/vegetables)

Lots of that stuff is not in Soylent. It's not very difficult to be awfully certain in my confidence in eating fruits and vegetables.

Again. Soylent's marketing has been extremely dangerous, and your link reinforces that point. Their haphazard marketing yielded unintended consequences, and they shouldn't be rewarded for it.

Re: Soylent Coffee: Nootropics, fat, carbs, protein

#76

Post by kbd »

MicroBerto wrote: post #75
kbd wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet if you're on a pure Soylent diet... Soylent's marketing puts... people at serious long-term health risk. Even Rosa Labs doesn't recommend a pure Soylent diet. I liked Soylentconor's comment on reddit the other day, pointing out that the right way to look at Soylent is that it's "just food"[1] I'm obviously not arguing Soylent is perfect, but it's almost certainly better than what most people eat most of the tim…

> You seem awfully certain given that you can't say what "relatively unknown [but] conclusively beneficial" things Soylent is missing. Some ideas proposed with several sources cited: * Antioxidants and polyphenols from fruits and vegetables – like Vitamin C, carotenoids, and flavonoids – have been linked to lower cardiovascular disease rates. They’re known to prevent cholesterol and other lipids from oxidizing in the…

Your argument seems to be "vegetables have things your body needs. Soylent is not vegetables, therefore Soylent doesn't have these things". I am far from a nutrition expert, but from some googling it sounds like a lot of what you bring up, carotenoids, flavonoids, etc. are converted by the body to vitamin A, which Soylent includes. It also includes magnesium, potassium, vitamin C, and so on.

Re: Soylent Coffee: Nootropics, fat, carbs, protein

#77

Post by MicroBerto »

kbd wrote: post #76
MicroBerto wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seem awfully certain given that you can't say what "relatively unknown [but] conclusively beneficial" things Soylent is missing. Some ideas proposed with several sources cited: * Antioxidants and polyphenols from fruits and vegetables – like Vitamin C, carotenoids, and flavonoids – have been linked to lower cardiovascular disease rates. They’re known to prevent cholesterol and other lipids from oxidizing in the…

Your argument seems to be "vegetables have things your body needs. Soylent is not vegetables, therefore Soylent doesn't have these things". I am far from a nutrition expert, but from some googling it sounds like a lot of what you bring up, carotenoids, flavonoids, etc. are converted by the body to vitamin A, which Soylent includes. It also includes magnesium, potassium, vitamin C, and so on.

> from some googling it sounds like a lot of what you bring up, carotenoids, flavonoids, etc. are converted by the body to vitamin A

Are you willing to bet your life that this is all they do? Are you willing to bet your life that those general hypotheses are the only reasons why fruits and vegetables make nearly everyone live longer?

Do you think these engineers truly understand food, or is it possible that there are things we don't know, just like we didn't understand omegas decades ago?

I don't claim to fully know what's going on when I eat berries. Nobody does. But I see extremely strong statistics showing one thing, and Soylent has been marketed in the complete opposite direction, and that is dangerous.

Honestly I don't care what people do. But I care what is marketed to inexperienced consumers.

Re: Soylent Coffee: Nootropics, fat, carbs, protein

#78

Post by bambax »

zackbloom wrote: post #50
bambax wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did try Joylent. I managed to drink one "meal" but couldn't go through the second one. It's the most disgusting thing I have ever encountered. I eat a lot of things many people would consider unsavory, including snails, oysters, cheese, etc., things way past their expiration date, and very bad (cheap) Chinese food. But this, no. I had bought 40 bags of the stuff that sit unused in my cupboard. Maybe Soylent is way…

A pill is probably pretty close to impossible. Even pure fat only has 9 calories per gram. 2000 calories is about 8 fl oz which you could (theoretically) drink, but would be a whole lot of pills.

8 fl oz = 25 cl, size of one serving of a small coke. That would be drinkable in 2-3 gulps so even if it's disgusting it's manageable... Maybe...

Re: Soylent Coffee: Nootropics, fat, carbs, protein

#79

Post by stevenwiles »

chjohasbrouck wrote: post #52
antisthenes wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that every sugary breakfast cereal and energy drink would seem quite healthy if all you looked at was the nutrition facts label. That is factually false, since their labels do quite accurately reflect that they consist of nothing more than carbs (and a bit of protein, for some cereals). I'm not sure how one would come to a conclusion that energy drinks are good for you from their nutrition label, unless you're assu…

Those are just two product categories well-known for their manipulation of the nutrition facts label, and there are definitely millions of consumers that think they confer health benefits as a result of how the nutrition facts label was manipulated. Most people think VitaminWater is healthy, and feel like they're doing something good for their body when they drink it. They'd probably be more discerning and come to a…

You don't seem to understand the difference between marketing on the package and the nutrition label. Do you acknowledge these are different?

Re: Soylent Coffee: Nootropics, fat, carbs, protein

#80

Post by stevenwiles »

Kalium wrote: post #64
toasterlovin wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have great news for you: you don't need to afford Soylent because healthy, cheap, easy to prepare food already exists. Whole milk is my favorite, but if you can't handle milk, cheese, nuts, and yogurt are all zero prep time and much cheaper per calorie than Soylent.

Those also mostly require storage infrastructure not always so readily available - I've lived out of a hotel room with no fridge before. Maybe the person is lactose-intolerant - some friends of mine are. Maybe they are OK with the cost increment for the amount of time it buys them. Or possibly they simply make personal choices about what they put in their own personal bodies differently than you.

Why would you write such a pointless, combative comment? You don't actually believe you're contributing to a discussion, do you?
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