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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

#451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those low carb diets are also diets that reduce your ability to engage in strenuous activities, and cause muscle wasting. The idea is to be healthy, not to lose weight or treat epilepsy.

>Those low carb diets are also diets that reduce your ability to engage in strenuous activities That's because low carb diets cause stored glycogen in muscles to be shed. That glycogen is used by the muscles for immediate energy during anaerobic exercise (e.g., weight lifting) when a sudden burst of energy is needed. It has less effect on aerobic exercise like running. You can still lift heavy things in a glycogen-de…

>That's because low carb diets cause stored glycogen in muscles to be shed

Uh huh.

>That's not really true

Yes it is. Bodybuilders cut with low fat, not low carb. http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/nutrition/how-many-carbohyd...

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He isn't selling it, the FDA has nothing to do with it regardless of what he calls it. And just saying something is "not food" doesn't do anything to stop it from being regulated. The FDA does regulate dietary supplements and meal replacements, exactly the same way they regulate any other food.

Sadly, this is not the case: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/07/02/dietary-supplem... > While on its surface this would appear to be a reasonable distinction, given that it doesn’t make sense from a policy or scientific standpoint to hold food to the standards as rigorous as the standards to which drugs are held, as implemented by the DSHEA this distinction has the pernicious effect of allowing manufacturers t…

Did you even read that link? That does not apply to things like protein powder, or meal replacement drinks like this discussion is about.

>Others make their supplements in unsanitary factories

That's equally true of all sorts of food.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#453
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, Columbus was also wrong. If they hadn't happened across the Americas, they would all have died. India was nowhere near where he thought it was, and almost exactly where the common knowledge of the time (and Eratosthenes) said it was. Sorry. It's just a pet peeve of mine when people think Columbus was somehow right, or even worse, that people believed the world was flat pre-Columbus. EDIT: To be clear, I'…

And Colombus believed, till his death, that he had reached India. He never realized this was another continent altogether.

And he ate more than soylent.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#455
post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He seems to be very conscious that this is in effect an experiment, that might be risky as well. E.g. from his site ( http://robrhinehart.com/ ): "I am reticent to provide exact brand names and instructions because I am not fully convinced of the diet's safety for a physiology different than mine. What if I missed something that's essential for someone of a different race or age group" But he is interested in actuall…

I really must defer to Taleb on this, I'll simply say he means natural in a more specific way than "all substances that exist in nature," and something more like, "the culture and patterns mankind has successfully practiced in relationship to nature for thousands of years with proven success."

That doesn't sound specific at all to me, but rather extremely vague and open to whatever interpretations might suit... What "culture and patterns" have we "successfully practised" "in relationship to nature for thousands of years"?

Diets vary crazily much, even within small geographical areas. Things like lactose intolerance is something we only "recently" started seeing on the wane, and it is wildly dependent on your heritage. I'm Scandiavian, and growing up I didn't even know there were people who had problems with dairy, as it was a total non-issue. I used to drink about a litre a day of milk on average growing up.... It was first as an adult I realised there are large parts of the world where people pretty much don't drink milk.

At the same time, I also consumed vast quantities of Scandinavian salted licquorice candy. Except most of if is ammonium chloride based. I doubt that would fit very well into the idea of something "natural", but it is an integral part of Scandinavian culture.

As is fish dissolved in caustic soda an integral part of Norwegian culture, and something we have "successfully practiced" for a very long time.

And processing such as hanging/drying, burying (until half rotted in some cases) and salting various types of food have been an essential part of human culture for a very long time.

And, yes, picking mushrooms and facing the risk of poison have been integral to our culture for a very long time as well, even though many of the most poisonous mushrooms keep claiming deaths up to this day.

Many of the traditional "natural" foods I grew up with are significantly less healthy than a modern heavily processed microwave meal, or the protein powder I use to supplement for my weight lifting.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#456
post #103

> a 24-year-old software engineer > ... > Soylent contains all of the nutritive components of a balanced diet What utter bollocks. We're (as in, scientists studying nutrition and how utterly wrong food industry has gotten that in the 20th and early 21st century) finally starting to get our collective heads around the benefits of whole foods vs. highly processed foods, and just how badly our bodies deal with the latte…

You sound like an industry-insider explaining why a new startup will fail. "They're too young!" "They don't have the experience" "We've devoted our LIVES to figuring this out, one kid in his basement didn't do it in a few weeks!" Etc etc No offense but we've heard the exact same thing about every successful idea. And what's more: People look at the human GI totally wrong anyway. They think, what can I put in to get t…

You're supposing that the criticism is of Rob Rhinehart's abilities and character, but it's a critique of Rhinehart's nieve belief that the problem he's solving is a simple one.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#457

> a 24-year-old software engineer > ... > Soylent contains all of the nutritive components of a balanced diet What utter bollocks. We're (as in, scientists studying nutrition and how utterly wrong food industry has gotten that in the 20th and early 21st century) finally starting to get our collective heads around the benefits of whole foods vs. highly processed foods, and just how badly our bodies deal with the latte…

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple”.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#458
post #442
post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The diet of the Inuit was widely believed to be impossible for some time (and probably still is) because no one thought it was possible they could subsist solely on fish meat. When put to the test by a pair of scientists who replicated the diet though, they found few ill-effects - except at one point where they were hitting a nutritional deficiency, but corrected it by putting semi-rotten fish product (which is a dis…

I would like to know more ... I know a bit about Inuit and their diet - I've read "My Life with the Eskimo" by Vilhjalmur Stefansson http://www.amazon.com/Life-Eskimo-New-Vilhjalmur-Stefansson/... Stefansson and another explorer, Andersson, participated in an experiment where they did not eat anything but meat for a year - and remained in excellent health http://inhumanexperiment.blogspot.com.au/2009/09/two-brave-m..…

I don't know about the Inuit, but "gravad" fish (fish buried and fermented near the tide mark) has been fairly common in the Nordic countries as well as in the Baltics since the middle ages or before.

"Rakfisk", a Norwegian variation, could be left to ferment up to a year. Iceland has Hákarl, - fermented Greenland shark that is also left for 6-12 months: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl containing ammonia (the process is used because it is poisonous when fresh).

My total guess is that it's more about having access to a wider range of types of food throughout the winter, when many other dietary choices disappear. Traditional food in the Nordic countries at least is very centered around processing that allows for longer term storage, and I'd guess Greenland has much the same.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You sound like an industry-insider explaining why a new startup will fail. I certainly don't want to rain on some new visionary's parade, but I spend a lot of time tracking folks who I consider to be the real visionaries in this field. As in we are currently in the midst of the greatest revolution in human health of our lives, and this guy is running in the wrong direction. We're seeing astonishing results with die…

Hmm, you do have a point. What this world needs most is billions of people eating a pound each of fresh leafy green vegetables every day.

That is not such a bad idea.
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