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Two Months of Soylent

robrhinehart.com

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Re: Two Months of Soylent

#221

Post by illuminate »

samstave wrote: post #82
allforJesse wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's the question that's gone unasked, because we're focusing (understandably) on the health implications first: Could Soylent be scalably produced to feed 10% or more of the world's population? Would the material prices skyrocket in response to demand? Let's set aside the physiological consequences for a moment, what are the potential economic and environmental ramifications of Soylent?

The counter question is how cheaply is Abott's liquid food product produced? The profit margin on their product, I suspect, is pretty large. Why aren't liquid foods like this being supplied to under-nourished children in the 3rd world already? Because they are not a profit source. The world is optimizing to the wealthy. Whole Foods isn't cheap for a reason.

"Why aren't liquid foods like this being supplied to under-nourished children in the 3rd world already?"

There is an abundance of food, it just doesn't get to where it needs to go because the rest of those governments' infrastructure need to be fixed along with the starving children.

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#222

Post by illuminate »

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-...

I would suggest not using HuffPo for "science" and "health" advice.

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#223

Post by illuminate »

rthomas6 wrote: post #206
mamoswined wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole thing is hilarious. Sorry, but nutrition is not like math or C++, where you can teach it to yourself by googling things and reading textbooks. Has he even read the massive body of research on food replacement in the form of parenteral and enteral nutrition? For those people it's a matter of life or death, since many patients are incapable of eating. They have to do a lot better than he does.

>Sorry, but nutrition is not like math or C++, where you can teach it to yourself by googling things and reading textbooks. That's probably true, but hopefully one day nutrition science will be on that level. Perhaps then a much smaller amount of people will have things like obesity and type II diabetes.

"hopefully one day nutrition science will be on that level"

No other field of hard science is, anyone who offers an alternative is probably selling you snake oil.

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#224

Post by illuminate »

jaggederest wrote: post #125
electronvolt wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using your marathon analogy: A marathon is usually run in about four and a half hours. The best marathon runners in the world (i.e. current record holders) ran one in about 2 hours. The university that I'm at has about 45-48 hours of classroom instruction per semester; you're expected to spend between two and three times that preparing; that's an assumption of between 135 and 192 hours of work per semester. I find th…

> The take away is that it's very easy to fool yourself into thinking you've learned a lot from a math book when you're reading it like a novel. In practice, though, if you aren't doing the exercises (or if they don't exist, working through your own), then you probably aren't actually engaging with the material in any deep and significant way. Agreed. That doesn't mean he didn't read it and glean a little from it tho…

"Agreed, it just smacked of elitism to say that it's not possible to read a textbook without interpretation or instruction."

The persons who mention that in order to impress others tend to not be the ones who learn the most.

"That sort of doctrinaire thinking is just bad policy."

Is it impossible? No. Is it likely considering the context? No.

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#225

Post by illuminate »

NuZZ wrote: post #178

"Scars that I'd had for years are barely visible now." Anyone have any idea whatthe root (ingredient) of this subjective observation may be?

Agreed with lilsunnybee, but these claims make it incredibly hard to take the rest seriously. The author is an unreliable narrator.

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#226

Post by Retric »

illuminate wrote: post #219
Retric wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People do still get scurvy simply by mostly eating cooked foods. It's still rare, but not that uncommon among collage students. The sad thing is while vitamin deficiency is actually fairly common it's often a slow process and the body can cope fairly well so it's less noticeable.

Vitamin deficiency to the point of ill health effects is not "fairly common". The persons who claim this are usually trying to push nutraceuticals at the same time.

By common I mean it's something that your average General practitioner doctor will encounter. Pregnant and Nursing mothers are often told to take supplements with good reason. Also of note absorption issues are just as important as diet which is one of the reason B12 shots for example are used to treat deficiency.

With that said, taking a daily multivitamin is often overkill taking it weekly is often just as useful. It's just that they are cheap enough that trying to figure out the ideal dose is generally a waste of time.

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#227

Post by tassl »

jckt wrote: post #152
tassl wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10K years hasn't been enough for cats, apparently. Plus, the lifespan of a dog is ~7 times shorter than the lifespan of a man, which will give them at least 7 generations more to adapt. Obviously there has been some adaptation to the change of diet, and it is also obvious that this diet was not letal to human (or nobody would have adopt it), but this does not implies that it is optimal for human consumption. Most peo…

More like 2-3 times shorter. Humans have barely gone past 30 years of age for most of the last 10k years, and I don't see how dogs' lifespans were improved in recent centuries.

Humans lifespan was that low since the high mortality rate the first months of life. After the first years, the expected lifespan increased dramatically. A humans need a few years to be able to reproduce and those who were able to have a longer lifespan. Even if the dogs didn't improve their lifespans (which honestly, I doubt they didn't) we are still in a similar ratio.

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#228

Post by jaggederest »

ricardobeat wrote: post #205
jaggederest wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the temperatures at which they become safe to eat (if applicable) Most modern food can be eaten raw. Or lightly seared to kill surface bacteria. Modern food safety is pretty neat. It probably won't taste great though. NB this does not apply to raw processed meat - for example, ground beef/pork/chicken is probably a bad bet. Surface area to volume ratios are key.

Tuna to the rescue. Delicious when seared but raw inside. If it wasn't for the mercury content...

Agreed, my two servings a month hardly count :(

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#229

Post by DanBC »

confluence wrote: post #120

This guy is effectively popularising something that has existed for ages in the medical/weight loss industries: namely medical food/meal replacement drinks. The difference is that he is using them daily, without paying the premium for an off the shelf, tested, and regulated version by doing it himself. My question for those more experienced in this area is: What well tested, off the shelf, medically regulated product…

Ensure and Ensure plus are one brand that come in a variety of flavours.

Re: Two Months of Soylent

#230

Post by DanBC »

markerdmann wrote: post #64

After reading the first Soylent post, I felt inspired to try and come up with a recipe for a "nutritionally complete" soup. I used an online tool that calculates the total nutrients for a recipe and came up with this: 3 potatoes 1 onion 500 grams of wild alaskan salmon 1/2 cup of mushrooms 3.5 tbsp of olive oil 30 grams of sunflower seeds 1 tbsp of dried parsley 2 tbsp of ground thyme 50 grams of parmesan cheese 3 cl…

Vitamin C is destroyed by heat.

I'm not sure where the iron is?

Is it safe to eat wild alaskan salmon every day?

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