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I'm a big fan of Michael Pollan's manifesto: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. The idea being that processed foods cannot hope to match the nutritional pro

I'm a big fan of Michael Pollan's manifesto: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. The idea being that processed foods cannot hope to match the nutritional profile found in whole foods, particularly plants. This soylent stuff is about as processed as food comes, so I'm inclined to be very skeptical of it's healthfulness.

Meegul 10y ago
Do you believe that there is some chemical (or other) difference between two molecules of, for instance, glucose, solely due to their origin?
- LordHumungous 10y ago
  I suggest you read In Defense of Food. Long story short there are thousands of complex molecules in whole foods, along with fiber, that are removed when processing occurs.
- webscaleizfun 10y ago
  We can't actually quantify nor do we fully understand all the vitamins, chemicals & molecules in your average vegetable, or how they are digested and used in your body. It might be bad to peel a carrot prior to eating it, since you lose the nutrients in the skin (that may only exist there) and oxidize the rest of the carrot breaking down other potentially good nutrients, similar to how garlic loses certain multi-drug resistant infection killing abilities when chopped or crushed[1]. If we did have a good grasp of the nutrients that the human body needs, and in what form (particularly to prevent your bowels from shutting down or having mass dieoffs), then something like Ensure, Soylent, etc might be practical with a group of people who were well versed in the science of nutrition designing it, but I do not have that kind of faith with our abject lack of understanding & the present lack of nutritional skills Soylent, and many other processed food companies have shown. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allicin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allicin
  - pas 10y ago
    Yeah well, there are millions living on processed food. They are pretty much a-okay. Yes, sure, there is probably some difference, but it's marginal. Translated to QALY (quality adjusted life year) I guess it's probably somewhere under 1. Differences in individual biology are much more influential, and matching our own needs contributes a lot more QALYs than eating it as raw as possible or as processed as possible.
- gerbilly 10y ago
  No I don't but that's not the point.[1] When glucose is bound up in fiber for example, it is released at a slower rate. This leads me to believe that there may be 100s of other beneficial side effects of getting your nutrients via natural, minimally processed food. [1] I'm not the original poster.
  - Meegul 10y ago
    Yep, that's the point I was partially getting at. People often attack Soylent for nebulous reasons, stating that it's 'unnatural' and you'll die if you replace meals with it. However, I do feel confident that at some point, we will 'solve' nutrition past simple chemical content. For now, things might not get absorbed properly, but I still think that a bottle of Soylent is far better than the diet most Americans find themselves to consume.
- kalimoxto 10y ago
  Yes. > Also, people don’t eat nutrients, they eat foods, and foods can behave very differently than the nutrients they contain. Researchers have long believed, based on epidemiological comparisons of different populations, that a diet high in fruits and vegetables confers some protection against cancer. So naturally they ask, What nutrients in those plant foods are responsible for that effect? One hypothesis is that the antioxidants in fresh produce — compounds like beta carotene, lycopene, vitamin E, etc. — are the X factor. It makes good sense: these molecules (which plants produce to protect themselves from the highly reactive oxygen atoms produced in photosynthesis) vanquish the free radicals in our bodies, which can damage DNA and initiate cancers. At least that’s how it seems to work in the test tube. Yet as soon as you remove these useful molecules from the context of the whole foods they’re found in, as we’ve done in creating antioxidant supplements, they don’t work at all. Indeed, in the case of beta carotene ingested as a supplement, scientists have discovered that it actually increases the risk of certain cancers. Big oops. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.... The idea that we can understand each food as just the sum of the macro and micronutrients it contains is, as understood today, false. While it may be true in the future when we have a greater understanding of what food is made of and how the body works (it's trivially true that you can break food down into something and then sum that thing up to get the same food), right now that's outside the understanding of science.
PeCaN 10y ago
…you'd rather eat random shit out of the ground that has been found to not kill you, than to eat something based on studying humans and their nutritional needs? I mean, I can't say I like soylent much but you're just stupid if that's the argument against it.
- LordHumungous 10y ago
  The body of research on nutrition suggests that a diet high in whole plant foods is optimal for human health. If you think some San Francisco entrepreneurs know something that medical science does not, well more power to you.
- kctess5 10y ago
  Hard to take an argument that includes the phrase "you're just stupid" seriously.
  - wiredfool 10y ago
    To be fair, it's a far far better argument than one that includes "your just stupid".
- sctb 10y ago
  > ...you're just stupid if... We've asked you to not to include things like this in comments before, so please stop or we'll ban the account.
  - PeCaN 10y ago
SquareWheel 10y ago
This whole comment reads as an extreme offender of the naturalist fallacy. Being "from nature" doesn't give something a special health aura. Food is food, regardless of the source. This is particularly ironic as Soylent, like many "processed foods", actually comes from plant products.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

Meegul 10y ago

Do you believe that there is some chemical (or other) difference between two molecules of, for instance, glucose, solely due to their origin?

LordHumungous 10y ago
I suggest you read In Defense of Food. Long story short there are thousands of complex molecules in whole foods, along with fiber, that are removed when processing occurs.
webscaleizfun 10y ago
We can't actually quantify nor do we fully understand all the vitamins, chemicals & molecules in your average vegetable, or how they are digested and used in your body. It might be bad to peel a carrot prior to eating it, since you lose the nutrients in the skin (that may only exist there) and oxidize the rest of the carrot breaking down other potentially good nutrients, similar to how garlic loses certain multi-drug resistant infection killing abilities when chopped or crushed[1]. If we did have a good grasp of the nutrients that the human body needs, and in what form (particularly to prevent your bowels from shutting down or having mass dieoffs), then something like Ensure, Soylent, etc might be practical with a group of people who were well versed in the science of nutrition designing it, but I do not have that kind of faith with our abject lack of understanding & the present lack of nutritional skills Soylent, and many other processed food companies have shown. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allicin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allicin
- pas 10y ago
  Yeah well, there are millions living on processed food. They are pretty much a-okay. Yes, sure, there is probably some difference, but it's marginal. Translated to QALY (quality adjusted life year) I guess it's probably somewhere under 1. Differences in individual biology are much more influential, and matching our own needs contributes a lot more QALYs than eating it as raw as possible or as processed as possible.
gerbilly 10y ago
No I don't but that's not the point.[1] When glucose is bound up in fiber for example, it is released at a slower rate. This leads me to believe that there may be 100s of other beneficial side effects of getting your nutrients via natural, minimally processed food. [1] I'm not the original poster.
- Meegul 10y ago
  Yep, that's the point I was partially getting at. People often attack Soylent for nebulous reasons, stating that it's 'unnatural' and you'll die if you replace meals with it. However, I do feel confident that at some point, we will 'solve' nutrition past simple chemical content. For now, things might not get absorbed properly, but I still think that a bottle of Soylent is far better than the diet most Americans find themselves to consume.
kalimoxto 10y ago
Yes. > Also, people don’t eat nutrients, they eat foods, and foods can behave very differently than the nutrients they contain. Researchers have long believed, based on epidemiological comparisons of different populations, that a diet high in fruits and vegetables confers some protection against cancer. So naturally they ask, What nutrients in those plant foods are responsible for that effect? One hypothesis is that the antioxidants in fresh produce — compounds like beta carotene, lycopene, vitamin E, etc. — are the X factor. It makes good sense: these molecules (which plants produce to protect themselves from the highly reactive oxygen atoms produced in photosynthesis) vanquish the free radicals in our bodies, which can damage DNA and initiate cancers. At least that’s how it seems to work in the test tube. Yet as soon as you remove these useful molecules from the context of the whole foods they’re found in, as we’ve done in creating antioxidant supplements, they don’t work at all. Indeed, in the case of beta carotene ingested as a supplement, scientists have discovered that it actually increases the risk of certain cancers. Big oops. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.... The idea that we can understand each food as just the sum of the macro and micronutrients it contains is, as understood today, false. While it may be true in the future when we have a greater understanding of what food is made of and how the body works (it's trivially true that you can break food down into something and then sum that thing up to get the same food), right now that's outside the understanding of science.

PeCaN 10y ago

…you'd rather eat random shit out of the ground that has been found to not kill you, than to eat something based on studying humans and their nutritional needs? I mean, I can't say I like soylent much but you're just stupid if that's the argument against it.

LordHumungous 10y ago
The body of research on nutrition suggests that a diet high in whole plant foods is optimal for human health. If you think some San Francisco entrepreneurs know something that medical science does not, well more power to you.
kctess5 10y ago
Hard to take an argument that includes the phrase "you're just stupid" seriously.
- wiredfool 10y ago
  To be fair, it's a far far better argument than one that includes "your just stupid".
sctb 10y ago
> ...you're just stupid if... We've asked you to not to include things like this in comments before, so please stop or we'll ban the account.
- PeCaN 10y ago

SquareWheel 10y ago

This whole comment reads as an extreme offender of the naturalist fallacy. Being "from nature" doesn't give something a special health aura. Food is food, regardless of the source. This is particularly ironic as Soylent, like many "processed foods", actually comes from plant products.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]