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Two Months of Soylent

robrhinehart.com

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Re: Two Months of Soylent

#51

Post by damian2000 »

username111 wrote: post #27
Semaphor wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly the only two things I'm missing on low carb are ice cream (that's okay though) and coke (which is why I'm searching for a pure stevia alternative). I had way less problems then I would have expected. edit: a) I'm in Germany, not that many products available here. b) I always steered clear of Coca Cola, Pepsi and so on, those were too sweet for me and the caffeine level was rather low anyway.

Have you tried just the fizzy flavored water you can buy at the grocery store? The taste takes some getting used to (not really sweet when compared to cokes) but I've found that what I liked most about soda is the fizz. After dropping soda I can't even drink half a can because of the sweetness but YMMV.

You could try plain soda water flavoured with a small amount of concentrated cordial/squash.

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#52

Post by Semaphor »

username111 wrote: post #27
Semaphor wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly the only two things I'm missing on low carb are ice cream (that's okay though) and coke (which is why I'm searching for a pure stevia alternative). I had way less problems then I would have expected. edit: a) I'm in Germany, not that many products available here. b) I always steered clear of Coca Cola, Pepsi and so on, those were too sweet for me and the caffeine level was rather low anyway.

Have you tried just the fizzy flavored water you can buy at the grocery store? The taste takes some getting used to (not really sweet when compared to cokes) but I've found that what I liked most about soda is the fizz. After dropping soda I can't even drink half a can because of the sweetness but YMMV.

I like the slightly bitter taste of cola and of course the caffeine.

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#53

Post by Swizec »

bsmith wrote: post #7

> Some people tell me going "ketogenic", or reducing carbs is healthy. I am now skeptical of this claim as lowering carbs makes me feel hungry and tired, and the drink taste less sweet. Perhaps it would be possible after an unpleasant transition period, but I don’t see the ultimate gain... Their advice seems to fall in line with the paleo/primal philosophies—in a nutshell: man only started eating a significant amount…

I don't eat sugar sugar anymore, but consume plenty of fruits, so I wouldn't consider myself addicted to sugar.

However, I simply could not eat enough calories through the day to fit my lifestyle without eating carbs. I tried, it didn't work. Burning ~400 calories every day before breakfast and adding another ~900 calorie burn at boxing practice every two days ... just nope.

I can't even fulfill my caloric goal when eating carbs on the days I have boxing. My stomach can't process that much food.[1]

When I was strict about avoiding carbs, I lost about 5 or 6 kilograms quite quickly. Took me about 11 months of grain eating and concerted attempts at a caloric surplus to gain back the weight.

[1] One of the strangest feelings I have ever felt is being hungry while having such a full stomach it feels eating another bite will make you vomit. This often happens after boxing when I mess up my "every 3 hours" eating schedule and haven't eaten enough calories before going to practice.

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#54

Post by atdrummond »

intopieces wrote: post #45
tieTYT wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just drink diet coke?

Diet Coke contains HFCS, and is no better for you than regular coke. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/11/diet-soda-diabetes-...

Diet Coke does not contain high fructose corn syrup. (http://www.livestrong.com/article/258491-ingredients-nutriti...)

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#56

Post by discodave »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #8
tantalor wrote: post #3

How exactly does Soylent solve world hunger? I've heard we produce more than enough food to solve hunger already, and much is wasted. Is the food too expensive? Is Soylent much more shelf stable?

The components of Soylent (as listed in an earlier blog post) are chemically stable at room temperature. (caveat the probiotics). (this from looking them up in the 'rubber bible' [1]) I would expect you could spoil them if they got too hot (oxidizing) but other than that doesn't look too bad. Assuming the $150/month calculated, that's still pretty pricey for someone who makes $1-$2 a day in wages. Its not clear to me…

Also the price is entirely dictated by the market... If everybody was drinking soylent the price of the ingredients would go up.

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#57

Post by paxtonab »

"I didn't give up food, I just got rid of the bad food."

After reading the 1st HN abut this I was skeptical, but this sentence fully convinced me that Rinehart is on to something. Imagine a world with a quick, healthy, affordable lunch substitute that negated the 'need' to eat fast food when you feel pressed for time at work... Thankfully this only happens to me 2 or 3 times a month , but I'm guessing that for most of America that's more like 2 or 3 times a week.

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#58

Post by onan_barbarian »

andrewfelix wrote: post #46
bsmith wrote: post #7

> Some people tell me going "ketogenic", or reducing carbs is healthy. I am now skeptical of this claim as lowering carbs makes me feel hungry and tired, and the drink taste less sweet. Perhaps it would be possible after an unpleasant transition period, but I don’t see the ultimate gain... Their advice seems to fall in line with the paleo/primal philosophies—in a nutshell: man only started eating a significant amount…

"in a nutshell: man only started eating a significant amount of carbohydrates about 10,000 years ago." This is a myth and patently wrong. Anatomically modern humans evolved on a diet of cooked food, the bulk of which was tubers and other root vegetables. EDIT: 'tubas' -> 'tubers' derp.

This is also patently wrong; a paleolithic human could not have subsisted on a diet of tubas, as they were not invented until the mid-19th century.

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#59

Post by juiceandjuice »

vinceguidry wrote: post #21
geoka9 wrote: post #12

Sorry, but after reading the following (elsewhere on that blog), I'm hard-pressed not to dismiss this as an elaborate troll. "I read a book on Number Theory in one sitting, a Differential Geometry book in a weekend, filling up a notebook in the process."

How is that implausible? He's an engineer by trade, mathematics is close enough to computer science that most half-way decent programmers should be able to read that level math casually given a good 'brain day'. I spent most of my twenties neglecting math, decided one day to learn calculus, found it pretty easy.

Comparing basic calculus to number theory is like comparing long division to calculus. Saying "oh I know how to take the derivative" is a bit different than knowing how to take the derivative of a complex expression by applying a taylor expansion to estimate the rate of change within .01%.

For number theory, there's a few things you could pick up fairly easily, like understanding what 1 and 3 mod 4 primes are, but there's no way you could do the homework in 1 weekend unless you've aced real analysis, and then maybe you could finish 10-20% of the homework (proofs) in a book in a weekend or so.

Many engineers I've met can't even handle using proof by induction to solve a proof.

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#60

Post by suchire »

lukifer wrote: post #47
nawitus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10k years is plenty enough: http://www.salon.com/2013/03/10/paleofantasy_stone_age_delus... In fact, 10k years is enough for dogs to have evolved to digest carbs a lot better. There's even specific genes that are known to help that.

Just because those genes exist doesn't mean they're evenly distributed. For example, look at the spectrum of lactose tolerance: some people do just fine, some people get a little gassy, some people get severely ill.

Yes but that mostly is distributed according to dairy consumption from around 500 years ago. Grain consumption is widespread across the globe in almost every culture.
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