Soylent 2.0

Not even some fiber?

http://www.mendosa.com/stefansson1.htm - which is quoted in the Wiki. All lean meat leads to 'Rabbit starvation', you need some fatty meats to supply necessary vitamins and minerals.

same here. if they were to start sales in Europe, I'd buy in to replace the low quality lunches I'm having, but I'd keep a varied diet at evenings.

I'm sure soylent has many nutrients I'm not getting enough, but might also miss rare unknown nutrients that body needs in minimal quantity - not to be confused with homeopathy principles, I'm talking about quantifiable quantities of chemicals - I think the first iteration had a similar issue, lacking sulfur or something. because even stuff bad in quantity might be of use to the body and we don't yet know 100%

but since we do know that we get by nicely with incomplete diets, I see no drawbacks to a mixed soylent diet.

> Out of interest, is Soylent more interesting than offerings from companies like Graze/Naturebox?

I don't have an answer for that exactly - but other healthy meal replacement products on the market that i've seen tend to be too expensive. To me, even Soylent is a bit expensive.

Because of the price, i have mostly just stuck to my own DIY Soylent. It's vastly less convenient, but in an hours worth of work, i can make a weeks worth of food - so still very convenient. Far far cheaper too (under a third the price).

I also don't feel comfortable with Soylents use of maltodextrin. This isn't an educated opinion, i just don't know enough about it - and worry about the glycemic index, since i have problems with blood sugar levels. My DIY version uses 2/3 Oats an 1/3 Masa, and i've always heard amazing things about Oats, so it makes me (emotionally) feel really good - vs concerned about Soylent. Plus, the Oats make me feel very very stable, blood sugar wise.. but who knows with placebos, i've never measured any of it.

Plus, my DIY smells like "food" to me, where as Soylent smells very foreign. I still love Soylent for road trips though - it's amazing road food.

> I'd be interested to see if any research comes up as to the long term psychological effects of this sort of product. Do people who replace the varied textures and tastes of different foods (if only partially) with a liquid supplement notice any adverse effects or cravings?

For what it's worth, on heavy (2-3 meals/day of my DIY Soylent) for a time span ranging of about 6 months (my consumption has been down recently, GF has been cooking a lot heh), my experience is:

1. A massive boost in stable thinking/reasoning. I can't recall feeling mid-day dead zones, which i often fall into without my DIY. This is partially due to Coffee consumption levels i'm sure, but DIY seemingly helped to make my mind (and body) more consistent.

2. Boredom. Without food breaks, i felt a lot of listlessness throughout the day. I felt i should be snacking, or doing something other than working - but i had no hunger to guide a snacking expedition. While i was still very productive, far more than usual, i would often stop typing for moments and go "Man.. i just feel like i should be doing something".

I imagine it had to do with missing a ritual (meal times) in my life. This was by far the weirdest thing to get used to for me.

3. I would eventually crave flavor, often salt. I'm blaming this on a lack of proper balance in my DIY mix - but i didn't adjust my mix at all. The cravings were mild, and only over a longer period of time, so by the time they hit i was usually having a normal dinner meal regardless.

4. I would often get an odd sense of needing to chew. This could have been a craving, i don't know - but my jaw/mouth would get very... unused feeling. I could potentially spend 8 hours working without really chewing once. I tried gum sometimes, but it didn't really seem to help. Hard to say what this one was about, but i put it on it's own bullet-number because it was quite regular.. although not bad enough to stop, by any means.

Overall it was very positive experience. The hardest part, by a large margin, was spending an hour a week creating the DIY powder, and then another ~15m every day preparing the next days liquid meals from the powder. Purely laziness of course - but clearly if i'm doing this, i dislike meal/food preparation ;)

Hope this was somewhat insightful.

whey is protein. It's the protein derived from dairy products. Also, I think the founder, Rob Rhinehart, is genuinely trying to make a good product that benefits consumers. Whether the results show these benefits or not, does not mean he is "laughing himself to the bank".