3 ms·

Maybe not as violent, but a bad diet can quickly lead to disease. We never see it in the affluent West but micronutrient disease was and still is a pretty big p

by jckt 13y ago

Maybe not as violent, but a bad diet can quickly lead to disease. We never see it in the affluent West but micronutrient disease was and still is a pretty big problem -- you are getting enough food energy, so while you're not starving, you're still dying from your diet. We've only begun to start understanding some of these diseases (like Pellagra: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellagra#Epidemiology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellagra#Epidemiology), and we don't really have it all nailed down yet.

lowboy 13y ago
Yeah, I agree that there's a lot that we don't know about the human body, and I disliked any claims by Soylent that overreached in this way. But we do know about nutrients and have a good idea of the proportion of them for the avg human. I think my main problem with the backlash is with the argument that boils down to "We don't know, so let's not risk it". I don't see why we can't try it, and then monitor and react. If I started using Soylent and then 30 days down the road I was feeling ill, I'd probably stop using it first thing while exploring other causes.
- timr 13y ago
  "But we do know about nutrients and have a good idea of the proportion of them for the avg human." We really, really don't. You could be excused for thinking we've got it all figured out if you listened only to news reporting on nutrition studies, but there's so much contradictory information out there that it's difficult to know which end is up. For example: Soylent, according to the story, is partially fish oil. Did you know that there's a study out of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center that strongly suggests that fish oil supplementation increases the incidence of aggressive, fatal prostate cancers? What was once a nutrient panacea is likely now contraindicated in men. Does this mean that Soylent shouldn't be using fish oil? Hard to say. I doubt that even the creators have any idea.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  The backlash is "We don't know, and you dumbass without a degree are trying to figure this out without any formal training". I welcome doctors, researchers, and people who know what they are doing to experiment with the human body. But when a computer science major armed with nothing but a few textbooks in body chemistry claims that he has "figured the body out", I am going to assume otherwise. Does he have any cooking experience? What is his medical background? Its not so much that "we don't know", but "the creator of Soylent clearly doesn't know", and yet he wants us to believe that he does.

by jckt 13y ago

lowboy 13y ago

Yeah, I agree that there's a lot that we don't know about the human body, and I disliked any claims by Soylent that overreached in this way. But we do know about nutrients and have a good idea of the proportion of them for the avg human. I think my main problem with the backlash is with the argument that boils down to "We don't know, so let's not risk it". I don't see why we can't try it, and then monitor and react. If I started using Soylent and then 30 days down the road I was feeling ill, I'd probably stop using it first thing while exploring other causes.

timr 13y ago
"But we do know about nutrients and have a good idea of the proportion of them for the avg human." We really, really don't. You could be excused for thinking we've got it all figured out if you listened only to news reporting on nutrition studies, but there's so much contradictory information out there that it's difficult to know which end is up. For example: Soylent, according to the story, is partially fish oil. Did you know that there's a study out of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center that strongly suggests that fish oil supplementation increases the incidence of aggressive, fatal prostate cancers? What was once a nutrient panacea is likely now contraindicated in men. Does this mean that Soylent shouldn't be using fish oil? Hard to say. I doubt that even the creators have any idea.
dragontamer 13y ago
The backlash is "We don't know, and you dumbass without a degree are trying to figure this out without any formal training". I welcome doctors, researchers, and people who know what they are doing to experiment with the human body. But when a computer science major armed with nothing but a few textbooks in body chemistry claims that he has "figured the body out", I am going to assume otherwise. Does he have any cooking experience? What is his medical background? Its not so much that "we don't know", but "the creator of Soylent clearly doesn't know", and yet he wants us to believe that he does.