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I don't have a lot of insight into the science behind it, but one thing that always makes my partner (PhD in Epidemiolgy) slightly angry is that while Soylent d

by rb2k_ 10y ago

I don't have a lot of insight into the science behind it, but one thing that always makes my partner (PhD in Epidemiolgy) slightly angry is that while Soylent does tick all of the "amount and type" boxes for what people consider to be part of a healthy nutrition, the real long term effects are basically untested. Even in "naturally grown regular foods", the field is still pretty young and we can barely make good recommendations for those. They just happen to be what we eat and as long as they're not crazy processed, we have a few thousand years of experience with them not necessarily killing us immediately. Areas of research like Metabolomics or Proteomics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omics) are still in their infancy, so while Soylent does mix a bunch of ingredients that all fall into the right areas, the long term effects are basically unknown. And that doesn't even take personalized medicine into consideration where your gene markup might actually have a lot to do with what might or might not be good for your personally. Again, I don't have any insight besides some armchair quarterback knowledge about nutrition, but it seems like most people that do don't think it's a particularly great idea to eat it more than 'every now and then'. That being said, when compared to twinkies and sugary sodas it might still be better for you. Having it as part of a daily diet though might not be a good idea.

shuntress 10y ago
So what, are they supposed to run a 100-year multi-generational clinical trial before they can sell Soylent? If you don't think it will work, you don't have to eat it. I'll keep eating Soylent (or whatever the current best whole-food is) every day and get back to you from my deathbed (to let you know if I blame Soylent)
- tedunangst 10y ago
  Perhaps there's a difference between marketing a meal replacement and a diet replacement.
andreyk 10y ago
The "That being said, when compared to twinkies and sugary sodas it might still be better for you. " part is how I justified regularly consuming it to myself despite there being so little science on the long term effects. Even with a typical fairly stocked Big Company cafeteria, I feel that it is easier for me to eat healthy every lunch by drinking Soylent rather than by getting food. But the lack of science is also why I only have it for lunch, which somehow feels like a fairly safe way to go about it. Hopefully we'll get some better science about it soon...
allemagne 10y ago
> when compared to twinkies and sugary sodas it might still be better for you Might? Like you hinted, this all seems like a valid argument to be made against any given modern diet. I can't imagine that even the most careful and educated person alive is eating meals that resemble what our ancestors had experience with for thousands of years. So we can't necessarily rely on that, and we're waiting on feedback from fields you claim are in their infancy. It could be that a long-term soylent diet turns out to make you infertile, or that it repairs your body 1.5 times faster. I bet that the truth is probably somewhere closer to neutral, and I don't think that's as crazy a risk as you're making it out to be.
surrey-fringe 10y ago
>That being said, when compared to twinkies and sugary sodas it might still be better for you. Having it as part of a daily diet though might not be a good idea. If you also think that since we know so little about nutrition most of us should revert to eating exclusively meat and vegetables until further research is conducted because we started harvesting grains and potatoes off absolutely no research, then I think your argument is consistent. But otherwise your argument is, "we don't know much, but I like rice and my friends think Soylent is bad for you". Not knowing much about nutrition doesn't make you unintelligent, but running around implying that something's a bad idea when you don't know what you're talking about is foolish at best and harmful at worst.
- rb2k_ 10y ago
  As I said, this is not necessarily my position but the position of someone with a PhD in nutritional Epidemiology who focuses her research on gene diet interaction. Seeing as I don't know anyone more competent than her, I'll just trust that judgement.
  - surrey-fringe 10y ago
    That's awesome.

by rb2k_ 10y ago

shuntress 10y ago

So what, are they supposed to run a 100-year multi-generational clinical trial before they can sell Soylent? If you don't think it will work, you don't have to eat it. I'll keep eating Soylent (or whatever the current best whole-food is) every day and get back to you from my deathbed (to let you know if I blame Soylent)

tedunangst 10y ago
Perhaps there's a difference between marketing a meal replacement and a diet replacement.

andreyk 10y ago

The "That being said, when compared to twinkies and sugary sodas it might still be better for you. " part is how I justified regularly consuming it to myself despite there being so little science on the long term effects. Even with a typical fairly stocked Big Company cafeteria, I feel that it is easier for me to eat healthy every lunch by drinking Soylent rather than by getting food. But the lack of science is also why I only have it for lunch, which somehow feels like a fairly safe way to go about it. Hopefully we'll get some better science about it soon...

allemagne 10y ago

> when compared to twinkies and sugary sodas it might still be better for you Might? Like you hinted, this all seems like a valid argument to be made against any given modern diet. I can't imagine that even the most careful and educated person alive is eating meals that resemble what our ancestors had experience with for thousands of years. So we can't necessarily rely on that, and we're waiting on feedback from fields you claim are in their infancy. It could be that a long-term soylent diet turns out to make you infertile, or that it repairs your body 1.5 times faster. I bet that the truth is probably somewhere closer to neutral, and I don't think that's as crazy a risk as you're making it out to be.

surrey-fringe 10y ago

>That being said, when compared to twinkies and sugary sodas it might still be better for you. Having it as part of a daily diet though might not be a good idea. If you also think that since we know so little about nutrition most of us should revert to eating exclusively meat and vegetables until further research is conducted because we started harvesting grains and potatoes off absolutely no research, then I think your argument is consistent. But otherwise your argument is, "we don't know much, but I like rice and my friends think Soylent is bad for you". Not knowing much about nutrition doesn't make you unintelligent, but running around implying that something's a bad idea when you don't know what you're talking about is foolish at best and harmful at worst.

rb2k_ 10y ago
As I said, this is not necessarily my position but the position of someone with a PhD in nutritional Epidemiology who focuses her research on gene diet interaction. Seeing as I don't know anyone more competent than her, I'll just trust that judgement.
- surrey-fringe 10y ago
  That's awesome.