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Via Wonkblog: For those of us who generally don’t like food, consider it an annoyance, and yearn for a way to avoid eating it, Soylent sounds immensely promisi
by Steko 14y ago
Via Wonkblog:
For those of us who generally don’t like food, consider it an annoyance, and yearn for a way to avoid eating it, Soylent sounds immensely promising. But is it safe?
Surprisingly, the answer from nutrition experts seems to be, “Yeah, probably.” Jay Mirtallo is a professor of pharmacy at Ohio State and the immediate past president of American Society for Parental Enteral Nutrition, which focuses on the science and practice of providing food to patients through both intravenous injections and feeding tubes. His main concern with Rhinehart’s plan is that he’s making the concoction himself, rather than buying it from reputable suppliers.
“He basically made medical food,” Mirtallo says. “If he wanted to switch to a liquid diet, those are already available.”
Indeed they are. Companies like Abbott Nutrition and NestléHealthScience sell dozens of medical food products.
...
I asked Mirtallo if I could live a healthy life just drinking medical food from here on out. “You can completely,” he says. “But I don’t know why you’d want to. There are so many social aspects to food in what we do.”
One potential downside is cost. Rhinehart claims that he only spends $154.82 a month on Soylent. By contrast, a case of 24 eight-ounce cans of Jevity 1.5cal, a high caloric density product Abbott sells for feeding tube patients, costs $57 from Abbott’s Web store. As each can has 355 calories in it, you’d need six cans a day to top the 2,000 calorie a day mark used in FDA nutrition data. So a 24-pack would last you about four days. That works out to 7-8 packs a month, which could cost up to $456.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/14/rob-rhinehart-has-a-crazy-plan-to-let-you-go-without-food-forever-it-just-might-work/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/14/r...
- allforJesse 14y agoAnd that's the question that's gone unasked, because we're focusing (understandably) on the health implications first: Could Soylent be scalably produced to feed 10% or more of the world's population? Would the material prices skyrocket in response to demand? Let's set aside the physiological consequences for a moment, what are the potential economic and environmental ramifications of Soylent?
- michaelbuckbee 14y agoPlumpy'nut [1] is food product specifically designed to be consumed by malnourished children. Given that the cost of it is around $30/mo I would actually guess that the barriers to adoption are political and social in nature and not technical. 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpynut http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpynut
- jtheory 14y agoThat sounds pretty good, actually! I do love good peanut butter. It can be even cheaper than $30/month as well, since the manufacturer allows local production of the paste (in peanut-growing locales) with no license fee payment required.
- samstave 14y agoThe counter question is how cheaply is Abott's liquid food product produced? The profit margin on their product, I suspect, is pretty large. Why aren't liquid foods like this being supplied to under-nourished children in the 3rd world already? Because they are not a profit source. The world is optimizing to the wealthy. Whole Foods isn't cheap for a reason.
- sp332 14y agoWhy aren't liquid foods like this being supplied to under-nourished children in the 3rd world already? Probably because it doesn't keep or ship well.
- samstave 14y agoFalse. My mother just passed of cancer, she was on a feeding tube for 8 months consuming this Abott liquid food. It was shipped in cases just like anything else - cardboard boxes - and delivered via foil-boxes just like the portable milk that you see at any starbucks, though it required no refrigeration. However, this substance was not made for taste buds and it smelled fairly bad. They have different types depending on what caloric intake was prescribed by the doctor.
- sp332 14y agoAs stated in Steko's quote above, that costs ~4x as much as soylent. Note also that the numbers for soylent don't include packaging or shipping. If you made a commercial version with preservatives etc. the price might be comparable.
- samstave 14y agoI am still skeptical of that stement: the medical cost of Abott's product is high. That does not mean the manufacturing cost is high. In fact, as I mentioned, I think the margins are what is extremely high. The packaging of this is ubiquitous in many many other products (milk, juice, etc) and I am sure is a very very low cost factor.
- lilsunnybee 14y agoOh great. "The poor don't need solid foods. Just feed them this mush. That'll be a kick in the pants to get back into the work force too." The current costs are also way too high. Most of the world survives on much less than $150 a month for food. I spend less than $150 and i live in the USA.
- recuter 14y agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5369778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5369778 Nestle produces something called Modulen specifically for people with IBD. The idea is for people with Crohn's to switch to a liquid diet during bad flare ups to settle things down as digesting food causes inflammation. It is rather expensive. Luckily for me, my insurance covered it (I'm from Israel, so YMMV). The hard part is that you have to pound a dozen glasses of the stuff every day. Some people can't even drink that much water and this is a heavy drink. Soylent may be an improvement in terms of price and preparation because Modulen comes in powder form and doesn't mix well with water and goops up quickly. It is simply not easy getting it down. To those of you suggesting this sort of thing can solve world hunger - doubtful. I'm the only one my doctors know of who actually was able to adhere to a liquid only diet for a stretch of multiple months, people simply don't have the willpower. You miss food quite badly and are never satiated. What I think Soylent could possibly be is an ultimate supplement, like a protein shake - in fact, fitness companies like Beachbody (P90X) hawk all kinds of dubios concoctions, it is a lucrative market. One that actually works would be neat.
- FaddiCat 14y agoAbbott Nutrition has a range of nutritionally complete drinks called Ensure. If you just can't be bothered eating that's probably the best way to go. http://www.abbottnutrition.com.au/Portals/0/img/Oral%20Nutrition%20April%202012.pdf http://www.abbottnutrition.com.au/Portals/0/img/Oral%20Nutri... No idea how much it costs though.
- 14y ago
- philwelch 14y agoThe problem is that Jevity, for instance, is absolutely disgusting. It's meant to be pumped into a feeding tube. You can't drink it.