4 ms·

Just one more point: the colon depends on solid material in order to push things through (it's how it works). Get rid of solid food in there and its muscles won

Just one more point: the colon depends on solid material in order to push things through (it's how it works). Get rid of solid food in there and its muscles won't create any real transit.

dsego 13y ago
How about that one guy recently on HN that didn't eat anything for over a year and lived off his body fat? He defecated once in a month or so.
- king_jester 13y ago
  The vast majority of "person doesn't eat and still lives" stories are fakes or the person in question actually does eat and drink, sometimes secretly.
  - dsego 13y ago
    I think this was under medical supervision and the guy was extremely overweight in the beginning.
  - glenra 13y ago
    If you start out weighing ~450 pounds, the math on living without eating is pretty straightforward. The person in question did a medically supervised fast. He consumed water, a multivitamin and a small amount of yeast. (Also potassium tablets for a few months) His weight went from 456 to 180 pounds over the period of the fast; he regained about 15 pounds in the following 5 years. He apparently defecated every 40-50 days. (Though the stories about this are pretty recent, the event being described happened in 1965.) http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/07/24/3549931.htm http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/07/24/3549931.ht...
mcv 13y ago
This is my only real worry about Soylent. Most of the argument people make against it make little sense (including this article). The only thing I can imagine being a problem is the fact that our digestive tract is made to extract nutrients from stuff and poop out the remains. If we only get the nutrients without the crap to poop out, much of our digestive tract has little to do. And physiology tends to revolve around "use it or lose it". Astronauts living weightless for a significant time lose muscle and bone mass because they don't need it. If you eat nothing but Soylent for a year, will you still be able to handle normal food? That's really the only significant problem I can think of with the Soylent approach to eating. And it could be a serious one, though I suspect it's easy to mitigate by mixing the occasional real meal into the mix.

Just one more point: the colon depends on solid material in order to push things through (it's how it works). Get rid of solid food in there and its muscles won't create any real transit.

dsego 13y ago

How about that one guy recently on HN that didn't eat anything for over a year and lived off his body fat? He defecated once in a month or so.

king_jester 13y ago
The vast majority of "person doesn't eat and still lives" stories are fakes or the person in question actually does eat and drink, sometimes secretly.
- dsego 13y ago
  I think this was under medical supervision and the guy was extremely overweight in the beginning.
- glenra 13y ago
  If you start out weighing ~450 pounds, the math on living without eating is pretty straightforward. The person in question did a medically supervised fast. He consumed water, a multivitamin and a small amount of yeast. (Also potassium tablets for a few months) His weight went from 456 to 180 pounds over the period of the fast; he regained about 15 pounds in the following 5 years. He apparently defecated every 40-50 days. (Though the stories about this are pretty recent, the event being described happened in 1965.) http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/07/24/3549931.htm http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/07/24/3549931.ht...

mcv 13y ago

This is my only real worry about Soylent. Most of the argument people make against it make little sense (including this article). The only thing I can imagine being a problem is the fact that our digestive tract is made to extract nutrients from stuff and poop out the remains. If we only get the nutrients without the crap to poop out, much of our digestive tract has little to do. And physiology tends to revolve around "use it or lose it". Astronauts living weightless for a significant time lose muscle and bone mass because they don't need it. If you eat nothing but Soylent for a year, will you still be able to handle normal food? That's really the only significant problem I can think of with the Soylent approach to eating. And it could be a serious one, though I suspect it's easy to mitigate by mixing the occasional real meal into the mix.