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Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks

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Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks

#61

Post by smacktoward »

jacques_chester wrote: post #51
w1ntermute wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the best parts about this whole Soylent debacle is getting to watch well-known people make complete fools of themselves by commenting on things that they clearly know absolutely nothing about, but still feel like they have the right to make authoritative statements on.

Funnily enough, that's the whole pitch for Soylent. "I'm just a smart guy with a fresh pair of eyes who spent a few weekends reading undergrad textbooks and skimming pubmed". Not: "we're a large company with deeply-interested professionals who've made this their life's work, our own multi-million dollar labs and decades of accumulated experience in the development, testing, validation and manufacture of temporary foo…

But can your computertalk run in the cloud? Please advise.

Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks

#62

Post by thret »

bsbechtel wrote: post #5
graeme wrote: post #2

I just posted this to Tim's Blog: --------------------- It seems probable that soylent is better than much of the manufactured food on the market. It also seems unlikely that soylent is better than quality whole food. I take Nassim Taleb's approach. We don’t know what we don’t know about food. I’d like to address two of Shane’s points. I'm listing the objections Shane raises, then his reply: Shane's first point: Obje…

>That’s not a good reason to not try to innovate. Innovation only really works if you're solving a problem. I don't really see much of a problem with our food/nutrition system as is. Yes, there are parts of the world where people are starving, so maybe there is an application for this there, but if the aim is to test this product out in the Bay Area, I don't really see it going anywhere. I could be wrong, but that's…

A small just-add-water packet that can keep you alive for two weeks is going to find a home in every survival/hiking/camping/boat pack. Also things like disaster recovery, refugee camps, anywhere that you need to get sufficient food to a lot of people in a hurry.

Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks

#63

Post by damian2000 »

jimbokun wrote: post #53
damian2000 wrote: post #36

How different is Soylent from some existing protein shake products (eg. muscle milk)? these also contain fats, carbs, protein and vitamins.

What's the benefit of Muscle Milk over the same amount of Cow Milk? Is there some science demonstrating Muscle Milk is better?

I believe muscle milk doesn't contain lactose. So I suppose soy milk might be equivalent to muscle milk.

Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks

#64

Post by 6d0debc071 »

woofyman wrote: post #33
mparlane wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of things were invented for "lazy" people so they could save time to do other more important things. Like my electric razor, I have my safety razor too, but it's so much faster to use my electric. A coworker has a beard so he can save 5 minutes in the morning, is it lazy to want time to do other things?

Eating real food is one of life's great pleasures.

-shrug-

Don't know what the distribution is, but that varies.

Other than not dying, I just don't get what all the fuss is about.

Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks

#66

Post by anigbrowl »

plainOldText wrote: post #58
anigbrowl wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments like this are why I read HN, and why it's often so valuable to read the comments before the article. Thanks for sharing your insights.

I think it's even better to read the comments after reading the article. Here's a possible flow: 1. Read the article 2. Analyze. Establish your position/beliefs 3. Read the comments 4. Adjust your beliefs in the light of new evidence :)

I'm not in a position to do step 2 on this subject, as I'm not sufficiently into nutrition or medicine or judge the claims in the article independently, and for a non peer-reviewed source addressing what looks like a food fad, there's a good chance that it won't be worth my time to repair that deficiency.

Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks

#67

Post by ekianjo »

zobzu wrote: post #18
ekianjo wrote: post #10

You don't just do a test for 2 weeks and expect to find something significant out of it. Go for one year, 2 years and then let's find out what really happens then.

eating right shows visible results in a week (ie physical change and mental changes), every time - IMO thats significant. 2 years shows if this is sustainable/etc. note: i'm not saying solyent is eating right. its hard to define what eating right is, but basically no soda, no processed foods (well, solyent sort of is:P), etc.

As said somewhere else this does not prove anything. This could just happening as well if you fast. People fasting for a couple of weeks have reported better mental abilities as well. Nothing of what was written is unheard of, and besides you have to realize there is a placebo effect since the guy knows he is going to take Soylent and expects something out of it (even if he does not realize it himself). Placebo effect can be extremely powerful.

So this kind of first hand report has close to zero credibility.

Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks

#68

Post by ParkerK »

alphaoverlord wrote: post #9

I'm all for people having the freedom to eat whatever they want and I really like the quantified self aspect of seeing how diet affects how they feel and metrics of health, but I have to say the author grossly does not understand the medical tests he had done and misinterprets the data. I'm not going to comment on the drink, but rather on his misunderstanding of medicine. First, EGFR is not "Epidermal Growth Factor R…

>Finally, a DEXA scan is really silly in this scenario. It's for old ladies and others at risk for osteoporosis.

Actually, DEXA can be used for very accurate calculations of body fat %, so it could be used to show how much lean body mass (as opposed to fat) the author lost.

Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks

#69

Post by anigbrowl »

graeme wrote: post #52
anigbrowl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he's just featuring it on his blog to draw traffic. It's the equivalent of the mainstream media staple 'Could X help you lose weight, avoid cancer, and enjoy better sex?'

I don't understand your criticism. Virtually every post that hits the HN front page was designed to draw traffic. If you've followed Tim Ferriss, it's clear this is something he'd be interested in. His first company was a sports supplement manufacturer, and he's written two books that touch on nutrition. I don't see this as a shallow post aimed at promoting a product. Did you even read it?

I don't see this as a shallow post aimed at promoting a product. Did you even read it?

Not what I said, and yes I did. I know why he'd be interested in it, or more to the point I know why his readership would. Having someone else do the (unscientific) experiment pulls all the traffic while allowing TF to look objective without investing anything. It's shallow in that (as shown above) the medical claims made are quite meaningless.

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

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