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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

#191

Post by paulsutter »

paintrayne wrote: post #170
kentt wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have Soylent for around 40% of meals. I know it's more expensive than my regular diet, but it's quick and healthy food. Of course you can argue that your meals are very low effort, but even just grocery shopping and planning meals is something I'm happy I don't have to do now. It makes my life simpler and more enjoyable and that's worth the price to me.

I haven't seen any compelling evidence that Soylent is healthy, given that there are not even agreed upon RDA for most nutrients or macro nutrients.

Are you arguing that you haven't seen compelling evidence that /any/ food or diet is healthy, given that there are not even any agreed upon RDA for most nutrients or macronutrients?

I'd suggest comparing the nutrition of Soylent to the nutrition of actual meals we eat when we don't have time for a proper meal. Since that's how many people use it.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#192

Post by bitL »

paulsutter wrote: post #191
paintrayne wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen any compelling evidence that Soylent is healthy, given that there are not even agreed upon RDA for most nutrients or macro nutrients.

Are you arguing that you haven't seen compelling evidence that /any/ food or diet is healthy, given that there are not even any agreed upon RDA for most nutrients or macronutrients? I'd suggest comparing the nutrition of Soylent to the nutrition of actual meals we eat when we don't have time for a proper meal. Since that's how many people use it.

For one, there will be a fiber deficiency if you stick with Soylent only. It's like juicing every day - strip fruits of most of the fiber, release immediate sugar into blood and welcome diabetes with open arms!

The whole concept of Soylent feels to me like a typical reductionist approach - let's mix some stuff together and all will be good. It's like trying to control your weight by calories - calories are the roughest, least precise way to decide what you need to eat (are you literally burning your food in fire when you digest it?) and completely ignores your metabolism characteristics and state of your health. It's like measuring programming capabilities by the number of lines written, yet we still somehow stick with it when planning our diets.

Please people, do your research, don't endanger your health by following what look like trendy geeky diets!

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#193

Post by david_b »

Nadya wrote: post #112
cblock811 wrote: post #79

The value prop that people will save money is kind of funny to me. My diet: Breakfast: Oatmeal, honey, cinnamon $0.20 Lunch: Large Salad(spinach, carrot, tomato, cucumber, mushroom, bell pepper, sometimes almonds) $2.50 Dinner: Steamed Veggies and Seared Tilapia (kale, carrot, tomato, capers, tilapia) $3.50 If people just budged properly they would be fine. That being said, I'm curious to try soylent and have purchas…

There's also an issue of taste. I dislike the taste of many foods considered healthy for me. I try to eat the ones I enjoy but many are expensive depending on the season. For example, I cannot stomach green beans. Attempting to chew them results in vomiting within my mouth. The smell of them alone is repulsive to me. If I can have a bland solution to eating healthy - that's a win for me. The only thing preventing me…

> For example, I cannot stomach green beans. Attempting to chew them results in vomiting within my mouth. The smell of them alone is repulsive to me.

Maybe you're just really sensitive to lectins and your body is trying to tell you something...

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#194

Post by athenot »

jules wrote: post #154
bane wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless you eat 100% Soylent you are not going to save much time on grocery shopping because you have to go to the supermarket anyway That's not really true. We're finding that our grocery bills have been cut quite a bit and the amount of ingredients we keep around (especially quick to prepare stuff) has basically gone to zero. Prep-time is virtually zero and cleanup time is rinsing the container when it's empty --…

You're right, I can't come up with a single meal that is as nutritious and balanced as one serving of Soylent. The thing is that unlike with Soylent you're not eating the exact same meal every time. If there's one thing we've learned the last couple of years it's that a lot of food science is bogus, and that we really don't know much about nutrition. The safe thing to do is to eat a large variety of foods. Is it safe…

I think the issue of variety of food is overlooked. My family back in the countryside has orchards of various fruits. When it's cherry season, everyone is eating pounds of cherries every day... till that 2 week season is over and you don't touch a fresh cherry for another year. I can't help but thing this functions as some natural cleansing process.

For me, something like Soylent reminds me of when I prepared bottles for my baby. An all-in-one food was her primary formulation for the first 6 months of her life. But even in that case, there's more variety: because she breastfed. So her nutrients changed from day to day depending on what my wife ate, and slowly changing over the weeks to match her developmental stages.

To assume that a grown adult can survive on a monotonous diet does not sit well with me. I think this relies on some assumptions that haven't been well understood yet.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#195

Post by StavrosK »

gus_massa wrote: post #91
bane wrote: post #50

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 are…

> - 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. Just remember that potatoes are supposed to store energy for the plant for months, so they are naturally resistant to rotting. (Cutting them reduce the durability, but fry…

Not to mention that it's not just McDonald's Fries that don't rot: it's all fries. The experiment failed to use a control, but one guy didn't, and posted the video of homemade fries with salt also not rotting.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#196

Post by wheaties »

Why is a CTO only in charge of engineers who work on software? I would assume that the people doing anything molecular are also engineers. Sorry if this sounds strange but I hate it when talking to software folks I somehow have to remind them that before computers existed there were these other, strange professions also called engineers.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#197

Post by tukum »

MrUnderhill wrote: post #12

For Europeans wanting to try it, check out Joylent[1] as well, a Soylent fork based in Netherlands. They do a few different tastes too (vanilla, strawberry, banana, chocolate and soon mango). [1] https://joylent.eu

For Europeans there is also Mana [1]. Haven't tried them yet, waiting for my order..

[1] http://mana.menu

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#198

Post by Rainymood »

bitL wrote: post #192
paulsutter wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you arguing that you haven't seen compelling evidence that /any/ food or diet is healthy, given that there are not even any agreed upon RDA for most nutrients or macronutrients? I'd suggest comparing the nutrition of Soylent to the nutrition of actual meals we eat when we don't have time for a proper meal. Since that's how many people use it.

For one, there will be a fiber deficiency if you stick with Soylent only. It's like juicing every day - strip fruits of most of the fiber, release immediate sugar into blood and welcome diabetes with open arms! The whole concept of Soylent feels to me like a typical reductionist approach - let's mix some stuff together and all will be good. It's like trying to control your weight by calories - calories are the roughe…

>It's like trying to control your weight by calories - calories are the roughest, least precise way to decide what you need to eat

>Please people, do your research

You're being contradictory here. Your body obeys the laws of physics.

Losing weight is LITERALLY calories in Being healthy and losing weight are two different things that often overlap.

>(are you literally burning your food in fire when you digest it?)

What a silly remark ... of course not.

"Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.[1] Slower oxidative processes like rusting or digestion are not included by this definition." (Wikipedia)

>It's like measuring programming capabilities by the number of lines written, yet we still somehow stick with it when planning our diets.

Comparing apples with oranges.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#199

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Rainymood wrote: post #198
bitL wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, there will be a fiber deficiency if you stick with Soylent only. It's like juicing every day - strip fruits of most of the fiber, release immediate sugar into blood and welcome diabetes with open arms! The whole concept of Soylent feels to me like a typical reductionist approach - let's mix some stuff together and all will be good. It's like trying to control your weight by calories - calories are the roughe…

>It's like trying to control your weight by calories - calories are the roughest, least precise way to decide what you need to eat >Please people, do your research You're being contradictory here. Your body obeys the laws of physics. Losing weight is LITERALLY calories in Being healthy and losing weight are two different things that often overlap. >(are you literally burning your food in fire when you digest it?) Wha…

There's this strange opinion circulating that the calories don't matter. It stems from an observation that some calories 'stick' more readily than others. From that, they leap to the conclusion that calories are meaningless.

I'm with you - physics rules. No matter what calories you consume, fewer is better for weight control. But don't try to argue with these folks. They can't acknowledge even the obvious boundary cases: eating nothing inevitably leads to losing weight.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#200

Post by branchless »

cblock811 wrote: post #79

The value prop that people will save money is kind of funny to me. My diet: Breakfast: Oatmeal, honey, cinnamon $0.20 Lunch: Large Salad(spinach, carrot, tomato, cucumber, mushroom, bell pepper, sometimes almonds) $2.50 Dinner: Steamed Veggies and Seared Tilapia (kale, carrot, tomato, capers, tilapia) $3.50 If people just budged properly they would be fine. That being said, I'm curious to try soylent and have purchas…

I just find it totally disturbing. Who are these people who want to eat this because it's faster so they can work more?

It's like a forum of aliens. I have nothing in common with them. It really made me feel repelled by some of the replies.

To be human is to want to eat fine food and to play.

To be inhuman is to want to consume calories so you can work longer. Yuk and yuk.

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