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Soylent Month Three

robrhinehart.com

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Re: Soylent Month Three

#91

Post by ImprovedSilence »

aprescott wrote: post #11
huhtenberg wrote: post #2

At the risk of stating the obvious - this is all good and the experiment he's running is very interesting, but - no. I really like eating tasty food. Not for the nutrients, but for the experience. Similarly to how I really like sleeping in a comfortable bed and taking a hot shower daily even though, technically, I can rest as well on a bare floor and shower once a week. To each his own, but some things are just too u…

This seems to be a common complaint, and the response seems to frequently be: you don't need to replace all your food intake. 50% of the time you eat you might find it tedious and boring, so you can leave the other 50% for pleasurable eating and cooking or whatever else you enjoy about non-clinical cuisine!

Finally, someone else gets it! This drink has the total package, much more so than any ensure or power bar. If I could wipe out breakfast and lunch, and enjoy normal dinners, and be healtheir, hell yeah. or skip lunch, and eat a light dinner, and a glass of solyent in hte evening, money. You don't need to go whole hog on this, but it's a fantastic idea to try to optimise you nutrient intake regardless. Plus ease and connivence, win win win.

Re: Soylent Month Three

#92

Post by rgbrenner »

hesdeadjim wrote: post #69

I'm concerned less with the long term health effects of this diet as it relates to missing nutrients, and much more concerned about quality control of the individual ingredients themselves. Who's actually checking that, say, the vitamin A palmitate coming from a supplier actually contains the dose requested, and additionally that it contains no other contaminates? The supplement world is like the wild west as far as…

You reminded me of the consumer reports review of whey.. not just small companies... EAS (a $300m division of Abbott labs (a $38b company)) exceeded the limit of arsenic and cadmium: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2010/06/protei...

Re: Soylent Month Three

#93

Post by randallsquared »

tptacek wrote: post #56
zeteo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This premise assumes we understand, with no uncertainty, how the human body functions and utilizes nutrients [but] this is still a huge mystery to science If "no uncertainty" was the golden standard, we'd never do anything new (except perhaps mathematics). Yes, there is uncertainty in what he's doing, as there is always when trying something truly novel. But I'm sure glad someone is making the attempt. Nutrients are…

If you set yourself on fire, your flesh will burn and you will eventually die horribly. It is less clear what happens if you expose yourself to repeated small amounts of radiation. See the problem with your logic?

It's not clear whether you mean to imply vitamin D production or cancer, which makes your reply much less cutting. :)

Re: Soylent Month Three

#94

Post by bsimpson »

mistercow wrote: post #72
bsimpson wrote: post #25

I'd be concerned about the long-term side effects of having little diversity in one's diet. It's been alleged that diabetes is caused by overconsumption of processed sugar and heart disease is caused by overconsumption of red meat. Either of those things in moderation is fine. Most people don't eat a consistent dose of for instance oat powder every day. It's likely that he's chosen at least one ingredient that is har…

But the whole point is that soylent is moderation. Everything in it is balanced, so if you eat only soylent, then (in theory) you shouldn't be getting too much of anything. >It's likely that he's chosen at least one ingredient that is harmless in moderation, but is detrimental to your health over time. Why do you believe that that is likely? >It's also quite possible that there are other things he's underdosing on an…

Because there probably hasn't ever been a person who consumed a particular batch of refined nutrients for nearly every meal, and we don't know nearly enough about how the body processes food considering how long we, as a species, have been eating it.

Admittedly, I don't know much about what's in soylent, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turns out that eating refined XXX powder in every meal is bad for you, where XXX is an ingredient that he's using to get enough of a particular nutrient.

Re: Soylent Month Three

#95

Post by nathan_f77 »

huhtenberg wrote: post #2

At the risk of stating the obvious - this is all good and the experiment he's running is very interesting, but - no. I really like eating tasty food. Not for the nutrients, but for the experience. Similarly to how I really like sleeping in a comfortable bed and taking a hot shower daily even though, technically, I can rest as well on a bare floor and shower once a week. To each his own, but some things are just too u…

I think you are missing the point. Rob is using this as a replacement for boring food. The same stuff you eat every day for breakfast and lunch.

When he does choose to eat a tasty meal with friends or family, I think those meals would be even more delicious.

Re: Soylent Month Three

#96

Post by yew »

tptacek wrote: post #56
zeteo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This premise assumes we understand, with no uncertainty, how the human body functions and utilizes nutrients [but] this is still a huge mystery to science If "no uncertainty" was the golden standard, we'd never do anything new (except perhaps mathematics). Yes, there is uncertainty in what he's doing, as there is always when trying something truly novel. But I'm sure glad someone is making the attempt. Nutrients are…

If you set yourself on fire, your flesh will burn and you will eventually die horribly. It is less clear what happens if you expose yourself to repeated small amounts of radiation. See the problem with your logic?

Er, no? People repeatedly expose themselves to small amounts of radiation all the time. X-rays, sunlight, airplanes, astronauts, living anywhere with large quantities of granite rock . . .

Really, that seems to be totally irrelevant to whether or not this guy is on to something. (Personally, I think he's probably running a long con. But making stupid arguments against con men is just a way to send them more victims. Ask for some evidence instead - arguments screen off authority.)

Re: Soylent Month Three

#97

Post by darkxanthos »

DanBC wrote: post #31
TheCapn wrote: post #22

"surely we can make food that is tastier, cheaper, and more nutritious than anything that exists naturally." This premise assumes we understand, with no uncertainty, how the human body functions and utilizes nutrients. Since this is still a huge mystery to science (and much of what we "know" currently is just guesswork) any 100% simulated food diet will only prove to be "better" by a stroke of luck. We've seen his po…

> if he's created something that is truly capable of sustaining health for the lifetime of a person he should be rewarded Why? The world isn't short of food. Food is just poorly distributed, or contaminated, or with insufficient micronutrients. None of those problems are solved by this type of feed. Sometimes there's a need for crisis feeding of a population - during a famine or feeding lots of people in a evacuee ca…

What's this "high quality" you speak of? None of it is FDA certified.

Re: Soylent Month Three

#98

Post by papa_bear »

jasallen wrote: post #59
tolmasky wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, thats precisely my point: I think you underestimate how many people eat McDonalds or what-have-you every day . The interesting thing about this phenomenon is that I think it takes place all over the spectrum: the poor do it as well as the rich. Perhaps you do not see this as much because you are a self-described health nut (and thus this diet probably isn't for you, the same way an Alienware computer isn't for…

haha, I really hope you are right about the problem space. I'm currently building a company that hopes to solve exactly the "forget about food and then are starving and make a bad decision" problem. Not ready to say more yet, but again, sure hope you're right :-) Anyway, if it's that thing to have on stand-by, I'm sure its ok, but so is an Ensure, a Balance Bar, a Slim-Fast, etc, so again, no real innovation here.

I'd also be interested in a signup form

Re: Soylent Month Three

#99

Post by darkxanthos »

tolmasky wrote: post #26
TheCapn wrote: post #22

"surely we can make food that is tastier, cheaper, and more nutritious than anything that exists naturally." This premise assumes we understand, with no uncertainty, how the human body functions and utilizes nutrients. Since this is still a huge mystery to science (and much of what we "know" currently is just guesswork) any 100% simulated food diet will only prove to be "better" by a stroke of luck. We've seen his po…

So the way I look at this critique is that most people in the US are running a parallel experiment with their bodies, only instead of the input being Soylent, it's garbage like fast food. It's true, we don't understand how the human body operates - whether you're eating McDonald's, or organic, or Soylent. So given that the baseline seems to be an equally untested and probably more detrimental food choice, this comple…

I recently started using a meal replacement shake as my primary food source and this is exactly how I respond to the nay sayers.

The same thing happened when I became a vegetarian (how will you get your protein??). When you do something abnormal like this people tend to have ill thought out emotional reactions.

The biggest valid criticism is the QA process. But it's an issue with all meal replacement shakes.

Re: Soylent Month Three

#100

Post by robertskmiles »

TheCapn wrote: post #22

"surely we can make food that is tastier, cheaper, and more nutritious than anything that exists naturally." This premise assumes we understand, with no uncertainty, how the human body functions and utilizes nutrients. Since this is still a huge mystery to science (and much of what we "know" currently is just guesswork) any 100% simulated food diet will only prove to be "better" by a stroke of luck. We've seen his po…

> This premise assumes we understand, with no uncertainty, how the human body functions and utilizes nutrients.

It really doesn't. Whatever knowledge we do have can be applied, with whatever degree of certainty we have, and that is likely to be better than what we do currently, because what we do currently is basically nothing. Most people, most of the time, eat what they feel like, combined with some vague ideas about calories and fat, and whatever they read in a magazine last week if they're particularly conscientious. In other words, guesswork. Except this is guesswork that's almost totally uninformed. No, we can't be certain about this stuff yet, but what you call "guesswork" i.e. Our best hypothesis given all the information we have about the functioning of the human digestive system, is almost certainly going to be better than the current state of affairs, which is pretty much stab-in-the-dark randomness. It's really not hard to beat.

> any 100% simulated food diet will only prove to be "better" by a stroke of luck.

If you manage to find an optimal diet by choosing foods you think of as 'healthy' and trying to avoid cookies, well that's a stroke of luck. Deliberate scientific optimisation by adjustment, experimentation and measurement? That's not luck.

We invented vaccination more than half a century before we had even accepted the Germ Theory of disease, and the history of science is full of such things. You don't need full understanding with no uncertainty in order to figure out what works. Science is neat like that.

What's it called when a person has an irrational preference for the current state of affairs? Look it up, because you have it.

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