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Hacker School Soylent

cookingfor20.com

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Re: Hacker School Soylent

#81

Post by jack-r-abbit »

run4yourlives wrote: post #77
jack-r-abbit wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. And my point was that even really, really fun stuff can be less fun when you HAVE to do it, repeatedly, on schedule, etc.

I think a vast majority of people in this world would never feel eating to be such a tedious task.

You are looking at things in single data points. Shopping for food is not always tedious. Cooking is not always tedious. Eating is not always tedious. Cleaning up after is not always tedious. But cooking/eating healthy actually does take a non-trivial amount of time and effort. This is one reason why fast food is so popular. Convenience. Do you think most people eat at McD's because they view that as a great meal? I don't. It is about convenience. No matter how you look at it... preparing food does take time. Maybe it doesn't need to take hours every meal, but it still takes time. Shopping, prep, cleanup... it all takes some time. So what is so wrong with trading a fast McD's burger for a fast nutrient shake? Or having a fast nutrient shake every morning instead of a bowl of cereal?

People talk as if they eat some gourmet meal surrounded by friends, 3 times a day, everyday and would miss that immensely if they drank nutrient shakes. Today I had cereal for breakfast and a Subway sandwich for lunch. Both cases I ate alone. I ate those things because I needed to eat, they were near me and I viewed them as the healthier choice given the options I had in front of me. Both of those meals could easily have been replaced with a filling shake and I would not have reduced my daily food pleasure. Tonight... tonight I will eat a nice meal. And enjoy it.

Re: Hacker School Soylent

#82

Post by DanBC »

ValentineC wrote: post #64
fudged71 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>one of the products used to force feed people who are on hunger strike Whoa, pardon my ignorance... got a link?

I got curious: http://www.examiner.com/article/guant-namo-hunger-strike-to-... > the government’s so-called act of kindness toward the Guantánamo prisoners is not just the gift of being force-fed, but forcefully fed with none other than Abbott Laboratories’ enteral formula, Ensure. It's just one article but Ensure doesn't sound like a complete meal replacement.

Ensure is a complete meal replacement.

(http://abbottnutrition.com/brands/products/ensure)

> For interim sole-source nutrition.

If you're tube-feeding someone you might want one of the more medical versions such as Jevity (http://abbottnutrition.com/brands/products/jevity-1-cal)

Re: Hacker School Soylent

#83

Post by jack-r-abbit »

DanBC wrote: post #79
zachalexander wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. "Soylent : food :: water : drinks" is the idea. Water isn't my favorite beverage, but I'm really glad I can just turn on the tap and quench my thirst, without having to buy a latte. What I don't understand is why you would call soylent "stupid" right before explaining its utility.

Some people have the personal opinion that they just can't be bothered to learn to cook and to eat nice food. I'm trying to get my head around that. It's an alien concept to me. Then there's the liquid feed nature of it. Put it in a cake and I might not be so critical of it. I am trying to make myself remember that I have strong personal opinions and that I need to wait for science before leaping to the "it's stupid"…

On the flip side: Some people have the personal opinion that they eat gourmet meals, surrounded by loving friends, 3 times a day, 7 days a week. They appear to get heaps and heaps of personal pleasure out of every single meal they eat. They apparently never eat for the simple fact that they are hungry and need to eat. I'm trying to get my head around that.

Re: Hacker School Soylent

#84

Post by zachalexander »

bitsweet wrote: post #6

you lost me at brown sugar.

Why? I'm actually pretty anti-sugar, and was opposed to Rob's formulations for a long time because he was using straight maltodextrin for all his carbs (200 g). But 25 g of sugar per meal, with tons of protein, fat, and fiber, dramatically reduces the effect on blood sugar compared to drinking Coke or eating candy.

Re: Hacker School Soylent

#86

Post by zachalexander »

freeasinfree wrote: post #36

"I’m putting this and future recipes on GitHub, and when I get a chance I’ll add data on individual ingredients and nutrients, probably as Ruby hashes and JSON objects." Why? Why does everything have to be treated like code?

Who said everything had to be treated like code? I just think recipes benefit from version control, plus I plan to put other stuff in that repo eventually (like Ruby scripts to help you develop your own mixes).

Re: Hacker School Soylent

#87

Post by zachalexander »

jonathanjaeger wrote: post #37

"...soon I wouldn’t be in Boston to benefit from the group’s joint purchases of 50-pound sacks of maltodextrin." Everybody seems to be harping on the issue that they like eating food, so why replace it. I'd love to have a great on-the-go shake that's better than meal replacement alternatives, however all this emphasis on maltodextrin as the main carb source makes me reconsider ever buying these Soylent, or similar, p…

I'm not particularly interested in maltodextrin either – haven't used it in either of the two recipes I've written. That was a sort of rhetorical stand-in for "bulk ingredients I might not otherwise have access to".

Honestly I feel like a lot of soylent people are overengineering it, using obscure, industrial carbs like maltodextrin when there are plenty of varieties of flour, starch, and sugar already available at supermarkets everywhere.

Re: Hacker School Soylent

#88

Post by zachalexander »

DanBC wrote: post #3

The article mentions, many times, the other soylent company. It's true, you can wait for them to ship. But if you're desperate to try a liquid feed there are many brands already in existence. These are produced by multinational companies in quality environments with known, tested, ingredients. Ensure is one well known brand. Fortisip is another. This recipe seems to be carefully worked out - they show the working and…

>there are many brands already in existence.

Yes, and this may work for some, but I think you're missing a few points.

Soylent is largely about taking control of your nutrition. Making your own soylent gives you complete control, like some of the more hardcore versions of Linux perhaps. Buying Rob's premade mix is like installing Ubuntu – it's lazy, but at least it's open source (or will be soon). Making your own from someone else's recipe (like mine) is perhaps somewhere inbetween.

By contrast, buying Ensure is like buying literal Unix (if you can even do that anymore). I mean, it's similar to using Linux, but... who does that?

Re: Hacker School Soylent

#89

Post by zachalexander »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #62
tantalor wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the author is a little confused. The Soylent Corporation (soylent.me) has not said anything about publishing or "open-sourcing" the recipe. I doubt they would. They will be required publish the nutrition facts and ingredients, but that's not the same as a recipe. Also, "Soylent" at this point refers to their product, so using their name for your DIY version risks serious trademark infringement. EDIT: They do…

That is what I was thinking. I'm not sure who even owns the "Soylent" mark since it comes from a book that was also made into a movie.

For food purposes, I think Rob does now.

Re: Hacker School Soylent

#90

Post by zachalexander »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #11

This is the first I'm hearing that "soylent" is "an open-source food movement". I thought is was one guy that tried some stuff and now is starting to build a start-up around it. It also seems weird that what is labeled as the flagship “distro” of this so-called open-source movement is not actually open-source. So now I'm confused. Is this just a wording issue I'm confused about? Are we using "open-source" for everyth…

Rob has confirmed that he sees this as a movement, and is down with people DIYing soylent, even though his company is the only big-S Soylent.

And he is going to open-source his recipe, he just hasn't done it yet, I think because he's still putting final touches on it. A preliminary list of ingredients was recently posted to blog.soylent.me if you're interested.

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