Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 516 posts

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#101

Post by randomchars »

zck wrote: 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…

His "What's In Soylet" [0] article provides a little insight.

Carbohydrates (200g) 200 * 4 kcal = 800 kcal

Protein (50g) 50 * 4 kcal = 200 kcal

Fat (65g) 65 * 9 kcal = 585 kcal

That's a total of 1585 calories.

[0]: http://robrhinehart.com/?p=424

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#102

Post by unix-dude »

saidajigumi wrote: post #75

> a 24-year-old software engineer > ... > Soylent contains all of the nutritive components of a balanced diet What utter bollocks. We're (as in, scientists studying nutrition and how utterly wrong food industry has gotten that in the 20th and early 21st century) finally starting to get our collective heads around the benefits of whole foods vs. highly processed foods, and just how badly our bodies deal with the latte…

Though I dont share quite the same level of negativity towards the idea (Personally, I think it'd be amazing to be able to give up food for something that is nutritious and safe), I definitely share your concerns.

It is possible that the nutrient powder (and similar) industry hasn't given much thought to this idea because its radical and potentially risky, especially as a business venture where legal liability might be very, very high (all it takes is one person to die or be seriously injured as a result of this drink, and they are in big trouble). I'd say that IF any of these supplement producers did consider this type of drink, they probably dismissed it as too risky (both legally and financially, as I don't see the demand exploding for this).

Also, he's not claiming that he has solved any problem. He's only claiming that after some research, he whipped up this drink, and that it seems to be working fine for his body chemistry. In fact, he's pretty clear about this being experimental and potentially dangerous (Though apparently there have been no negative effects as of now). I think its a really interesting idea, but nonetheless, I'd feel much better if he was a scientist focusing on a similar field. This seems like the exact kind of thing where small, seemingly unimportant details may propagate into significant risk.

I seriously wish him well though. Personally, I wouldn't do much more than use this as a supplement (perhaps to replace lunch), but Im not the risky type when it comes to things like this.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#103

Post by criley »

saidajigumi wrote: post #75

> a 24-year-old software engineer > ... > Soylent contains all of the nutritive components of a balanced diet What utter bollocks. We're (as in, scientists studying nutrition and how utterly wrong food industry has gotten that in the 20th and early 21st century) finally starting to get our collective heads around the benefits of whole foods vs. highly processed foods, and just how badly our bodies deal with the latte…

You sound like an industry-insider explaining why a new startup will fail. "They're too young!" "They don't have the experience" "We've devoted our LIVES to figuring this out, one kid in his basement didn't do it in a few weeks!" Etc etc

No offense but we've heard the exact same thing about every successful idea.

And what's more:

People look at the human GI totally wrong anyway. They think, what can I put in to get the best results? When in reality, the human GI evolved to support an extremely broad range of inputs as it's most significant factor.

With humans all over the earth eating an extremely disparate diet pre-civilization (and even post), the most significant factor of the human GI was it's ability to handle the wide variety of chemically diverse inputs and provide a consistent, reliable output.

So why do you approach this, which is nothing more than a new input, and claim that the output is going to be different? Dangerous? Impossible?

Seems to me like you're indignant with a touch of ego: "How dare he pretend to do my job. It's an insult to me that he is doing this!" That's the feeling I get from you reading this post.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#104

Post by dxbydt »

zanny wrote: post #88
dxbydt wrote: 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…

If you took it to production you could just distribute a mixer that has compartments for independent ingredients, maybe even go so far as to standardize cartage sizes of them to use as a fixed insert, have them delivered regularly, and plug them in to make your nutrient sludge once a day. Then just go a step further, have it delivered by automated transport, brew itself, and you just go grab a cup of juice to keep yo…

>standardize cartage sizes...have them delivered regularly

When I first arrived in the USA in 1995 as a CS student, I was surprised to see these identical Walmarts. They were all the same - same aisles, same items in those aisles, same prices, same senior citizens manning the checkout counters.. So I asked the gent at the checkout counter - Sir, instead of me coming to your Walmart every weekend to buy groceries, why doesn't Walmart standardize on groceries & deliver them weekly to all American citizens ? Huge savings on driving costs, shopping time,...

He looked at me and said - Son, that's called communism.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#105

Post by electronvolt »

zck wrote: 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…

Given the recipe on his blog, from just carbohydrates, protein, and fat (at 4 cal/gram, 4 cal/gram, 9 cal/gram respectively), he's consuming -at least- 1585 calories a day.

(It says 200 grams of carbs, 65 grams of fat, 50 grams of protein)

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#106

Post by JPKab »

saidajigumi wrote: post #75

> a 24-year-old software engineer > ... > Soylent contains all of the nutritive components of a balanced diet What utter bollocks. We're (as in, scientists studying nutrition and how utterly wrong food industry has gotten that in the 20th and early 21st century) finally starting to get our collective heads around the benefits of whole foods vs. highly processed foods, and just how badly our bodies deal with the latte…

Agreed. You said it all.

One fair point (in defense of the Scrawny Pale Guy Diet he is advocating) is that the food industry in general devotes a large majority of its funding to making foods that TASTE really really good. If that gets in the way of nutrition, taste wins every time.

But you are correct in the fact that this is crazy. Hell, I drank and smoked a lot when I was 24, and still looked healthier than this guy. Does that mean that I stumbled across an amazing new diet of beer, burgers, and weed when I was 24?

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#107

Post by CapitalistCartr »

jgj wrote: post #99
saidajigumi wrote: post #75

> a 24-year-old software engineer > ... > Soylent contains all of the nutritive components of a balanced diet What utter bollocks. We're (as in, scientists studying nutrition and how utterly wrong food industry has gotten that in the 20th and early 21st century) finally starting to get our collective heads around the benefits of whole foods vs. highly processed foods, and just how badly our bodies deal with the latte…

First off, thanks for dampening the enthusiasm I was feeling after reading the OP. I would love to hear your thoughts on what, specifically, his formula is/may be missing. I can think of nothing more amazing than to consume a magic glass of nutrition a day and be done, and your post has given me pause.

The biggest problem isn't what he's clearly missing; its what he's missing that we don't know about, and won't suffer any consequences for years. Saidajigumi's comment about whole foods is appropriate: whole foods have better results than any manufactured powder or drink made, but its not clear why. And how long will it take before he experiences the results?

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#109

Post by zeteo »

saidajigumi wrote: post #75

> a 24-year-old software engineer > ... > Soylent contains all of the nutritive components of a balanced diet What utter bollocks. We're (as in, scientists studying nutrition and how utterly wrong food industry has gotten that in the 20th and early 21st century) finally starting to get our collective heads around the benefits of whole foods vs. highly processed foods, and just how badly our bodies deal with the latte…

>an impatient _software engineer_ comes along and claims to have [succeeded with a] task that specialists have so far failed at

The guy who invented the spreadsheet didn't have to absorb all available accounting literature first, and Elon Musk didn't spend 30 years in the Apollo program before being allowed to send his own rocket to space. Nutrition is a field full of pseudoscience and highly susceptible to disruption. People should be encouraged to try new things here. If this guy is wrong it's at his own cost, and if right the potential benefits are enormous.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#110

Post by jgj »

unix-dude wrote: post #102
saidajigumi wrote: post #75

> a 24-year-old software engineer > ... > Soylent contains all of the nutritive components of a balanced diet What utter bollocks. We're (as in, scientists studying nutrition and how utterly wrong food industry has gotten that in the 20th and early 21st century) finally starting to get our collective heads around the benefits of whole foods vs. highly processed foods, and just how badly our bodies deal with the latte…

Though I dont share quite the same level of negativity towards the idea (Personally, I think it'd be amazing to be able to give up food for something that is nutritious and safe), I definitely share your concerns. It is possible that the nutrient powder (and similar) industry hasn't given much thought to this idea because its radical and potentially risky, especially as a business venture where legal liability might…

> It is possible that the nutrient powder (and similar) industry hasn't given much thought to this idea because its radical and potentially risky

It may also be the case that "drink one of these a day and lose weight" is more marketable than "drink one of these a day and never eat real food again" ;)

Post reply on HN