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Why would anyone want to live on Soylent?

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Re: Why would anyone want to live on Soylent?

#61

Post by JoeAltmaier »

rdmcfee wrote: post #39

This was touched on in the article but I still feel it's necessary to point out that nutrition is one of the least understood fields in science. The primary reason is that there are almost zero proper clinical trials and interventional studies. We have thousands of cohort studies which prove almost nothing. For example, for 60 years saturated fat has been considered the enemy of cardiovascular health (because of some…

So by that logic Soylent is exactly as acceptable as any other food eaten regularly. Except Soylent at least tries to cover all the bases, constituting a variety of known food components. While a constant diet of cheeseburgers and waffle fries has not.

I've heard folks trot out the "what about the unknown food components?" That's a spurious argument - eating random processed food has no guarantee of including magic mythical food ingredients. And I'm skeptical of imaginary ingredients that are essential to health - how would that work? Man in the wild would die unexpectedly unless consuming some vitamin present only in Zimbabwean ground-nuts? Evolution must have screwed up royally for that to be true.

Re: Why would anyone want to live on Soylent?

#62

Post by DanBC »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #60
jes5199 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I have trouble remembering to eat meals regularly - I guess I sort of just don't really like eating? - and Ensure is available at the drug store. It's perfect for that "oh crap I haven't eaten in 24 hours and my problem-solving skills are too compromised by low blood-sugar to figure out how to prepare or buy something that isn't garbage" state that I get into periodically. I'll try Soylent, but I don't see what…

They address that - Ensure is absolutely not meant as a food replacement. Its just a supplement. Its too sugary and unbalanced to live on for any length of time.

You are wrong. Ensure comes in different forms and so e of them are total food replacements. You can get them for naso-gastric feeding.

Ensure isn't marketed to the public as such because lawyers.

Re: Why would anyone want to live on Soylent?

#63

Post by [deleted] »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #60
jes5199 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I have trouble remembering to eat meals regularly - I guess I sort of just don't really like eating? - and Ensure is available at the drug store. It's perfect for that "oh crap I haven't eaten in 24 hours and my problem-solving skills are too compromised by low blood-sugar to figure out how to prepare or buy something that isn't garbage" state that I get into periodically. I'll try Soylent, but I don't see what…

They address that - Ensure is absolutely not meant as a food replacement. Its just a supplement. Its too sugary and unbalanced to live on for any length of time.

[deleted]

Re: Why would anyone want to live on Soylent?

#64

Post by DanBC »

JacobJans wrote: post #27

I'm someone who loves food. I enjoy cooking wonderful meals. Almost every day I spend twenty to thirty minutes making lunch. It's not uncommon for me to spend an hour or two making dinner. Generally, I'm pretty confident that my diet is "healthy." But, when thinking about Soylent, people seem to be comparing it to perfection. Why not compare it to some other things. For example, would it be healthier to have a burger…

You make reasonable points. Why do people compare Soylent to perfection?

Here's what they said when fund-raising:

> "You can finally join the easy, healthy, and affordable future of nutrition."

> "What if you never had to worry about food again?"

> "For anyone that struggles with allergies, heartburn, acid reflux or digestion, has trouble controlling weight or cholesterol, or simply doesn't have the means to eat well, soylent is for you."

> "Soylent frees you from the time and money spent shopping, cooking and cleaning, puts you in excellent health,"

>"By taking years to spoil"

>"there is much evidence that it is considerably healthier than a typical diet."

Soylent invites comparisons to existing replacement meal products (there are many) and makes false claims.

Re: Why would anyone want to live on Soylent?

#65

Post by Flenser »

whazor wrote: post #57
Flenser wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I need to lose a bit of weight. I know that for me, the best way to do that is to significantly change my "generally good but occasionally indulgent" diet. I know from experience that I can't willpower that into happening. I had the same problem. The way I increased my willpower was by: 1) Weighing myself every day (always at the same time if I could) 2) Writing it down. 3) Graphing it in Excel I found that seeing…

Calculate how much calories you eat. You can find online the max amount of calories to lose weight.

Too much work, and I've already lost as much weight as I need to [1]. Weighing yourself every day and recording the result is very easy. All you need is a pad and pen by your scales. And if you want to graph it, once you have a spreadsheet, then updating it (even if only once a week) is very quick, and seeing the graph head downwards, is very motivating.

I found it was the smallest habit I had to form to produce a result.

[1] I've gone from almost 20st 5-6 years ago to just under 11st.

Re: Why would anyone want to live on Soylent?

#66

Post by maxerickson »

Flenser wrote: post #65
whazor wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calculate how much calories you eat. You can find online the max amount of calories to lose weight.

Too much work, and I've already lost as much weight as I need to [1]. Weighing yourself every day and recording the result is very easy. All you need is a pad and pen by your scales. And if you want to graph it, once you have a spreadsheet, then updating it (even if only once a week) is very quick, and seeing the graph head downwards, is very motivating. I found it was the smallest habit I had to form to produce a re…

I wouldn't want to do it on an ongoing basis, but the act of calculating out a few meals can be helpful to calibrate one's sense of how much they should be eating.

It can be easy to miss how calorie rich certain foods are.

Re: Why would anyone want to live on Soylent?

#67

Post by Flenser »

maxerickson wrote: post #66
Flenser wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too much work, and I've already lost as much weight as I need to [1]. Weighing yourself every day and recording the result is very easy. All you need is a pad and pen by your scales. And if you want to graph it, once you have a spreadsheet, then updating it (even if only once a week) is very quick, and seeing the graph head downwards, is very motivating. I found it was the smallest habit I had to form to produce a re…

I wouldn't want to do it on an ongoing basis, but the act of calculating out a few meals can be helpful to calibrate one's sense of how much they should be eating. It can be easy to miss how calorie rich certain foods are.

> It can be easy to miss how calorie rich certain foods are.

That's exactly why weighing myself every day worked for me; I wasn't able to kid myself about how much I was eating. I also found that the odd big meal didn't matter, as long as I didn't make it a habit (which I didn't do thanks to having a tight feedback loop).

Re: Why would anyone want to live on Soylent?

#68

Post by rdmcfee »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #61
rdmcfee wrote: post #39

This was touched on in the article but I still feel it's necessary to point out that nutrition is one of the least understood fields in science. The primary reason is that there are almost zero proper clinical trials and interventional studies. We have thousands of cohort studies which prove almost nothing. For example, for 60 years saturated fat has been considered the enemy of cardiovascular health (because of some…

So by that logic Soylent is exactly as acceptable as any other food eaten regularly. Except Soylent at least tries to cover all the bases, constituting a variety of known food components. While a constant diet of cheeseburgers and waffle fries has not. I've heard folks trot out the "what about the unknown food components?" That's a spurious argument - eating random processed food has no guarantee of including magic m…

Soylent could be considered exactly as acceptable as any specific food but most other diets offer a very wide diversity of foods. The current thinking in nutrition science seems to be that diversity in diet gives us a better chance of eating how we should be eating. Because we don't actually know how we should be eating we rely on that diversity. It's naive to think that the definition of "nutritionally complete" (which Soylent adheres to) isn't going to change over the coming decades. A traditional diet will still have a chance of being "nutritionally complete" under future requirements whereas Soylent's exact formula almost ensures that it won't.

I think what's even more important are some of more complex functions of digestion and nutrition response. For example, what is the glycemic response of Soylent? In December Annals of Internal Medicine published a study (1) showing that a daily multivitamin has no benefit to the longevity and health of the average American but we do know that dietary interventions which increase dietary intake of certain vitamins via actual foods are beneficial to health. Scientists are still figuring out why but it is apparent that you can't just take a pill or formula containing certain nutrients and gain the same benefits of getting these nutrients through food.

(1) http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1789253

Re: Why would anyone want to live on Soylent?

#69

Post by letstryagain »

markbao wrote: post #46
letstryagain wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> exactly what your body needs and nothing else? Soylent's main ingredient is maltodextrin which is certainly not essential to any diet.

Carbohydrates are, however. From the Soylent 1.0 ingredients list: > Maltodextrin (165g) - As the primary source of energy for the body, carbohydrates are the largest component of Soylent by mass. The starch in Oat Flour makes up the bulk of this nutrient and the rest is provided by Maltodextrin. http://blog.soylent.me/post/68180382810/soylent-1-0-macronut...

There are NO essential carbohydrates. Carbs are not the only source of energy.

Re: Why would anyone want to live on Soylent?

#70

Post by JoeAltmaier »

rdmcfee wrote: post #68
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So by that logic Soylent is exactly as acceptable as any other food eaten regularly. Except Soylent at least tries to cover all the bases, constituting a variety of known food components. While a constant diet of cheeseburgers and waffle fries has not. I've heard folks trot out the "what about the unknown food components?" That's a spurious argument - eating random processed food has no guarantee of including magic m…

Soylent could be considered exactly as acceptable as any specific food but most other diets offer a very wide diversity of foods. The current thinking in nutrition science seems to be that diversity in diet gives us a better chance of eating how we should be eating. Because we don't actually know how we should be eating we rely on that diversity. It's naive to think that the definition of "nutritionally complete" (wh…

I'm doubtful the majority of human throughout history have had a diverse diet. We're not adapted to require that; in fact we're adapted to conform to whatever diet we regularly consume. Lots of folks report stomach problems when eating food different from what they normally eat!
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