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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

#471

Post by csmatt »

saidajigumi wrote: post #75

> 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…

I am a software engineer and do tend to look at things as just simple, solvable problems... Then I met my girlfriend who is completing her masters in Public Health. She has taught me of the great importance of what you mentioned (experiment design, data collection, and analysis). You can't account for all factors, but if you haven't even considered what the most important ones are, you're doing it wrong.

That being said, I hate that stories like this get more attention because everyone here is irate over how obviously wrong it is while someone's great Show HN project gets passed over.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#472

Post by papsosouid »

wamatt wrote: post #372
criley wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>When in reality, the human GI evolved to support an extremely broad range of inputs as it's most significant factor. While we can agree that innovation should not be stifled, the idea that we can determine the processes by which the body utilizes nutrients and their interdependent effects, after a few months of research, is utterly hubristic. I often make the claim that the human body (other animals are close too) e…

>What exactly is 'Vitamin D'? Cholecalciferol (D3) [1] is quite different from Ergocalciferol (D2)[2]

Not as far as nutrition is concerned. Some studies have indicated that D2 is slightly less potent, but the majority have shown equal efficacy.

>Or take "Vitamin K" for example

Same deal. You are confusing the notion that there are multiple chemical compounds that fulfill the role of a vitamin, that you need them all. They fill the same role, you need something to fill that role, not one specific form.

Your whole argument seems to be an attempt at pointless pedantry, when the pedantry presented doesn't even matter to the subject at hand.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#473

Post by papsosouid »

yasth wrote: post #173
criley wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Except this isn't new software. There is an actual answer to what this purports to be, i.e. a complete nutritional food. It is a very hard question to answer, and even if you had the absolute top minds of the industry making a food source in this manner you'd be provably messing up badly as recently as ten years ago. You'd probably be messing up today but we don't even know how at the moment. I mean look at the warni…

>I mean look at the warnings on what is basically the next step, TPN http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/nutritional_disorde.... . He is basically drinking almost exactly this

You do realize there is a substantial difference between drinking it and injecting it right? You are talking about the side effects of completely bypassing the entire GI system and providing for all nutrition through an IV.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#474

Post by papsosouid »

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…

>The point here is not to bash vegetarianism, but to point out that it took her 12 years to develop health issues.

No, it took her twelve years to admit to and respond to health issues. They presented very early on. She was simply on a terrible diet, and was deficient in iron. No mystery, no "unknown unknowns", just a very simple, straightforward, common deficiency we've known about for decades.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#475

Post by papsosouid »

stouset wrote: post #310
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.

Are you kidding? It's not about your body suddenly running out of a nutrient five years down the line. It's about your body starting to repair and build structures that need to last for years while missing key ingredients. As a random example, people can develop osteoporosis after years of drinking diet soda.

You don't your side of the argument any favours by offering made up nonsense like "aspartame causes osteoporosis" as an example.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#476

Post by papsosouid »

ctchocula wrote: post #384
derleth wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the benefits of whole foods vs. highly processed foods, and just how badly our bodies deal with the latter This sounds like the naturalistic fallacy.

The naturalistic fallacy is only relevant when dealing with ethics.

No it isn't. "Good" is not a strictly ethical question. In this case, someone is wrongly pretending that whatever is "natural" to eat is also "healthy" to eat, and thus "good".

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#479

Post by farinasa »

zeteo wrote: post #134
baak wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk designed the rocket? All by himself? Wow! What a renaissance man. I figured he had physicists, engineers, mathematicians, biologists, chemists, and you name it. But I guess he just read a few books on his weekends and that was enough to design and launch the rocket. This guy is a hobbyist who is claiming his diet has cured most of his ails. You aren't the least bit suspicious of that claim?

>I guess [Musk] just read a few books on his weekends and that was enough to design and launch the rocket Ah, I love it when people think they're sarcastic but they're correct: >"I was sitting behind [Elon Musk] on the flight back to London when he looked at me over the seat and said, 'I think we can build a rocket ourselves.'" He showed Cantrell the spreadsheet he'd been working on. "I looked at it and said, I'll be…

Go watch the tour of Space X. He shows their current rockets and prototypes and proceeds to explain that it was another guy that built it in his garage. Elon funded it's production.

Re: This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

#480

Post by commandar »

papsosouid wrote: post #451
commandar wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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...

Are you seriously citing Lyle McDonald as proof that low carb diets lead to muscle wasting?

>If glucose requirements are high but glucose availability is low, as in the initial days of fasting, the body will break down its own protein stores to produce glucose. This is probably the origin of the concept that low carbohydrate diets are muscle wasting. As discussed in the next chapter, an adequate protein intake during the first weeks of a ketogenic diet will prevent muscle loss by supplying the amino acids for gluconeogenesis that would otherwise come from body proteins.

http://membres.multimania.fr/robody3/Ebooks/The_Ketogenic_Di...

>Bodybuilders cut with low fat, not low carb

It's a surprisingly common topic of discussion for something that's supposedly not done.

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Abodybuilding.com+keto...

CKD and TKD with specific carb ups to replenish glycogen stores are more common, but there are people that do it with purely ketogenic diets, as well.

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