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This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

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Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#31
post #7

This is the kind of idea that will probably go nowhere, but could change the world. My first reaction, being an ardent lover of many ethnic cuisines, was "of course I'd never use something like that" but then I got to this line: Eating to me is a leisure activity, like going to the movies, but I don't want to go to the movies three times a day. Suddenly, I'm imagining "A DVR for eating." You have a steady intake of S…

I prefer the name Bachelor Chow myself, though I'd try Soylent as well. I wouldn't want to eat it for every meal but every once in a while I'm in such a hurry that it would be practical to do this for a period.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who instantly thought of Futurama. This does seem like a food product for people who are too lazy to make even a simple meal and clean afterwards.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#33

I read a textbook on physiological chemistry and took to the internet to see if I could find every known essential nutrient. The danger is that there are far more essential nutrients that we don't know about, than nutrients that we do. And the only way to get these nutrients is to eat a well balanced diet. That being said, this would be amazing if it works and I applaud him for trying.

This was exactly my thought, and I don't know how you mitigate the risk effectively. The problem with missing nutrients is the effects are often subtle, may not show up for a long time, and may be catastrophic.

Of course, the rebuttal is "eat food occasionally", but that may just postpone the outcome, making it even harder to know if it is safe.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#34
post #25

>Soylent contains all of the nutritive components of a balanced diet, but with just a third of the calories... This worries me. It's not a misquote, either. From his blog^0 : >...I get all the nutrition and energy I need with about 1/3 the calories the average American consumes... The average American consumes 2,757 calories^2 . There's a term called the Basal Metabolic Rate. It is the amount of calories your body ne…

Indeed, if I was to make this I would have to up the fats. If you're a health 5'10 175. You may have some fat you can burn.

I'm 6'2 and uh... not nearly that heavy. So I think this drink might be a bit dangerous for me, as it is.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#35

I think this is one of those "Whatever floats your boat" kind of things. For me, as with others, eating is something I enjoy, not a chore, and I look forward to food. Also, I'm not sure how one's social interactions work in this world, especially since so much that is tied around food.

I look forward to food, but not paying $8 a day to eat lunch from one of two crappy places I can easily get to from work. Nor the weight gain that comes from them. Obviously I could pack a lunch, but I hate that shit. If this could actually sustain me I would consider it for breakfast/lunch with a real dinner. Clearly I could probably get away with an off the shelf replacement for those meals though...

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#37

Call me superstitious, but I believe there are unknown unknowns in our understanding of nutrition. The human body evolved eating various fibrous things. I'm not going to run that kind of experiment on myself.

Many, many people already do far, far worse to themselves with a steady diet of fast food and other trash.

I don't think we're as delicate as you're worrying. Heck, for those people, this is probably an easy step up.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#38
post #25

>Soylent contains all of the nutritive components of a balanced diet, but with just a third of the calories... This worries me. It's not a misquote, either. From his blog^0 : >...I get all the nutrition and energy I need with about 1/3 the calories the average American consumes... The average American consumes 2,757 calories^2 . There's a term called the Basal Metabolic Rate. It is the amount of calories your body ne…

I wonder if it's an efficiency thing.

Maybe the human body is not efficient when eating heavy, processed things like bread, steak, etc. etc.

Is it possible that by eating only what is essential, and in the right balances, the body is more efficient and can extract more useable energy from what goes in?

And obviously the mix is different for every person / body type / activity level etc. You can't do this kind of thing and not watch your weight, blood content, etc. carefully.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#39
post #22

If he's a true programmer, he'd code up an iphone app that controls an arduino that mixes up the precise amounts of amino acids, boron, saccharides, glucose and polyphenols for the perfect Soylent to start his day. Maybe even post his objective C on github so I can issue a pull request with 200% more boron. You know, here in the bay area, we have plants that tweet when they run out of water. I can rig up a tweetbot s…

"plants that tweet when they run out of water."

Get off my damn lawn.

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