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Soylent Month Three

robrhinehart.com

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Re: Soylent Month Three

#101

Post by yew »

huhtenberg wrote: post #24
aprescott wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

> 50% of the time you eat you might find it tedious and boring - I hate cats. All that fur, the smell... - Oh, you just don't know a good recipe Learn to cook, damn it :)

I know how to cook, but don't often have time to cook. I don't even always have access to a kitchen!

I used to have more time, and might again in the future - and if that happens, I'll go back to spending a few hours preparing dinner. Until then, I'd absolutely love to be able to eat a magic nutrition pill instead of grabbing a badly-made sandwich from the nearest shop. Especially if it's cheaper, too.

Re: Soylent Month Three

#102

Post by PeterisP »

grhino wrote: post #29
abstractbill wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, he's making something people want; I'm an existence proof, as are a few other commenters on this thread.

Will this be any different from Ensure or other meal replacement shakes but marketed differently? Is what he's doing any different from what's been done before?

All the meal replacement shakes explicitly state that they are NOT full replacements but only as a part of a balanced diet.

What I'm wondering is if that means that they are not trying to include 100% all nutrients, or is it just a legal claim to pretect them, since noone knows 100% all necessary nutrients.

Re: Soylent Month Three

#103

Post by PeterisP »

thangalin wrote: post #4

"If people had more self-control obesity would take care of itself." Obesity might be partly genetic. http://www.cdc.gov/genomics/resources/diseases/obesity/

Even, say, tendencies to sociopathy and violence are also partially genetic - if you have a genetic propensity towards obesity, it doesn't reduce your responsibility by a single inch, it simply means that you have to pay more attention and seriousness to avoid mangling your life.

Re: Soylent Month Three

#104

Post by longone »

darkxanthos wrote: post #99
tolmasky wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

May I ask specifically which meal replacement shake are you using? Which brand or are you making it or something?

Re: Soylent Month Three

#105

Post by GIFtheory »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #76

Another shameless plug for Soylent Orange. It's gratifying to see him bump his recipe towards mine in switching to oats. If you've never seen this before SO is the off the shelf version. It doesn't quite hit the same optimal micronutrient profile, but it gets you close. I find this + one meat based meal per day works pretty well. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjA38cUd4BZBdGZ... I have yet to do a prope…

The author makes a good point in that what is perfectly safe for one person may be deadly to another. Off the top of my head, one example of this is how some people are congenital 'super-absorbers' of iron. These people can develop iron overload from ingesting levels of iron that have no effect on ordinary people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_overload

Re: Soylent Month Three

#106

Post by dwild »

darkxanthos wrote: post #97
DanBC wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Tube feeding in hospital need "high quality" products and I'm sure it's FDA certified... http://abbottnutrition.com/categories/adult/adult-tube-feedi...

Re: Soylent Month Three

#107

Post by mistercow »

bsimpson wrote: post #94
mistercow wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, wh…

The problem with that is that fortification is already rampant in premade foods, and so most first-worlders are already eating these refined ingredients in every meal. Moreover, many people take one-a-day multivitamins which in a single dose, contain the same amount (and sometimes more) of the same refined ingredients in a day's worth of soylent.

Extensive studies have been done on the safety and efficacy of multivitamins, and while their utility for healthy people with balanced diets is a matter of debate, their safety (when taken at the recommended dose) is well established.

Re: Soylent Month Three

#109

Post by msutherl »

javert wrote: post #71
DanBC wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a bunch of different liquid feeds available. Well known brands include Ensure and Fortisip. ( https://www.nutricia.co.uk/fortisip// ) ( http://ensure.com/ ) These have the advantage of careful preparation and high standards of QA.

I would order Soylent right now if I could. So I'm pretty excited to find out about these. I had no idea they existed. FWIW, my diet now is like 95% red meat, with some cheese occasionally added in. What are the downsides of these compared to Soylent? I mean, what's the motivation for Soylent if these already exist?

Dude, get a pack of baby spinach and throw it in with the meat.

Re: Soylent Month Three

#110

Post by corresation »

orclev wrote: post #90
TheCapn wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't followed very closely because I don't really have interest in it (I like food, cooking, etc.) but I have to ask, if he's pushing this as a product after such low levels of reliability does he garner any liability should it prove to be damaging long term?

He isn't pushing it as a product, he asked for volunteers to help test its suitability as a food substitute. This is research, not marketing.

He isn't pushing it as a product

Everything has been pivoting into a kickstarter campaign. He is trying to turn this into a business.

Which is all very weird. There are a number of "nutritionally complete" meal supplements on the market. I do not understand why this particular one, with rather quackish supporting claims, gets attention here.

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