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This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

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Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#361

Post by tedks »

Evgeny wrote: post #311
jessaustin wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What mechanism can you imagine that would produce such a nightmare scenario? Is there a fat-soluble (or otherwise stored) nutrient of which most human bodies contain a five to ten year supply? No I didn't think so. If Soylent Dude and his merry band of poor cooks can prove our current nutritional understanding wrong by dying five to ten years from now, then they should.

As mentioned, there are too many "unknown unknowns" to say for sure. So I'll refer to an anecdote: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animals-and-us/201106/wh... In her early 30's, Staci's health started going downhill. After twelve years of strict vegetarianism, she began to suffer from anemia and chronic fatigue syndrome, and she experienced stomach pains for two hours after every meal. "I was completely debilitat…

From that study, about 20% of vegetarians who go back to eating flesh do so for perceived health reasons.

After 12 years of no health issues, and with a low general reason to believe that vegetarianism causes health issues, I'd be slow to attribute the reversal to the thing the person thinks worked.

(I would also expect more potential hazards from something new, untried, and untested, but I've signed up because I like the idea and am willing to risk it. Fortune favors the bold.)

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#362

Post by kumarski »

dxbydt wrote: post #22

If he's a true programmer, he'd code up an iphone app that controls an arduino that mixes up the precise amounts of amino acids, boron, saccharides, glucose and polyphenols for the perfect Soylent to start his day. Maybe even post his objective C on github so I can issue a pull request with 200% more boron. You know, here in the bay area, we have plants that tweet when they run out of water. I can rig up a tweetbot s…

He is capable of this.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#364

Post by krenoten »

damoncali wrote: post #338
Dylan16807 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he doesn't have a 'miracle drink'. He has a generic food mash and his only claim is 'contains basic nutrients and calories'.

He says it contains all the nutrients the body needs. That is a big claim.

No, he says it has all of the ones we know about. He emphasizes the fact that there stands to be a lot of learning to do and bugs to work out.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#365

Post by freshhawk »

damoncali wrote: post #344
zck wrote: post #25

>Soylent contains all of the nutritive components of a balanced diet, but with just a third of the calories... This worries me. It's not a misquote, either. From his blog^0 : >...I get all the nutrition and energy I need with about 1/3 the calories the average American consumes... The average American consumes 2,757 calories^2 . There's a term called the Basal Metabolic Rate. It is the amount of calories your body ne…

Not saying this guy isn't a quack, but I have seen studies (or articles about studies, at least) by reputable universities on low calorie diets that suggest they increase your lifespan. I can't recall the details, but if you're interested, start googling - it's a legitimate field of study with some surprising outcomes (to a layman like me, at least).

My impression is that everyone is dialing back their excitement over those results. They were based on rats, they failed to hold up for primates and almost certainly will shorten lifespan for humans.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=calorie-res...

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#366

Post by 5partan »

He is lately experimenting with nootropics? Choline, which is the de facto number number one nootropic, is an essential nutritient, and essential for your brain to function. this could explain his train of thoughts :) Also he mentions soylent from a book made from lentins and soy which contain lectins. soy contains also pythoestrogen, not good for your prostate. i'm pretty sure his omega6 amount is also too high, and there is some oxidation as he uses olive oil. the ratio of the nutrients is wrong as its based on the FDA, and is different for different ethnic groups. its very naive of him to think that his soylent is toxic free, as his ingredients are highly processed nutritients, adding new toxins to this mix. No details about monitoring his blood, so i supose he only checked the bare minimum, also not relevant after such a short time. also i think some nutritient are not ment to be consumed together because they bind to each other and create new chemical compounds, which are probably toxic. I think he should read a few more books.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#367

Post by J_ »

Confusion wrote: post #248
zeteo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>an impatient _software engineer_ comes along and claims to have [succeeded with a] task that specialists have so far failed at The guy who invented the spreadsheet didn't have to absorb all available accounting literature first, and Elon Musk didn't spend 30 years in the Apollo program before being allowed to send his own rocket to space. Nutrition is a field full of pseudoscience and highly susceptible to disruptio…

I think Elon Musk is a prime example of why this guy is probably wrong. Elon Musk needed quite some time and money to organise sending a rocket successfully into space. He hired a lot of people for their expertise, because he didn't know everything and didn't have the time to learn everything by himself, let alone build it. If an Elon Musk were to attack this problem in the way such a problem needs to be attacked, th…

He's not building a human though. He's building food. Modern rocketry has been around for about a century, and food has been with us since the beginning. I don't see why it would be that complex. Like pg said, the top comment for every new product posted on HN is always something dismissive that doesn't really add to the discussion, and this thread is no exception.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#368

Post by davdavid »

He is "dead wrong" about fruits and vegetables. The phytonutrients in fresh food are the building blocks of our cellular infrastructure and immune systems. There are at least 30 detailed medical studies about how taking fruit and vegetable concentrate increases all sorts of markers of health, from lower stress hormones, to increased cell performance, to reduced damage to DNA, to less days of missed work (2 different studies: one on law students, one on special forces soldiers). There isn't anything else that's ever been clinically proven to reduce damage to DNA except for fruits and vegetables (specifically JuicePlus concentrate) but the finding should generalize to fruits and vegetables. Source: http://corsonwellness.com (See 30+ medical studies, videos, etc) The most researched food supplement is just simple fruit and vegetables juiced down and concentrated. This guy might be on to something with macronutrients, but it's not a recipe for good health, which requires micro-nutrients. All 10,000 different plant nutrients found in an Apple, not just one like Vitamin C.

Maybe if you add the two together, that would be a balanced diet.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#369

Post by baak »

bproctor wrote: post #206
baak wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read his blog? He's claiming it cured his skin disease, gave him mental superpowers, has him in the best shape of his life, it gives him more energy, it tastes great, and costs $150 a month. Reads like a sleazy wonderpill ad.

Did you read his blog? That's an extreme exaggeration of what he said.

>> "I feel like the six million dollar man. My physique has noticeably improved, my skin is clearer, my teeth whiter, my hair thicker and my dandruff gone. My resting heart rate is lower, I haven't felt the least bit sickly, rare for me this time of year. I've had a common skin condition called Keratosis Pilaris since birth. That was gone by day 9. I used to run less than a mile at the gym, now I can run 7. I have more energy than I know what to do with. On day 4 I caught myself balancing on the curb and jumping on and off the sidewalk when crossing the street like I used to do when I was a kid. People gave me strange looks but I just smiled back. Even my scars look better.

>> My mental performance is also higher. My inbox and to-do list quickly emptied. I 'get' new concepts in my reading faster than before and can read my textbooks twice as long without mental fatigue. I read a book on Number Theory in one sitting, a Differential Geometry book in a weekend, filling up a notebook in the process. Mathematical notation that used to look obtuse is now beautiful. My working memory is noticeably better. I can grasp larger software projects and longer and more complex scientific papers more effectively. My awareness is higher. I find music more enjoyable. I notice beauty and art around me that I never did before. The people around me seem sluggish. There are fewer 'ums' and pauses in my spoken sentences. My reflexes are improved. I walk faster, feel lighter on my feet, spend less time analyzing and performing basic tasks and rely on my phone less for navigation. I sleep better, wake up more refreshed and alert and never feel drowsy during the day. I still drink coffee occasionally, but I no longer need it, which is nice."

Yeah, I'm the one exaggerating.

>> "Consuming only Soylent costs me about $50/month, another order of magnitude improvement, and would be cheaper if I didn't need the energy for running every day. At scale the cost would be even lower.

>>Edit: this was a miscalculation from a mistake in my spreadsheet, at personal scale it actually costs me exactly $154.82/month."

...Again. I'm exaggerating.

His blog is overly sensationalized. It really does read like a sleazy ad. He even gave his experiment a product name 'Soylent'. Sure, I was being funny about it, but I wouldn't call what I said an extreme exaggeration of what I just read.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#370

Post by 5partan »

5partan wrote: post #366

He is lately experimenting with nootropics? Choline, which is the de facto number number one nootropic, is an essential nutritient, and essential for your brain to function. this could explain his train of thoughts :) Also he mentions soylent from a book made from lentins and soy which contain lectins. soy contains also pythoestrogen, not good for your prostate. i'm pretty sure his omega6 amount is also too high, and…

Oh yes i almost forgot, DEPENDENCY! Imagine a world with no seeds (google terminator seeds), and genetically modified and patented animals which don't breed. At best, everybody should cultivate and farm his own food. If you don't have the time to prepare a meal, you don't have time to live. I hope there is strong demand in real and natural food as long as i live.
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