8 ms·

Something articles like these make me wonder is what would a single "perfect" meal look like? Perfect as in a meal that provides all the essential nutrients the

by ghxst 2y ago

Something articles like these make me wonder is what would a single "perfect" meal look like? Perfect as in a meal that provides all the essential nutrients the average person needs to stay healthy over the long term? The goal would be to make it as cheap as possible, easy to mass-produce, and have a decent shelf life. It might not be the most exciting food, but it could address serious issues like malnutrition and food insecurity. Food banks could always have something reliable to offer, combine it with a supplement to make up for any lack of micro nutrients and no one would have to worry about not having access to basic nutrition. It feels like a solvable problem, but it's likely harder than I imagine.

sva_ 2y ago
Like Soylent? You know you can also enjoy life a little.
- ghxst 2y ago
  My main concern is people having to skip meals and kids facing developmental issues due to malnutrition. I get that the idea of feeding people something like Soylent isn’t exactly appealing, but if we could bring the cost down to nearly free for those in need, it could be a really effective safety net, (maybe not Soylent as it exists now but a product like that).
  - iancmceachern 2y ago
    There is a peanut butter thing like this that has been very successful in the developing world. https://www.unicef.org.au/stories/plumpy-nut-peanut-butter#:~:text=Plumpy'Nut%C2%AE%20is%20used,%C2%AE%20is%20a%20true%20lifesaver https://www.unicef.org.au/stories/plumpy-nut-peanut-butter#:....
    - ghxst 2y ago
      > just $65 can provide a child with six weeks' worth of this therapeutic food. That comes down to a little over $1.50 a day, that's great! Seems like it comes in packets of about 500 calories each, containing 40grams of carbs, 30.3 grams of fat and 12.8gram of protein. Unsure what fiber contents are like but Wikipedia does list that it includes vitamins and minerals. > as of 2018 Plumpy'nut patents have expired in the US, UK and the European Union Also says it's manufactured in the US, I wonder if these are available at food banks and such, maybe even in schools and if parents know about it. Edit: additional fiber is included as well according to Wikipedia.
  - clarionbell 2y ago
    We don't really have a problem with quantity, or quality, of food. We have a logistics problem. Which is nice way of saying that starvation can be a policy. Example most people don't know about: Sudan. There is a civil war there, for two years now, millions of refugees, hundreds of thousands dead, terror, whole villages wiped out. And now the refugees starve. And why? Because the fighting sides don't let aid trucks across their lines.
    - MrMcCall 2y ago
      Evil has many faces, many motives, many methods. Compassion is the cure, but not passive compassion, active ass-kicking WWII-Allies-style compassion.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    As the sibling comment says, that's a distributional poverty issue which is downstream of a lot of other policy, rather than something fundamental to food.
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    You're presenting it as a solution, but if dystopian sci-fi has taught me anything it'll become the cheap standardised food for the poor while the rich get to eat proper food. I mean Soylent's naming couldn't be more on the nose. At least it's not made of people (as far as I know).
  - carabiner 2y ago
    World hunger is not caused by lack of food. It's caused by lack of will.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
j45 2y ago
I shared this site below... but https://efficiencyiseverything.com/food/ https://efficiencyiseverything.com/food/
carabiner 2y ago
Soylent Also Claude gave this idea: Complete Nutritional Meal Recipe Single Portion (700 calories) Base Ingredients: Red lentils (split): 70g Brown rice (finely ground): 60g Ground flaxseed: 15g Coconut oil powder: 10g Sweet potato powder: 20g Seaweed powder (nori or wakame): 2g Nutritional yeast: 5g Moringa leaf powder: 5g Seasonings & Preservatives: Iodized salt: 2g Black pepper (ground): 0.5g Dried thyme: 1g Citric acid: 0.5g Onion powder: 2g Garlic powder: 1g
saulpw 2y ago
Have you heard of Huel? https://huel.com/ https://huel.com/
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- fullspectrumdev 2y ago
  Sooner suck start a shotgun than try live off Huel or similar products again tbh.
- kseistrup 2y ago
  I'm sorry, but Huel is the most digusting meal replacement powder I've tasted. It's sooooo sweet and gritty.
  - saulpw 2y ago
    Yeah I hate it too. But it's exactly what the OP asked for.
    - kseistrup 2y ago
      Haha yes. To each his own, as they say. :)
interroboink 2y ago
Interestingly, potatoes contain almost everything a person needs (all essential amino acids, carbs, etc). If I recall correctly, you get complete nutrition from: potatoes, a small amount of dairy (vitamin A, calcium, fatty acids), and a small amount of ... oats? (or maybe some vegetable? I forget.) to cover the few trace nutrients potatoes don't have. I think selenium is one. They're cheap, and dried/flaked potatoes last forever. The Incas already solved this problem for us (:
- Scoundreller 2y ago
  Big negative (or maybe positive) of potatoes is that they’re 300 cal/lb, so you’d need to purchase/harvest/store/eat like 7lb/day/person
  - vincnetas 2y ago
    "dried/flaked potatoes" will solve this
    - wiether 2y ago
      But then you loose a lot of nutrients
      - ycombinatrix 2y ago
        How does it lose nutrients? It is still potato
      - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
        Which ones? Drying only removes the water content, what else is lost when drying foods?
        Scoundreller 2y ago
        Probably Vitamin C Industrial food drying is usually done fast (ie: high heat). Vacuum/freeze drying might retain more nutrients but it’s a more $$$ process.
zemvpferreira 2y ago
You might be interested in Michael Lustgarden, a scientist whose hobby(?) is extending his healthspan by optimising biomarkers. In practice he mostly tests and tweaks his diet extensively: https://michaellustgarten.com https://michaellustgarten.com His meals are essentially a massive variety of vegetables + some sardines. It's fascinating work even if I wouldn't replicate it myself.
awongh 2y ago
Afaik almost all of the actual malnutrition in the world now comes from political causes rather than literal lack of volume of food (and actually a lot of historical famines were politically caused as well- the great leap forward, Irish potato famine)- there's probably some underlying political condition that prevents the normal functioning of the infrastructure needed to grow food and get it to people- water, roads, etc., because of war or simple mismanagement of money or resources. So making a supply of this nutritionally complete food isn't the hard part, it's basically getting it to people who would eat it. The other sad and ironic thing is that in America, both food insecurity and obesity basically exist side by side. It's definitely not the composition of the food that contributes to those issues.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  This is a natural product of a system that prioritizes profit over compassion. The CEOs would rather waste food than not make a few pennies profit on it.
  - awongh 2y ago
    The great leap forward happened in communist china. Probably communism and centrally planned economies have starved at least as many people as capitalism. Neither system seems particularly concerned with feeding poor people.
    - MrMcCall 2y ago
      You are correct. The reason is that neither has any compassion, to this very day. OTOH, either system could be structured to be based upon compassion, if the people in charge made the choice to do so. Any human system could be altered to incorporate compassion into its motivations and mechanisms. I'm a fan of fettered capitalism with socially-conscious citizens, but that requires the wealthy, middle class, and poor to be compassionate. What is important is to internalize the currently external costs corporations impose upon the environment and populace to make their profit. For now, it's 'by the wealthy for the wealthy', no matter which system is dominant, no matter which religion is in power, no matter which ethnicity to ruling class represents. That is because compassion is sorely lacking in this world's peoples, especially its rulers.
kgdiem 2y ago
This was the idea behind soylent if I’m not mistaken.
nlitened 2y ago
> meal that provides all the essential nutrients the average person needs to stay healthy over the long term There's a simple and intuitive answer, and I am still surprised that even rational people are conditioned to dismiss it (as I used to be). What are you made of? Animal flesh provides exactly all the nutrients required for your own flesh, in exactly the perfectly balanced proportion. Just think about it for a second. So, the simple answer is just fatty meat. As a good extra, you can use some liver/kidneys, a good idea is to also throw in some cartilage and skin into your ground meat for perfect nutrients balance. Eggs/fish/cheese for variability. Imagine the careful measured portioning and chemical purification required to collect necessary nutrients from soy and vegetable stems — to make them right for building and sustaining your own animal flesh. Imagine how many things we didn't know 50 years ago about what nutrients are required for our flesh, and how many non-obvious things we will discover in the next 50 years from now, which would completely re-define best practices for synthetic vegetable food many times.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  I reject this line of reasoning because by it the best meal is other humans. If you accept that eating other animals is OK and eating fellow humans is bad then you are halfway to the next step, where eating fellow animals is bad and eating non-animals is OK. Just be smart about your diet. Call yourself sapiens not for nothin'!
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    To continue this, the next step is eating fellow life is bad and eating non-life is OK. Just use an Instagram filter to recolour your face away from grey.
    - throwaway290 2y ago
      Define life;)
      - robertlagrant 2y ago
carlosjobim 2y ago
This has been around for a long time, enjoy and invest: https://www.lalizas.com/product/174-liferaft-equipment/6413-lalizas-emergency-liferaft-food-ration-0-5-kg https://www.lalizas.com/product/174-liferaft-equipment/6413-... https://www.lrse.com/products/seven-oceans-emergency-ration https://www.lrse.com/products/seven-oceans-emergency-ration They taste what they look like. 5 years shelf life.
HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
If you're serious about this, US military MRE's are probably a good place to start researching. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal,_Ready-to-Eat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal,_Ready-to-Eat

by ghxst 2y ago

sva_ 2y ago

Like Soylent? You know you can also enjoy life a little.

ghxst 2y ago
My main concern is people having to skip meals and kids facing developmental issues due to malnutrition. I get that the idea of feeding people something like Soylent isn’t exactly appealing, but if we could bring the cost down to nearly free for those in need, it could be a really effective safety net, (maybe not Soylent as it exists now but a product like that).
- iancmceachern 2y ago
  There is a peanut butter thing like this that has been very successful in the developing world. https://www.unicef.org.au/stories/plumpy-nut-peanut-butter#:~:text=Plumpy'Nut%C2%AE%20is%20used,%C2%AE%20is%20a%20true%20lifesaver https://www.unicef.org.au/stories/plumpy-nut-peanut-butter#:....
  - ghxst 2y ago
    > just $65 can provide a child with six weeks' worth of this therapeutic food. That comes down to a little over $1.50 a day, that's great! Seems like it comes in packets of about 500 calories each, containing 40grams of carbs, 30.3 grams of fat and 12.8gram of protein. Unsure what fiber contents are like but Wikipedia does list that it includes vitamins and minerals. > as of 2018 Plumpy'nut patents have expired in the US, UK and the European Union Also says it's manufactured in the US, I wonder if these are available at food banks and such, maybe even in schools and if parents know about it. Edit: additional fiber is included as well according to Wikipedia.
- clarionbell 2y ago
  We don't really have a problem with quantity, or quality, of food. We have a logistics problem. Which is nice way of saying that starvation can be a policy. Example most people don't know about: Sudan. There is a civil war there, for two years now, millions of refugees, hundreds of thousands dead, terror, whole villages wiped out. And now the refugees starve. And why? Because the fighting sides don't let aid trucks across their lines.
  - MrMcCall 2y ago
    Evil has many faces, many motives, many methods. Compassion is the cure, but not passive compassion, active ass-kicking WWII-Allies-style compassion.
- pjc50 2y ago
  As the sibling comment says, that's a distributional poverty issue which is downstream of a lot of other policy, rather than something fundamental to food.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  You're presenting it as a solution, but if dystopian sci-fi has taught me anything it'll become the cheap standardised food for the poor while the rich get to eat proper food. I mean Soylent's naming couldn't be more on the nose. At least it's not made of people (as far as I know).
- carabiner 2y ago
  World hunger is not caused by lack of food. It's caused by lack of will.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

j45 2y ago

I shared this site below... but https://efficiencyiseverything.com/food/ https://efficiencyiseverything.com/food/

carabiner 2y ago

Soylent Also Claude gave this idea: Complete Nutritional Meal Recipe Single Portion (700 calories) Base Ingredients: Red lentils (split): 70g Brown rice (finely ground): 60g Ground flaxseed: 15g Coconut oil powder: 10g Sweet potato powder: 20g Seaweed powder (nori or wakame): 2g Nutritional yeast: 5g Moringa leaf powder: 5g Seasonings & Preservatives: Iodized salt: 2g Black pepper (ground): 0.5g Dried thyme: 1g Citric acid: 0.5g Onion powder: 2g Garlic powder: 1g

saulpw 2y ago

Have you heard of Huel? https://huel.com/ https://huel.com/

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
fullspectrumdev 2y ago
Sooner suck start a shotgun than try live off Huel or similar products again tbh.
kseistrup 2y ago
I'm sorry, but Huel is the most digusting meal replacement powder I've tasted. It's sooooo sweet and gritty.
- saulpw 2y ago
  Yeah I hate it too. But it's exactly what the OP asked for.
  - kseistrup 2y ago
    Haha yes. To each his own, as they say. :)

interroboink 2y ago

Interestingly, potatoes contain almost everything a person needs (all essential amino acids, carbs, etc). If I recall correctly, you get complete nutrition from: potatoes, a small amount of dairy (vitamin A, calcium, fatty acids), and a small amount of ... oats? (or maybe some vegetable? I forget.) to cover the few trace nutrients potatoes don't have. I think selenium is one. They're cheap, and dried/flaked potatoes last forever. The Incas already solved this problem for us (:

Scoundreller 2y ago
Big negative (or maybe positive) of potatoes is that they’re 300 cal/lb, so you’d need to purchase/harvest/store/eat like 7lb/day/person
- vincnetas 2y ago
  "dried/flaked potatoes" will solve this
  - wiether 2y ago
    But then you loose a lot of nutrients
    - ycombinatrix 2y ago
      How does it lose nutrients? It is still potato
    - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
      Which ones? Drying only removes the water content, what else is lost when drying foods?
      - Scoundreller 2y ago
        Probably Vitamin C Industrial food drying is usually done fast (ie: high heat). Vacuum/freeze drying might retain more nutrients but it’s a more $$$ process.

zemvpferreira 2y ago

You might be interested in Michael Lustgarden, a scientist whose hobby(?) is extending his healthspan by optimising biomarkers. In practice he mostly tests and tweaks his diet extensively: https://michaellustgarten.com https://michaellustgarten.com His meals are essentially a massive variety of vegetables + some sardines. It's fascinating work even if I wouldn't replicate it myself.

awongh 2y ago

Afaik almost all of the actual malnutrition in the world now comes from political causes rather than literal lack of volume of food (and actually a lot of historical famines were politically caused as well- the great leap forward, Irish potato famine)- there's probably some underlying political condition that prevents the normal functioning of the infrastructure needed to grow food and get it to people- water, roads, etc., because of war or simple mismanagement of money or resources. So making a supply of this nutritionally complete food isn't the hard part, it's basically getting it to people who would eat it. The other sad and ironic thing is that in America, both food insecurity and obesity basically exist side by side. It's definitely not the composition of the food that contributes to those issues.

MrMcCall 2y ago
This is a natural product of a system that prioritizes profit over compassion. The CEOs would rather waste food than not make a few pennies profit on it.
- awongh 2y ago
  The great leap forward happened in communist china. Probably communism and centrally planned economies have starved at least as many people as capitalism. Neither system seems particularly concerned with feeding poor people.
  - MrMcCall 2y ago
    You are correct. The reason is that neither has any compassion, to this very day. OTOH, either system could be structured to be based upon compassion, if the people in charge made the choice to do so. Any human system could be altered to incorporate compassion into its motivations and mechanisms. I'm a fan of fettered capitalism with socially-conscious citizens, but that requires the wealthy, middle class, and poor to be compassionate. What is important is to internalize the currently external costs corporations impose upon the environment and populace to make their profit. For now, it's 'by the wealthy for the wealthy', no matter which system is dominant, no matter which religion is in power, no matter which ethnicity to ruling class represents. That is because compassion is sorely lacking in this world's peoples, especially its rulers.

kgdiem 2y ago

This was the idea behind soylent if I’m not mistaken.

nlitened 2y ago

> meal that provides all the essential nutrients the average person needs to stay healthy over the long term There's a simple and intuitive answer, and I am still surprised that even rational people are conditioned to dismiss it (as I used to be). What are you made of? Animal flesh provides exactly all the nutrients required for your own flesh, in exactly the perfectly balanced proportion. Just think about it for a second. So, the simple answer is just fatty meat. As a good extra, you can use some liver/kidneys, a good idea is to also throw in some cartilage and skin into your ground meat for perfect nutrients balance. Eggs/fish/cheese for variability. Imagine the careful measured portioning and chemical purification required to collect necessary nutrients from soy and vegetable stems — to make them right for building and sustaining your own animal flesh. Imagine how many things we didn't know 50 years ago about what nutrients are required for our flesh, and how many non-obvious things we will discover in the next 50 years from now, which would completely re-define best practices for synthetic vegetable food many times.

throwaway290 2y ago
I reject this line of reasoning because by it the best meal is other humans. If you accept that eating other animals is OK and eating fellow humans is bad then you are halfway to the next step, where eating fellow animals is bad and eating non-animals is OK. Just be smart about your diet. Call yourself sapiens not for nothin'!
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  To continue this, the next step is eating fellow life is bad and eating non-life is OK. Just use an Instagram filter to recolour your face away from grey.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    Define life;)
    - robertlagrant 2y ago

carlosjobim 2y ago

This has been around for a long time, enjoy and invest: https://www.lalizas.com/product/174-liferaft-equipment/6413-lalizas-emergency-liferaft-food-ration-0-5-kg https://www.lalizas.com/product/174-liferaft-equipment/6413-... https://www.lrse.com/products/seven-oceans-emergency-ration https://www.lrse.com/products/seven-oceans-emergency-ration They taste what they look like. 5 years shelf life.

HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago

If you're serious about this, US military MRE's are probably a good place to start researching. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal,_Ready-to-Eat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal,_Ready-to-Eat