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How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

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Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#41

Post by fweespeech »

3pt14159 wrote: post #39
fweespeech wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.mealsquares.com/nutrition-facts.html 2000 calories of it is 130% of your daily saturated fat...and 126% of total fat. Eh. Soylent you could get away with eating it all day [theoretically]. MealSquares you need to supplement with other foods due to the fact content or you'll end up screwing your health with that much saturated fat. http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter... Additionally…

Eh, saturated fat isn't great, but it isn't as terrible as we used to think. Check out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat#Association_with... To me the problem is the sugar content. It's easily double, even for a large man, and almost triple for a small woman.

One of the sources is:

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/03March/Pages/Saturated-fats-and...

Which suggests as the guideline and inclues a 20g limit (which the squares are still over):

http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/goodfood/pages/fat.aspx

> Cutting down on saturated fats is only one aspect of reducing your risk of heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases. Other risk factors include eating too much salt and sugar, being overweight, smoking and a lack of physical activity.

Yes, there is disagreement but no I'm not going to take "disagreement" as "HEY LETS GO OVER THE DAILY LIMIT!!!"

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#42

Post by fweespeech »

jimrandomh wrote: post #35
fweespeech wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.mealsquares.com/nutrition-facts.html 2000 calories of it is 130% of your daily saturated fat...and 126% of total fat. Eh. Soylent you could get away with eating it all day [theoretically]. MealSquares you need to supplement with other foods due to the fact content or you'll end up screwing your health with that much saturated fat. http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter... Additionally…

The right amount of saturated fat to eat is a major controversy, and I think you're promoting incorrect beliefs here.

So you know better than the NHS, the people who set the guidelines in the US, etc ...?

Yes, but it exceeds the total daily allowance for the NHS, the US equivalent, etc.

There is literally no one that says "Everyone should eat 30g of saturated fat a day"

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#43

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

jules wrote: post #32

This is very interesting and strange to me. Cooking and eating tasty and new food in the company of other people is a major source of enjoyment in my life. I understand that most people may not enjoy cooking, but surely most people enjoy eating tasty food. Why would you give that up for Soylent?

The dumb thing is it's really not hard to do fine nutritionally without cooking. You don't need to buy a weird powder, or whatever. Buy a case of canned, pasteurized orange juice and a lot of cheddar cheese. You're gonna be fine eating nothing but that for at least a couple months before you have a problem. There are dozens of easy combinations of food. This is simply not a hard problem that calls for a complicated nerd powder.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#45

Post by jimrandomh »

I notice that the instructions for Soylent stopped mentioning salt problem somewhere between v1.3 and v1.5.

How much sodium to eat is very controversial, but if you're eating sodium, you should know that they took the extreme low-sodium position. The current version contains 1640mg of sodium per pouch, which is about half the typical intake. This creates a risk of deficiency, especially when exercising or in hot weather. The symptoms of sodium deficiency are headaches and lethargy; the test for whether those symptoms are caused by sodium deficiency is to eat salt (~1g mixed with food or water) and see if they go away quickly.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#46

Post by [deleted] »

tunesmith wrote: post #5
vermontdevil wrote: post #2

Has anyone tried the drink? Is it good?

It tastes just like the more pleasant protein powder drinks. No awful aftertaste. It's also not sweet, they are going for as neutral a taste as possible. I like the idea but unfortunately I don't do well with oats. They've been decreasing it over time but I still get major indigestion from it that I don't get from other food. I'm in the minority on that, though. I'll try again with v1.5 which was just announced.

[deleted]

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#47

Post by Retric »

jamii wrote: post #11

I tried soylent for a while and found the experience fairly unpleasant. I switched to http://www.mealsquares.com/ instead. Warmed up, they taste like a dense brownie. The thinking detailed on their website and the level of care that clearly went into choosing a safe recipe gives me a lot more confidence than soylent did eg > First, there's nothing especially risky or unusual in MealSquares; they're made from a broad…

That's 50% more expensive than soylent, and has a significantly shorter shelf life. If you want something approaching food while backpacking etc. you may want to just go for MRE's.

Also xylitol, lactase, potassium citrate, rice bran, and vegetable glycerin are not really 'whole foods' by most definitions.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#48

Post by dcosson »

3pt14159 wrote: post #39
fweespeech wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.mealsquares.com/nutrition-facts.html 2000 calories of it is 130% of your daily saturated fat...and 126% of total fat. Eh. Soylent you could get away with eating it all day [theoretically]. MealSquares you need to supplement with other foods due to the fact content or you'll end up screwing your health with that much saturated fat. http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter... Additionally…

Eh, saturated fat isn't great, but it isn't as terrible as we used to think. Check out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat#Association_with... To me the problem is the sugar content. It's easily double, even for a large man, and almost triple for a small woman.

The sugar content here does seem higher than ideal, and soylent is about the same.

I'm currently experimenting with making a DIY soylent and I've noticed that if you're trying to get all the carbs from whole-grain, real sources you end up getting a lot of fiber (~50g/day even when doing a relatively low amount of carbs like 35% of your daily calories). A lot of people report feeling bloated and painful from too much fiber. It also adds up in price. So, they supplement with fast-burning carbs like maltodextrin and sugars (soylent is trying out the slower burning sugar isomaltulose).

I'm a little skeptical that something that gets broken down into half fructose and half sucrose exactly like table sugar and HFC is harmless if it just gets digested slowly, that'd be like saying drinking soda is totally healthy as long as you sip on it slowly all day instead of getting too much at once.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#49

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

mcdougle wrote: post #30
rgacote wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Soylant as my daily lunch meal for several months now. Enjoy the convenience. Taste and texture are acceptable. Not in any hurry to switch to Soylant for all my meals -- just enjoying the lunchtime convenience.

I think that's how most people do it, and the founder has implied in the past that it's kind of how he intends/expects it. The biggest criticism of Soylent seems to be "Who would ever want to give up food for all meals forever?" when that's not really what the point is.

Well then what is the point? If you're eating one or two balanced real meals a day, eating something ready-made for the calories is very easy and cheap. There's no need for anything like soylent. Have a coke and a pickled egg for lunch everyday.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#50

Post by bane »

I've recently become a Soylent convert. I originally got it just as a quick breakfast replacement. It's not life changing, but here's what I think of it and why I use it:

- It's quick and cheap. About $3 a meal, and I prepare a whole pouch at a time (just make sure to drink it all within 48 hours). Meal prep and clean-up time amortized across 3 meals is something like 20 seconds per meal. Even microwaves taquitos aren't that fast.

- It's almost guaranteed to be better for me than anything else that's quick and cheap. I personally think it's probably about as good as food science can get in terms of providing complete nutrition. There may some kind of micro-nutrients or some such that it may not be the best for. But considering the garbage I would normally eat on the run, I'm pretty sure I'm coming out on the positive side of things.

- I stay satiated on a solo cup full of it for about 2-3 hours longer than I do even with a gut splitting meal. I sometimes skip lunch entirely.

- When I get around to eating a regular meal, but appetite is about 50% of what it is normally. This is an amazing side-effect that's zero effort on my part.

- I can mix it with other ingredients/foods have it as part of a meal or an entire meal.

- my blood sugar feels more evened out during the day, so I don't go through sugar highs and sleepy lows as much

Downsides:

- a fully prepared container goes bad super fast, even in the fridge. I chalk this up to being full of nutrients, it's kind of like the opposite of McDonald's French Fries -- which will stay in good shape for months, even away from refrigeration.

- if I go above 50% Soylent for my meals, I get ultra-intense dreams -- often about eating meat. They aren't nightmares, but they're unpleasant.

- the satiation can sometimes feel a little like bloating

I'm considering also switching most of my lunches to it, but I also enjoy regular foodstuffs so much, and I actually do like the mid-day downtime during lunch.

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