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Muesli – An alternative approach to Soylent
- kevin_thibedeau 9y agoSeems to be missing people from the ingredients.
- VectorLock 9y agoI bet this dude is fun at parties.
- StavrosK 9y agoI have no idea what this is, and the README isn't helping. Why is it a program?
- 0xc001 9y agoAgreed
- L29Ah 9y agoWhat else could it have been? I needed a way to do simple arithmetic and pretty-print my recipe and its nutrients as I (re-)adjust it at least.
- yeukhon 9y ago> What else could it have been? UGH. Sorry, but this came across kind of strong. I think what OP is really asking is how is this suppose to be used? If this is a simple "let me show you", all right, but the README and the screenshot are confusing, but all right.... But I think people here generally expect a "so this is how you can actually use my program" when you do a shameless plug.
- L29Ah 9y agoThank you; I've expanded it a bit.
- peterhajas 9y agoI've been eating Soylent twice a day for more than a year as my primary food source. I'm always interested in new variants (especially ones that cut down on cost) - this one seems interesting. Any chance that there's an Amazon shopping cart that someone can add to get all this stuff easily? Also, I noticed that the Readme links to Rob Rhinehart's page (http://robrhinehart.com http://robrhinehart.com). Unfortunately, it looks like it's all been taken down. Anybody know why?
- kpil 9y agoHonest question: Do you not enjoy food? What do you think the benefits are? I'm asking because I think I would be severely depressed on such a monotone diet. I love cooking and it gives me great joy to eat good food, or new kinds of food, or even the boring lunch restaurant type food if it's done reasonably well. Lunch is also a nice social event. I'm skipping lunch sometimes (when I'm not that hungry) but I feel like I missing the social aspect then.
- aeleos 9y agoAs someone who has struggled with weight for the majority of my life, food and hunger is a constant battle. Being able to just drink something to make the hunger go away without being worried about eating too much or making an impulse decision to buy something unhealthy saves a lot of stress, and makes it much easier to control your diet. While I don't know what OPs reasons are for drinking it, there are usually valid reasons behind it that aren't just hating food.
- eljimmy 9y agoSoylent is so awful for you. They really capitalized on the ignorance of millenials with regard to proper nutrition. edit: Shouldn't have trigger responded, but one of my biggest gripes with Soylent is their use of maltodextrin. It's not something you want to be consuming in mass every day. It is good for post-workout nutrition but as a meal you may as well be consuming sugar.
- virtuallynathan 9y agoIn what way? According to who?
- dogecoinbase 9y agoThe dozens of people on the Soylent subreddit who got weeks of diarrhea followed by jaundice? Though I think my favorite was the people who were arguing that some level of mold was acceptable if it meant they didn't have to deal with the inconvenience of foil seals.
- chipotle_coyote 9y agoReally? I don't want to laugh, but snrk Both my current and previous company got in Soylent on occasion; the current one has gotten Coffiest a few times, which I haven't tried, while the earlier one got in the bottled Soylent and the short-lived Soylent Bar. I tried the bottled version once--maybe twice?--and had no ill effects, but didn't particularly like it, either. I had no ill effects from the bar, either, and I confess I actually rather liked it. I'd probably order it again, assuming it seemed safe. But as someone who, well, actually likes eating, I don't see the attraction of using this stuff as anything other than "I don't have enough time to cook or even go to a sit-down restaurant" type meals, the same way I would any other breakfast bar or meal drink. And looking at it that way makes their meal drinks much less appealing to me compared to, say, Ensure. Yes, Ensure has way more sugar, but it has a half-dozen fairly reasonable flavors, none of which are "dilute pancake batter."
- 9y ago
- nwrk 9y agoCool! See the sample here https://dump.bitcheese.net/files/cacobil/muesli-example.html https://dump.bitcheese.net/files/cacobil/muesli-example.html
- djur 9y agoSo about a half kilogram of oats and raisins with oil and various additives? I guess it's slightly more palatable than Soylent but eating it seems just incredibly grueling.
- VectorLock 9y agoI think thats the point. He specifies that "excessive chewing activates digestion" or something on the github page. Its designed to be a real jaw grinder.
- freehunter 9y agoExcessive chewing also causes TMJ disorders or at the very least, a very sore jaw. Humans aren't cows chewing cud.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- majewsky 9y agoI cannot comment on the nutritional quality, but the way the ingredients are written down irritated me, e.g. "parsleydried" instead of "dried parsley". It makes it seem more like crafting instructions for Minecraft than a real-world recipe.
- cyberferret 9y agoI appreciate the coincidental irony that I am eating a bowl of muesli while reading this article this morning (AM in Aus., that is). * Whole rolled oats * Pumpkin seeds * LSA (powdered) * Sunflower seeds * Chopped green apple * Coconut water and Orange Juice 50/50 mix (NOT Milk, Ugh!) * Mango flavoured thick greek yoghurt Mmm...
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoTasmanian here. I got in the habit of making a similar muesli (okay, they're all similar) but substituting grated raw potato for rolled oats, and tahini + water instead of milk. Try it!
- Rotten194 9y agowhat dosage of LSA? heard of people microdosing on LSD but not LSA -- do the nausea symptoms not express themselves at microdoses?
- cyberferret 9y agoHaha - see @contingencies explanation above. It seems LSA as a health food additive is not common outside our shores...
- contingencies 9y agoFor other people who have no idea what LSA is... LSA is a 3 in 1 solution [...] made of ground linseed, ground sunflower seeds and ground almonds Seems to be a thing in Australia and New Zealand.
- pacaro 9y agoAnd just because I didn't know this until yesterday, Linseed is Flax seed, just different names for the same stuff. You can use your kitchen grade flaxseed oil for painting, putting your art supplies linseed oil on your quark is more questionable.
- 9y ago
- pacificresearch 9y agoIs there a recipe for this? Or even an ingredient list? This seems like a very weird way to present an idea for food
- ziedaniel1 9y agoI enjoy MealSquares: http://mealsquares.com http://mealsquares.com . A bit expensive, but fulfills many of the same objectives.
- opportune 9y agoOne thing I don't understand about soylent is how it can be so expensive and yet still so flawed. First, as a male I am concerned about isoflavones. I've read sources that go either way on how much it actually affects hormone levels, but since I suspect there is a lot more pressure from the agriculture / vegetarian community to make it seem safer than it is than from any other community to not, I lean towards it not being that good for you. Second, the consistency is absolutely terrible. They don't need to make it too seedy, but leaving some of the nuts and seeds at least somewhat coarse would improve its texture beyond "slime that makes your teeth feel terrible and gross". As is, it doesn't even make economic sense, because I can feed myself much tastier food than soylent for like $3-6 a day. Like, why would you choose soylent over food such as eggs, chicken, spinach, broccoli, oatmeal, etc? What I really wish someone would do, is make a milk-based soylent with stuff that is actually good for you like sunflower seeds. That would actually taste good and probably be much better for you.
- fermuch 9y agoI think the selling point of soylent is how easy it is to consume. You just drink it and done. Cleaning is as easy as washing your cup. That's an attractive point if you don't enjoy the ritual of eating, or simply want to spend the time doing something else. I agree it is too expensive for what it offers, though.
- aembleton 9y agoI've never tried Soylent, but I do have the UK equivalent - Huel [1]. This isn't as simple as drinking it, because you need to measure it out, add water and mix it for a minute or two. Then when it comes to cleaning, it isn't just a cup. There is also this grid like piece of plastic that helps to break up chunks of Huel but is hard to clean. I like the idea; but in reality I'd rather jut have some toast if I want something quick. I know it's not as good for me but food is more than just getting calories and nutrients in. I get pleasure from eating a variety of textures and flavours. 1. https://huel.com/ https://huel.com/
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- nnfy 9y agoThe whole purpose of soylent is to allow me to spend 13 hours per day coding on adderall without leaving my room. Healthy or not, I think OP missed the point of ready made, no cleanup food.
- smallnamespace 9y agoUgh -- Soylent and now this seems to represent a branch of scientism at its worse. Our bodies are complicated. Therefore, nutrition science is complicated, and very much a work in progress. Because people eat various things all their lives in an uncontrolled way, and because what you eat can have impacts on you 10, 20, or 50 years down the line, getting reliable nutritional data is extremely expensive and difficult. There are many interactions that we still don't understand, unknown unknowns where we don't even know what the questions yet. For example, we know now that our gut microbiome has important influence on our metabolism, immune systems, and overall health. And yet little of this research existed 20 years ago because there was no cheap DNA sequencing, and we still don't know today how what we eat influences our internal ecology. We certainly don't know what eating a bunch of Soylent for a couple decades would do to a person's microbiome, because nobody has ever tried it. A dose of humility and common sense would suggest that radically transforming your diet based on our current reductive knowledge of nutrition is an extremely risky bet. The much safer bet is eating traditionally: eat foods in combinations and proportions that our ancestors and cultures have actually tried and tweaked over thousands of years of empirical experimentation and co-evolution.
- affinehat 9y agoI disagree with your assertion that it is "extremely risky" to apply current nutrition knowledge. Since we don't understand the effects of the "traditional" diet, it's not clear whether it is helping or hurting us. Yes, we have empirical evidence, but as you said it is poorly controlled. So all we can know is that if we eat a "traditional" diet, we will probably live close to the average lifespan and have average health issues as has been observed for traditional diets. Additionally, there are a wide variety of traditional diets that cover very different foods. Since everything in the body interacts in complicated ways, we cannot even generalize specific foods as being "non-risky" to eat, since the empirical evidence we have only applies to the interactions of each food with the rest of the diet. So it's not clear what would actually constitute a definitive "traditional" diet; the best we could do would be to try and mimic a specific traditional diet as closely as possible, which still doesn't take into account the interactions caused by non-diet aspects of health like amount of exercise. There is value in that kind of stability, but by incorporating mainstream nutrition research into your diet you can trade increased risk for what is likely to be a better average result. I say likely to be better than average because, as incomplete as nutrition data is, some data is still better than no data. It doesn't make sense to ignore what we know in the moment just because it might be wrong later. As long as you research carefully and stick to the most well studied aspects of nutrition, risk is minimal. It's also worth pointing out that the normal person's diet today is already a large departure from traditional diets. So even if we assume a "traditional" diet is the goal, it does not follow that that Soylent would be better or worse than the normal person's diet today. It's likely that the human body is adaptable enough to handle whatever you eat.
- Dunedan 9y agoI guess that would integrate nicely with MyMuesli (https://uk.mymuesli.com/ https://uk.mymuesli.com/). For those who don't know MyMuesli: It's a company which lets you mix your own muesli (from ~350 ingredients) and ship it to you. It's one of Germanys most successful non-VC-funded startups. They started in 2007 with just a website and nowadawys got shops in most major german cities where you can pick up your ordered muesli (useful for customers who avoid the delivery costs) or buy pre-mixed packs. Even though their muesli is anything but cheap they're hugely successful.
- gehwartzen 9y agoI personally view Soylant in the same way I do infant formula. It has changed drastically since it was first introduced as we learn more and more about what is in actual breastmilk and why it matters for development. Similarly there are probably many other components in whole foods that are important that we may not even quantify yet. Not to mention the importance of actualy chewing food so that the enzymes from saliva accompany the meal and assist in breaking down various components. Imagine what Soylant would have looked like 50 years ago and how much it would have been missing. Now imagine how in 50 years we will learn just as much if not more and look back at our crude attempts in the same vain.