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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

#281

Post by jessaustin »

janezhu wrote: post #233

Why are people are having such a visceral reaction to this idea? Finding alternatives to solid, "fresh" food is an issue we will have address in the near future, if not right now. With forecasts about population growth rapidly rising (We said it would reach 10 billion by 2100. It only took 13 years to jump from 6-7 billion.) This could be implemented not only for hunger in impoverished nations, but for world overpopu…

You're right, but sadly this innovation, if it works, has the potential to make the problem worse. Human population, like any population of any organism, will grow logistically approaching some limiting factor. If we don't like a world in which 10B people are limited by agricultural capacity, we'd like a world in which 100B people are limited by something else even less.

The solution is to find cultural limits lower than our agricultural limits. It's possible that we've already done this, and we won't know it until all of Africa undergoes the demographic transition. (Please note: by cultural limits I mean things like changing family norms rather than forced sterilization, resource-motivated warfare, and other such monstrous practices.)

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#283

Post by joering2 »

saidajigumi wrote: post #157
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…

> 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…

> I certainly don't want to rain on some new visionary's parade,

so stop.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#284

Post by mark-r »

csomar wrote: post #222
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 whe…

> being stupid help solve BIG problems.

Many new things were invented by people who had no idea how large the problems were when they started.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#286

Post by mikeash »

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…

I don't understand this. Let's say you took all the components of a healthy diet, then blended them together into a drink like this and consumed it. How would that be any different from eating the components separately? Your intestines don't know or care that a blender got to the food first.

Maybe this particular example is missing something, I don't know. But you seem opposed to the very concept, which makes no sense to me. Why does it matter whether you take your food in as a bland mix or as individual pre-blended components?

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#287

Post by jessaustin »

DanBC wrote: post #279
jessaustin wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This optimization is premature in that he's trying to optimize for time and effort when we haven't yet nailed — in terms of fully understanding — the whole "optimal nutrition" thing. Yet every single chef in every single restaurant and every single cook in every single home also optimizes for performance, although not quite as exclusively as Soylent Dude. I think you haven't articulated your actual complaint here.

> Yet every single chef in every single restaurant and every single cook in every single home also optimizes for performance, No they don't - they often optimise for taste. Some people accidentally get adequate nutrition because they eat so much food, and some of that food is fortified with micronutrients.

optimise for taste

...and texture, and price, and familiarity, and ethical sourcing, and religious approval, and cetera, and cetera. Maybe you don't care about halal or free-range, but some people do.

Like I said, Soylent Dude is more exclusive in his optimization, but I still contradict the proposition that, "This optimization is premature..." How could it be premature when every human food preparer has been doing it since the invention of fire?

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#288

Post by commandar »

papsosouid wrote: post #228
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.

>Those low carb diets are also diets that reduce your ability to engage in strenuous activities

That's because low carb diets cause stored glycogen in muscles to be shed. That glycogen is used by the muscles for immediate energy during anaerobic exercise (e.g., weight lifting) when a sudden burst of energy is needed. It has less effect on aerobic exercise like running. You can still lift heavy things in a glycogen-depleted state; you will be come fatigued sooner, though.

>and cause muscle wasting

That's not really true. Extremely low carb diets were in use by body builders during the cutting phase of their routines for decades before they gained any sort of mainstream popularity, specifically because they they allow retention of muscle mass while shedding fat.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#289

Post by cma »

hirenj wrote: post #224
DanBC wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Maybe he was thinking of midi-chlorians? Those are totally legit when they show up in a peer-reviewed journal.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#290

Post by scotty79 »

I was wondering why while there is "dog food" there's no "people food". Only reason I came up with that if they got anything wrong and person who would eat only "people food" had anything wrong with his health he would sue the company for millions.
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