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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

#221

Post by irahul »

lucisferre wrote: post #50
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…

Actually there is a lot of evidence to show that calorie restriction can lead to longer lifespans. I'm not a nutritionist, doctor or someone who is on a calorie restriction diet (though I'm sure I eat less than the average American). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction

The article doesn't support "calori restriction" -> "longer lifespan"

No clinical trial has been performed involving humans. Two trials have been performed involving primates, but have not demonstrated increases in median lifespan. A study of rhesus monkeys begun in 1987 by the National Institute on Aging published results in August 2012 that found evidence of health benefits, but did not demonstrate increased median lifespan.[2] A study by the University of Wisconsin beginning in 1989 is still ongoing.[1][3][4] Research on maximum life span in that study is still ongoing.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#222

Post by csomar »

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…

Look, as a Medical student, I agree with what you are saying regarding the challenges that faces solving such a problem.

But, being stupid help solve BIG problems. This guy is risking his health for the sake of science. He has a very high risk/reward ratio. I don't think he is not serious. He is not even trying in animals (which I thought he was doing before reading the rest of the article). He's obviously stupid when it comes to experimentation, but this is when it yields interesting results.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#223

Post by klipt »

nickheer wrote: post #137

I (half-Swiss) like efficiency as much as the next HN reader, but at a certain point, efficiency must be weighed against enjoyability. I can't imagine not eating a delicious roasted vegetable strudel with a balsamic vinegar reduction, or potatoes with crème fraîche and chives in puff pastry. I delight in the delicacy required to prepare these items, and enjoy eating them even more. Cooking is (obviously) an activity…

> Not everything needs to be optimized for efficiency. If you've ever been to France, you'll know that many people spend an hour or more at breakfast. It slows people down, and provides them a chance to think, contemplate, and relax. Sometimes, the very act of something being inefficient can be beneficial in its own right.

I think the Buddha would agree.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#224

Post by hirenj »

DanBC wrote: post #190
saidajigumi wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You sound like an industry-insider explaining why a new startup will fail. I certainly don't want to rain on some new visionary's parade, but I spend a lot of time tracking folks who I consider to be the real visionaries in this field. As in we are currently in the midst of the greatest revolution in human health of our lives, and this guy is running in the wrong direction. We're seeing astonishing results with die…

> Dr. Terry Wahls, "Minding Your Mitochondria": She needs some reputation management, because at the moment there's a bunch of flags that make her sound less than reputable. 1) "Mitochondra" - unless this is a peer reviewed respected journal most people using htis word are cranks. 2) TEDx - Sadly, now tainted as home of cranks. 3) Cured MS through diet - ridiculous claim etc etc.

I would appreciate it you'd elaborate on your first point about mitochondria here. I'm intrigued to find out why this term is highly suspicious. Are there other organelles that are less crank-like to you?

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#225

Post by gingerlime »

yasth wrote: post #173
criley wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Except this isn't new software. There is an actual answer to what this purports to be, i.e. a complete nutritional food. It is a very hard question to answer, and even if you had the absolute top minds of the industry making a food source in this manner you'd be provably messing up badly as recently as ten years ago. You'd probably be messing up today but we don't even know how at the moment. I mean look at the warni…

you summed it up nicely.

6 weeks on some combination of stuff that contains good things like olive and fish oil and other nutrients can't be as bad as the 'supersize me' diet, and even he managed to survive for 30 days...

hardly scientific or even "common-sense" evidence of any long-term viability.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#226

Post by papsosouid »

recuter wrote: post #20

I have Crohn's and as a result had periods in my life where I was on a liquid diet of something called Modulen for weeks and months at a time. http://www.nestlehealthscience.com/products/modulen_ibd A similar, more familiar product: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensure Pretty terrible experience. I had to drink close to a dozen cups of the stuff a day and it didn't go down easy. The stuff worked however and I went bac…

>It seems like this perhaps guy created a better version than Nestle on account of it actually tasting good

I just want to point out that it doesn't actually taste good. He says it does, but try mixing whey powder, olive oil, and maltodextrin in water and drink it. It tastes fucking awful.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#227

Post by derleth »

saidajigumi wrote: post #182
JPKab wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

> If that gets in the way of nutrition, taste wins every time. It's actually worse than that. A major current research thread is on the low-level mechanisms of "food reward" and the interaction of the brain and obesity. For example, Stephan Guyenet at the University of Washinton researches this area[1]. Even if nutrition is fine, hyper-palatable foods[2] can have a negative impact on health for a variety of reasons.…

Do you have a better source than someone's blog?

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#228

Post by papsosouid »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #46

From the "recipe"[1]: This mechanism can also metabolize protein and fat, but the brain can only use Glucose for energy. In fact, the brain uses 25% of the body's glucose, though it accounts for only 2% of its weight. This would have me concerned if I were considering this. While 100% true, it neglects the entire ketone metabolic pathway[2], which the brain will use fine instead of glucose. If this something big like…

Those low carb diets are also diets that reduce your ability to engage in strenuous activities, and cause muscle wasting. The idea is to be healthy, not to lose weight or treat epilepsy.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#229

Post by derleth »

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…

> the benefits of whole foods vs. highly processed foods, and just how badly our bodies deal with the latter

This sounds like the naturalistic fallacy.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#230

Post by learc83 »

rosser wrote: post #144
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…

But that won't make up for the glop's likely deficiencies. Exactly. Yeah, he seems to have done a pretty good job of making sure his glop includes all the things we know we need. It includes exactly zero of the things we don't know we need.

Ignoring the processed/liquid aspect--maybe you could randomize the recipe a bit each time to account for our incomplete understanding.
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