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Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks
231–240 of 372 posts
Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's true, from both the "for" and "against sides". Anyone who things that only happens on one of the sides should check their confirmation bias. And no, this is not an "every opinion deserves equal airtime" claim. The vast majority of nutrition and health experts draw on a mix of science, pseudo science and superstition, and assume it is all science. (Quick check: Think salt intake causes hypertension? That dietar…
Yes, you are making a "every opinion deserves equal airtime" claim. When someone who isn't trained at all in a field claims to have made a revolutionary advance in that field, the rational response for a non-subject-matter-expert member of the public is deep skepticism. The discovery might indeed be revolutionary, but the way we find out is by running proper scientific tests on it, not by pioneering the revolution. T…
On the contrary. I am saying "experts ALSO deserve skepticism". Not equal doubt, but certainly nonzero doubt. And I gave three examples that experts often get wrong, and the only times I see them questioned is when I do that.
Most of the criticism directed at soylent is of "this doesn't seem right" variety, rather than the "this detail is wrong" variety. The latter is what I read the discussions for. The former is a waste of bits.
Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks
#233I 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…
>>Yes, there are parts of the world where people are starving
There is nothing like a food shortage in the world. There is problem with food distribution, often because its expensive to send food from point A to B and no one is ready to pay for it.
The solution is to find those people jobs so that they can buy food.
It has more to do with economic policy.
Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
"the author grossly does not understand the medical tests he had done and misinterprets the data" As the author himself, I can corroborate your statement that I don't understand medical tests as well as a trained physician. :) However, the point of the post was to present the data so others could interpret / draw conclusions. I gave my observations and perspective, but I made every attempt to indicate the potential w…
You did not mention the placebo effect though. That's the largest weakness of such an experiment. Your brain may be convinced (without you being strictly conscious about it) that Soylent is good for you and trigger all kind of benefits that you assessed yourself. That's why clinical trials are running in double-blind modes, to remove as much as possible the placebo effect. A self-assessed experiment is, and will alwa…
Obviously you didn't read the whole thing; search for the word "placebo" and you'll find my discussion of it under the section called "Potential Weaknesses In The Data".
Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
"the author grossly does not understand the medical tests he had done and misinterprets the data" As the author himself, I can corroborate your statement that I don't understand medical tests as well as a trained physician. :) However, the point of the post was to present the data so others could interpret / draw conclusions. I gave my observations and perspective, but I made every attempt to indicate the potential w…
I'm sorry, but you've collected no data, only noise. Eating rice for 2 weeks would have produced similar effects. As to your subjective experience – it's probably 100% placebo. If you want to call something an experiment, you should know how to conduct an experiment in that respective field. Your experiences only show how a product like Soylent induces magical thinking in its consumers. If you want to produce a singl…
So something is not an experiment unless you do it for 6 months? :)
Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
But that problem you are describing is solved. There are meal replacement shakes on the market already. There is fast food (cheap!) there are hot dog stands...
None of your three solutions are healthy, generally speaking. There are a few meal replacement products that are reasonable, but most of them are full of sugar and don't provide many nutrients, because they expect you to only replace one meal. Fast food and hot dog stands are exactly the kind of food that Soylent is a good replacement for.
Is soylent healthy?
Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks
#237I have a big problem with the "you might miss unknown-to-science micronutrients" argument. If that's the case with Soylent, it should also be the case for the average person's diet, which is far from optimal. I'd rather get all my protein, fat, carbs, vitamins, etc and potentially miss an unknown nutrient than eat what I currently do.
> I have a big problem with the "you might miss unknown-to-science micronutrients" argument. If that's the case with Soylent, it should also be the case for the average person's diet (...) And it is the case. But because most people vary their diets, the deficiencies are not so severe. For instance, most diets lack magnesium, but on average, people also rarely go long periods without eating something like fish or sea…
Are you saying that vegetarian diet is a fad. You need to step out from underneath that rock.
Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
Steak and eggs. Quick, tasty, high in protein, low in carbs. Considered a traditional breakfast.
Requires cooking, not quick.
It doesn't require much attention though. Boil kettle, drop eggs into water on the stove, leave for 5 minutes. Put steaks on a foreman grill, take off when done.
I'm pretty sure I can do this with less than 60 seconds of attentive time, the rest can be spent catching up on tech stories, pull requests or whatever.
Frying it all would be even easier, too. Heat pan, put steak and eggs in, leave for a couple of minutes. Turn steak, leave for a couple of minutes. Slide everything onto a plate, eat.
Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks
#239Soylent aside, im amazed at how terrible his traditional normal days meal is? I mean hes eating a processed breakfast subsitute in the morning, take away mexican food with a soft drink for lunch and more take away for dinner. You don't need to be a nutritionist to know thats going to have a terrible impact on his life later down the track. Postnote: Now that Ive read the whole article, I wonder if all the benefits he…
Is a protien shake for breakfast really that bad? I have not been able to find a breakfast food that's quick, tastes ok, and isn't high in carbs.
For breakfast I often mix natural yoghurt and some frozen berries. It's tasty, cheap and I think fairly healthy.
Re: Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
While I have no ability to judge the veracity of the claims of Soylent.me -- let me tell you the only reason I am hopeful it works is for the same reason Jobs only wore black turtle-necks and jeans: simplicity. I want to be able to take a good fuel for my body and indulge in great food whenever I want. I want to be able to back-pack for a week with only a 4-pound food supply.
Well we all know how Steve Jobs foray into doing it his way turned out. I am all for new and ingenious ways to maintaining one's health. However I am not for new ways that don't have the strong trusted evaluations.
The number of bad habits I engage in over my days is one thing, I am not about to jump from fad to fad in hopes of out smarting the medical community.