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My 5.5 Months on Soylent: The Joys of Not Cooking

• e12e 12y ago
  Maybe "college level athlete" means something different than what I think, but I have a hard time squaring that with 1200 calories a day. I might be overestimating, but when I think "hard exercise", I think of Royal Marines etc, that generally target at least 3000 calories a day. I get that you need to eat less if your goal is to loose weight -- but I can't understand how anyone can be active on that few calories. Good for him it works, though.
  • MrMember 12y ago
    Seriously. I was only ever a high school athlete but even then I was eating ~3500 calories a day and maintaining weight. At 1200 calories a day you could be mostly sedentary and still likely lose several pounds a week.
    • nilved 12y ago
      No, 1200 is a pretty reasonable diet for weight loss if you're not getting a lot of exercise. For example, I (an early 20s dude) naturally burn about 1800 calories a day, and another 200 from walking to and from work. 2000 - 1200 = 800 calorie deficit, or a week to reach a deficit of 3500 and lose a pound.
      • tzakrajs 12y ago
        Maybe if you are a very small person.
  • ninguem2 12y ago
    I thought that was weird too. He won't be making the college's (American) football team if he was fat at 185lb.
    • eflowers 12y ago
      I am a 34 year old designer. It was an illustrative point of seeing what 3 days a week of HIIT and 3 other days of weights/cardio will do. Obviously at 34 year old guy who works at a software company won't be trying out for college basketball... or maybe I will! Is Stanford doing open enrollment? Do they have a basketball team?
  • aylons 12y ago
    I understood that college level athlete is his objective by the end of next year. For now, he may be trying to loose weight first.
    • eflowers 12y ago
      Yes. It's a long term plan, and an illustrative exaggeration. I don't expect a 34 year old designer at a software company to actually enter the NFL combine. But I want to reach for my max potential over the next few years. I'm 34.
      • nostalgiac 12y ago
        "Max potential" will not happen in a few years. It will take a decade or longer. But yes, you will make astounding progress in the first couple of years assuming you stick to a proper meal plan (even if that's Soylent and hitting the right macros) and train appropriately (progressive overload).
        • eflowers 12y ago
          I just want to reach for it. I don't need to hit it. I have a personal trainer 3 times a week who does HIIT and conditioning, with some weights mixed in but not as the focus. And then the endurance cardio I do on my own. I'll probably stick with the trainer for quite a while, I learn a lot and it's so convenient as the gym and trainer are at my workplace, it's a real sweet setup.
  • eflowers 12y ago
    It was a slight exaggeration to make a point. I have what, 8.5 months left to work on it. Regarding 3000 calories a day etc, I am purposefully eating the 1200 range to lose fat first, that's my first goal. I do HIIT 3 times a week, and cardio 3 times. 6 days total. I am not trying to build muscle mass at this point. I will be soon, but for now I just need to drop the fat from years of sedentary computer jobs, and condition my heart and lungs. So far, I am very happy with the improvements. I don't know how this activity level would feel at 3000 calories, but at 1200 for the short term, I feel really good.
• dankohn1 12y ago
  Not to disagree with the poster, but I do want to point out the obvious fact that there are many different ways to consume Soylent. Most days, I skip breakfast, have a relatively healthy lunch (often socially with colleagues), and then drink Soylent as a filling and healthy (and relatively low-calorie) dinner, while my wife and kids eat normal food. I also love adding cinnamon, cocoa powder, or (as a special treat) PB2. To each their own.
• deleted 12y ago
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• alisson 12y ago
  I never liked cooking, so when I moved out I ate a lot on restaurants or ordered to deliver, then I re-discovered fruits. I don't like the idea of processed foo because I think we need the bacterias and all the life on the food. Those kids who could not play on dirt or weren't feed on mother's milk are more likely to have allergies. Bacterias bring us health, when we cook food we kill most of it's life and lower it's nutritional value to our body. Today I'm living on 90% fruits, fruits are the perfect food to me, seems like most people don't see what fruits can bring to their health. You don't have to cook, just grab and eat and I can grow my own which means that is not that difficult to be auto-sufficient, they're like the best fast food ever. On first month I noticed I could smell things better, I could breath through my nose much more easily, my taste is better, it's much easier to poop too and the smell is also different, less 'harmful' to the nose. When I eat dairy or something cooked my poop goes bad on the next day, it's like our body is the best doctor around.
  • kiba 12y ago
    I don't like the idea of processed foo because I think we need the bacterias and all the life on the food. Those kids who could not play on dirt or weren't feed on mother's milk are more likely to have allergies. Bacterias bring us health, when we cook food we kill most of it's life and lower it's nutritional value to our body. You know cooking actually increases the nutritional value accessible in our food we eat, right? If it's pointless to cook food, we would just eat food raw.
    • polyfractal 12y ago
      Yes, this. So much. And because I'm a biologist by training and can't resist: > Bacterias bring us health Unless it is e. coli, salmonella, listeria, botulism, etc etc. Some bacteria is helpful, most is neutral and some will make you very sick or kill you. > I think we need the bacterias and all the life on the food There is just as much bacteria on your skin, on the doorknob and on the basket holding you bananas to service your "daily dose of bacteria". Seriously, bacteria is everywhere. There is good evidence that ultra-clean lifestyles can increase allergies as you mentioned, but that is where you try to sterilize everything. It isn't where you simply cook food. > Today I'm living on 90% fruits Please make sure you are getting enough iron, or you could be on the road to anemia and serious health complications. :) > When I eat dairy or something cooked my poop goes bad on the next day, it's like our body is the best doctor around. Or, different foods have different molecular structure, which is digested and metabolized by different pathways in your stomach and intestines, leading to different aromatic by-products. Just because you don't like the smell doesn't mean there is something "wrong". I don't like the smell of manure all that much, but it is a very "good" by-product, if you want to label things good or bad.
• russellallen 12y ago
  Good for him. Whatever floats your boat. Personally for me it sounds horrible. Cooking isn't that bad - in fact it gives me some pleasure. And I enjoy different flavours, textures, in fact I enjoy eating. So I don't really understand, but I'm not going to force my tastes on others.
  • nkozyra 12y ago
    It plays into a relatively new desire for all things quantified and automated. It does this - it allows for granular control over input, but it removes all of the inherent joy of eating. It's not a good trade-off for most people, but appeals to experimenters. The only appeal for me would be removing the time constraints of cooking or dining out. To be honest, cooking is a huge time sink and dining out isn't a whole lot better.
    • Kalium 12y ago
      Personally, I found that the granular control is huge for dieting.
      • nkozyra 12y ago
        Of course. But it doesn't preclude eating, yknow, food.
    • batbomb 12y ago
      Considering many people on this HN are, well, hackers, and can spend a ton of time coding, optimizing, etc... often even evangelizing coding for everyday people, I feel like this is the lazy answer. Which is fine; there's nothing inherently wrong with being lazy or ignorant about cooking. But evangelism about Soylent freeing up ones time is silly, all things considered. It's not for everyone, it's not for families, it's not even formulated for women, the elderly, children, or generally for people with nutritional needs that deviate from those of a 30 year old male. It's for the lazy dude who doesn't want to cook.
      • 12y ago
• source99 12y ago
  I don't intend to pass judgement on this person but from all the scientific research I have read the ratio of carbs to fat/protein in soylent is not healthy. This individual may not have any visibly negative health effects but I doubt this diet will work for a majority of people for an extended time frame.
  • erikschoster 12y ago
    Would you mind sharing a reference to some of this research? I haven't heard this and am currently considering working soylent back into my regular diet.
    • source99 12y ago
      Gary Taubes is a journalist that does a great job of summarizing scientific research. Read or watch just about anything he writes.
  • kylek 12y ago
    I've never tried the "official" soylent but have toyed around with a few recipes on http://diy.soylent.me/ http://diy.soylent.me/ . You can adjust it how you please and set your own nutrient profile to get as close as you can to what you want. (...I am not a health expert)
  • aidanhs 12y ago
    The problem I have with statements like this is that it gives no context for what 'not healthy' actually means (and, by extension, what a 'perfectly healthy' diet is). For example, I often don't hit 3 of the 5 recommended fruit/veg in a day and I consume far too many fatty foods. Over an extended time frame this will probably cause me to become overweight and deficient in vitamins. Given this, it'd be useful to know what the advantages and disadvantages of soylent would be in my current situation. Do you have a link to the studies? They presumably give more information about their benchmarking.
    • source99 12y ago
      Gary Taubes provides a good summary of recent scientific studies. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qEuIlQONcHw http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qEuIlQONcHw
• rayiner 12y ago
  I don't understand all the reactions to Soylent where people are weirded out. Didn't we all grow up watching Slimfast commercials? "A shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, then a sensible dinner."
  • schoen 12y ago
    Just reading that gives me that reassuring, confident advertising announcer's voice in my head.
  • jlas 12y ago
    Great point! Although I think Soylent also wants you to have a shake for dinner... forever...
    • Retra 12y ago
      You don't have to eat Soylent for every meal.
    • myrryr 12y ago
      Not at all, and there are VERY few people who use it that way.
      • FireBeyond 12y ago
        Based on ... what?
  • c23gooey 12y ago
    The presence of advertising for a particular product, does not imply that use of the product is normal. How many of us have seen ads for penis enlargement pills?
  • maxerickson 12y ago
    I think many of them just don't "believe" in chemistry. So a process where the body excretes various things that break food down into smaller molecules and then those smaller molecules are selectively absorbed sounds like overly reductive magic. http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-topics/anatomy/your-digestive-system/Pages/anatomy.aspx http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-topics/an...
• dataker 12y ago
  Quite honestly, I find Soylent to be quite overrated. Existing protein powders/meal replacement/mass gainers are tastier and more affordable. I get the point of 'eventually scientifically managing your diet', but that's far from reality.
  • Yhippa 12y ago
    What does it taste like to you?
• jmspring 12y ago
  I look at cooking like I do coding, there is always something new to learn and it's not always going to be an easy process. In fact, since I work at home most times, if I get stuck on a particularly gnarly problem and don't have another outlet, I might distract myself with cooking (gardening, a time outside, or a nap are other options). I've made things I've had to throw out, I've made things I've been able to tweak into other dishes, and I've made things that were quite outstanding. As a poster above pointed out -- "whatever floats your boat". That said, there is more to the outside world than things like living like a hermit, avoiding food, spending every waking moment in front of the computer, etc. At some point, one wakes up and realizes there is more out there. And, if you are lucky to find someone who you want to share your life with, habits like those listed above (they seem to pop up frequently in posts here) are going to likely change.
  • mahouse 12y ago
    Same! I love cooking and I absolutely love food. It feels like a disgrace to me that some people would exchange actual food for some gray mud, but I guess that to each his own.
    • jmspring 12y ago
      Oh, I think we all embrace some form of "gray mud" at times. Sometimes a smoothie, sometimes a diet coke and some peanut butter and jelly on toast, things that are quick and get me going in the day. Or people that do fasts, or weight loss mixes, or some of the crud I eat while on long bike rides (power bars, cliff bars, supplements in water bottles, etc). I think giving up all food for something like Soylent is a bit silly, but at the same time, we do all make different sacrifices at times.
      • Frondo 12y ago
        I wonder how Soylent's uptake would differ if they were pitching it as a quick occasional meal alternative. Everything I've ever seen about Soylent is along the lines of "now you can eat nothing but Soylent!", which, for how much of the world enjoys both cooking and eating, seems like a tough pitch, except for a very, very small niche that, I guess, doesn't actually get any visceral pleasure from food.
• jarin 12y ago
  I used to like the idea of Soylent, but after subscribing to one of those weekly boxes where they deliver all the fresh ingredients and recipes to you, I've found a lot of enjoyment in cooking.
  • bbarn 12y ago
    I love to cook. I tend to shop for meats / primary ingredients in bulk at costco, and freeze/thaw as needed. However, the individual dishes I almost never plan out, other than maybe a few days ahead of time. Almost nightly I go for a walk to the local food store(s) and build our meals there. Sometimes I have a mission and some times I tool around. It's about an hour's time total, and what I do to kind of separate work time to home time (aside from a short bike ride home). It's as much a part of my cooking process as anything else, and for that reason something about these subscription things doesn't feel right for me.
  • someone13 12y ago
    Which service do you subscribe to, if you don't mind my asking?
    • jarin 12y ago
      Blue Apron, to me it has the most variety and more interesting ingredients than the other ones I've looked at so far.
  • mrieck 12y ago
    Having those boxes delivered really saves a lot of time for me. The next step in time-saving should be automating the cooking with robots, not accepting that because we have no time we should take the pleasure and variety out of food. In a utopian robotic future we'd all have robots cook our meals with the expert quality of a high-end chef. In a dystopian robotic future, the robots would give us the most basic sustenance to keep us alive if they deemed us useful... and I'd imagine what they'd give us would be something like Soylent. If some people are happy with that, then I'm not going to judge, but personally I think we could do better.
• alexland 12y ago
  I love eating and the social aspect of sharing a meal with others, so I can't see myself having Soylent in this capacity whatsoever, but I would definitely like to try it as a breakfast and quick lunch alternative. I have the bad habit of rushing in the morning and rarely eating, so Soylent seems like a great fit. It's also interesting to realize that the food most people eat really is not very healthy, even when it consists of mostly healthy ingredients. It seems like most of the people I know probably don't get nearly as much fibre as they should, so a product like Soylent could be a beneficial addition to many people's daily nutrient intake.
• cko 12y ago
  I, too, sometimes dislike cooking, so here's what I do: I take 1 cup of raw oatmeal, ice, and 2 cups of lactose free whole milk and put it in a blender. Thirty seconds later I have a meal of 600Cal with 26g protein. I have this at least once a day. Sometimes three times a day. I heard somewhere that we need to actually use our teeth once in a while, so I microwave frozen broccoli florets. I soft-boil 2-4 eggs with an egg steamer and combine all of that in sesame oil + soy sauce.
  • tomasien 12y ago
    Makes sense - but I guess I would have to ask why not try Soylent then? Soylent is basically the the oatmeal smoothie you're describing except nutritionally complete, so why not just do that? Why make your own that is less healthy and complete? It almost certainly can't be cheaper.
    • nacs 12y ago
      What makes you think the parent post's recipe is "less healthy". Is there any 3rd-party scientific study proving Soylent is healthier or its long term effects? Also, raw oats bought in bulk are cheaper and more eco-friendly than buying pricey Soylent drinks and having them shipped across the country regularly.
      • sliverstorm 12y ago
        In fact, there aren't a lot of foods cheaper than milk, raw oats, eggs, and soy sauce. Potatoes maybe?
        • ferrari8608 12y ago
          Rice is also pretty cheap for what you get.
      • tomasien 12y ago
        Good point, bought in bulk that is probably a cheaper meal. And no I don't have any 3rd-party scientific study proving the long term effects of something that has only been out for 2 years, but thank you for asking. There's an absolute ton of 3rd party, peer reviewed science around nutritional completeness and what that entails, and Soylent adheres to the best practices of that research extremely well. Oats and milk is actually a pretty darn good approximation from what I understand about the nutritional content of oats (super strong), but my point is why not at least try Soylent if that's what you're going to do? Soylent is basically by design a super optimized version of that meal.
• jdkuepper 12y ago
  Thanks for the post- It would be interesting to see some more detailed N=1 studies posted regarding Soylent. In particular, I'd be very interested in seeing a blood lipid profile, blood pressure readings, and blood glucose readings before and after to see its effects on key markers for metabolic syndrome. I'm not opposed to the idea of engineered food (it would certainly be convenient), but I'm not convinced that the same macronutrient profile is ideal for everyone. My other big concern is that there's potential harm in the lack of diversity - e.g. "unknown unknowns" so to speak. Unfortunately, the field of nutrition is not very WELL studied despite the high NUMBER of studies published, so I won't pretend that I have a better answer than Soylent to the problem with nutrition in society. It's good to see that people are at least working on the problem in creative ways, so long as they aren't harming anyone.
  • bbarn 12y ago
    "I'm not convinced that the same macronutrient profile is ideal for everyone. " Yeah, this is my big problem with all of this. In fact, given the known differences in gut fauna that localized cultures/diets have, it's pretty much a fact. Different people process different foods differently. I agree with your assertion that quantity of nutrition "studies" doesn't provide quality. Most nutrition studies seem to be done with the goal of proving X diet is better than Y, sponsored and paid for by X.
    • myrryr 12y ago
      if People can take a massive range of macronutrients. Seriously, if soylent was going to be a problem, then people would have to be FAR more careful about what they eat then they are now. It all reminds me of the perfect is the enemy of good arguments. Is soylent perfect? Most likely not, is it better then the vast majority of people are eating? that wouldn't be a high bar to jump, and I think it jumps it easily.
      • tracker1 12y ago
        More recent studies seam to lean towards once you get a minimum level of protein in your diet, the rest of it is just calories... though ketosis vs carb burning is another difference. That said, most people are not on a keto based diet. So, get your protein in (1/3 to 1/2 your lean weight in pounds as grams of protein), and from there have whatever you want to hit your caloric needs. Even when trying to lose wieght, making sure you hit your minimum protein requirements is important... my only suggestion to someone taking a reduced amount of soylent is that they really should supplement extra protein into their diet. Especially if exercising as they are likely losing a lot of muscle with the fat loss, which is probably not the desired result.
• saulrh 12y ago
  Aligns reasonably well with my (short) experience. I got a bag from a friend and ate a jar of Soylent every morning for breakfast for about a week. It was in fact pretty great: I'd pour out N calories, where N was how much I figured I'd need to eat to get to $nextmeal, and then I'd drink it and be on my way. The stuff has really nice properties as far as hunger goes, too; it has neither the lead-brick problem that I get from things like chicken and dumplings nor the gone-in-fifteen-minutes problem that I have with fried rice. I generally ate as much as I wanted and felt perfectly full until right when I'd expected to be having lunch or dinner. To answer the people who think it can't possibly be healthy, honestly, I don't have time to fix most of my diet. I can put in all the time I want to make sure my dinners are perfect, and I generally do, but I'm too rushed in the morning to have anything other than cereal. And I have to have lunch out so that's impossible to get right. Even if Soylent doesn't have "the proper carb-fat ratio" or something, it's better than what I have right now. So, summary, I have some on order and the rest of you can say "I told you so" if I get cancer in thirty years. Given what some other people survive on I doubt you'll get the opportunity.
  • simonebrunozzi 12y ago
    "Given what some other people survive on I doubt you'll get the opportunity." - yep.
  • cconroy 12y ago
    I couldn't find the ingredients list -- but because it is not fully understood what food contains there may be missing nutrients in soylent that a well-balanced diet would have.
    • saulrh 12y ago
      Disagree; we've had the tech for a while to keep coma and locked-in patients healthy (or healthy modulo extremely sedentary lifestyles). Same thing with cat food and dog food. Soylent is a trivial extension.
      • fasteo 12y ago
• Frondo 12y ago
  I think of cooking like I think of sex: it's best when you use a variety of methods/ingredients, and when you share it with someone.
• unavoidable 12y ago
  Anyone else think that OP is doing a disservice to his children, which he describes as eating mac and cheese?
  • issa 12y ago
    That line stuck out to me as well. But leading by example is one of the best ways to parent. (not suggesting that kids switch to soylent--just that you can't really go wrong with fruits and veggies)
  • foofoo55 12y ago
    Totally. Sit and eat with your kids. Make food with them, clean up with them. Make them seriously good times. Teach them good food habits, good life skills (chill out from the rat race and sit down for a decent meal), and improve both their and your own social skills. I doubt that particular meal substitute stuff is truly complete, and I do believe that variety is a good thing. Eating good food is good for the soul, as it can be one of the different types of beauty we can have on our lives.
    • eflowers 12y ago
      I posted above, but my wife and I are very conscious of how our kids eat, and they aren't ignored or sitting at the table, sad and alone. They enjoy a variety of meals, meal time, "social skill building at the kitchen table". We're even starting to make our 5 year old sushi (rice and seaweed) at his request after eating some from the store.
  • srtjstjsj 12y ago
    Do you have kids? Kids have different tolerances and stronger desires and louder tantrums than their parents.
  • eflowers 12y ago
    It's a blog post, that was an illustration to say my kids don't eat Soylent. My kids eat normal, healthy kid food. I sit with them when it's meal time. My wife and I are very conscious of their diet and do our best to be way above the norm for monitoring and providing kids great nutrition.
• rdmcfee 12y ago
  I'm a big fan of personal experimentation but it's important to always be skeptical of your own n=1 conclusions. In this particular case, coinciding the interventions of your diet change and exercise regiment make it very difficult to know the respective contribution of each to your results. Interesting anecdotes nonetheless.
• deleted 12y ago
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  • eflowers 12y ago
    I got on the subscription way back. Took a while to get here for the first time, but now I get a guaranteed box every 4 weeks.
  • mahyarm 12y ago
    They prioritized previous customers first if you read their website. They will supply people who have gotten a soylent shipment before or are on a regular subscription reliably. It's just that first order as they scale up production. But they got a bunch of funding recently and said that the delays should be going away soon for new customers.
  • ziedaniel1 12y ago
    For what it's worth, once you're a customer, future purchases are fulfilled in 1-2 weeks (even if you've e.g. cancelled your subscription).
  • strmpnk 12y ago
    I signed up a week ago out of curiosity and got my first delivery in less than a week. I'm guessing their estimate is quite conservative to cover variability.
• savanaly 12y ago
  I tried soylent recently on a whim and found it to be too disgusting in taste to continue after the first sip. A lot of people here seem to have tried it and I don't see a single confirmation of this problem. Has the been a problem for anyone?
  • pbreit 12y ago
    It doesn't taste like pooh or anything. Are you sure you're not over-reacting?
    • savanaly 12y ago
      By most people's standard I certainly am. I'm a very picky eater and am working on it, but certain things simply cause me to gag and that's all there is to it. And unfortunately soylent is one of them.
  • deleted 12y ago
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  • philwelch 12y ago
    You might be a supertaster. Have you ever noticed that cilantro tastes like soap?
  • asillystory 12y ago
    It's quite neutral. I find people who haven't taken protein shakes or the sort usually have the biggest issue with the taste when it's really not that bad. I consume my Soylent warm so it breaks down easier in a shaker bottle and it works well for me. Been using it for six months now to replace my meal while at work.
  • fossuser 12y ago
    Did you mix it well and drink it chilled? The first time I had it, it wasn't mixed well and was warm (didn't taste that great). When it was mixed well and cold I liked it.
  • myrryr 12y ago
• outside1234 12y ago
  I would never do this day to day - but I love the idea of this for backpacking? Anyone have any experience with that?
  • Taek 12y ago
    Yes, we took soylent backpacking. I would summarize it as 'mediocre'. You needed water to make it and wash it down, it was kind of gritty, the bottle we had it in reeked of soylent and pretty much couldn't be used for anything else. I don't know what exactly was the issue but it felt cumbersome. On later trips we opted not to take soylent. There are no major problems or things to warn you about. It just felt like it was in the way.
• waskosky 12y ago
  As a strict vegan who felt very drained mentally from Soylent, with no expectations going into it, I much prefer the meal replacements from the Garden of Life brand (no affiliation), and for me I felt much more awake and alert afterward with their stuff. http://www.gardenoflife.com/Products-for-Life/Foundational-Nutrition/RAW-Meal.aspx http://www.gardenoflife.com/Products-for-Life/Foundational-N... Soylent was a downer for me but I did not stay with it past the first 3 bags to see if the feeling would pass. The most productive I ever feel (mentally) is generally after eating a very large salad, usually with lots of kale, tempeh, and tahini (no sugar) for dressing. Takes awhile to prepare that so I find meal replacements are still really nice to have around. Still, if you haven't tried that kind of meal before, you might not realize what you are missing.
  • quadrangle 12y ago
    That salad sounds great. I usually have salad dry. For my whole life, I've always hated how people cover perfectly fine vegetables with gross sweet or excessively oily dressings. Ugh. Incidentally, I really like Soylent 1.4 (the only I've tried), and I tried Garden of Life's Raw Meal and couldn't stand it. I've tried their Raw Fit protien supplement though and enjoy that. I might try other options too. I like Soylent though actually. I hope it ends up taking a direction that truly cares about sustainability, health, and ethics in their sourcing of things. I have the impression that Garden of Life is a little more conscientious, but I dunno.
    • waskosky 12y ago
      I've tried a variety of dressings but have found that simply ground up seeds satisfy me the most. I had only tried Solent version 1.1, the vegan version that came with no oil packets. I can see how v1.4, with added fats and no artificial flavoring, would be superior. I found that if I added plenty of (unrefined) salt to either brand of meal replacement, that also significantly helped the flavor. I suspect that extra salt is more healthy and important than either of these brands give credit for http://www.amazon.com/Salt-Your-Way-Health-Edition/dp/B000R8ZTGK http://www.amazon.com/Salt-Your-Way-Health-Edition/dp/B000R8...
• dzhiurgis 12y ago
  Does anyone know author's height?
  • eflowers 12y ago
    6'
• deleted 12y ago
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  • mullingitover 12y ago
    I hear what you're saying, but I still look on my cat with envy. She's lived her entire life eating the same cat food and is in perfect health.
    • brandon272 12y ago
      I've always thought that was interesting in regard to my dogs. The same (expensive) kibble day after day yet they seem to thrive on it! .. whereas I'm fretting over finding the right "balanced" combo of foods to eat every day and trying to gauge whether or not I'm making the right choices by how much energy I have and what the consistency of my bowel movements are. Oy!
  • wdewind 12y ago
    I don't find soylent appealing, and I think ultimately you're probably mostly right, but there isn't a lot of good science supporting your position. You touch on two really big debates in nutritional scientific community: > people who eat diets very high in plant content tend to have extremely good health Key word tend, causation has been so hard to prove here because they tend to do a lot of other things as well. > I myself recovered from heart disease by eating only plant foods, plus legumes and mushrooms. I lost 70 pounds in six months. A ton of health problems also seem to resolve by simply losing weight. It's, again, really difficult pull apart the effects caused by diet content vs. diet amount. Also: > another is the greater quantity of fiber, compared to the average American diet. but Soylent is a drink. you'd get more fiber eating a hamburger. This part is actually just incorrect. Soylent has 38g of fiber per serving. I'd also add fiber can be a big negative for some people's guts. The jury is very out on fiber. It tends to be a modulator either way: having gut issues? Add some fiber! Still having gut issues? Cut out the fiber! Again, I mostly agree with what you are saying, and I think it's probably the truth. But it's important to know that the science is really conflicting, and that nutrition is really really difficult to study in a meaningful way. It's easy to look at the last 50 years of nutritional science and say "wow those guys got it so wrong," that I have to imagine we'll be continuing to do that 50 years from now as well. What is supported by the current science is calorie counting and macronutrient composition as far as energy + protein ratio. Beyond that (meal timing, micronutrient composition, carbohydrate source, carbohydrates vs. fat etc.), there is really very little concrete science. It would be great if we could fund some more studies. Regardless of what you think of Taube's theories, I think his work at NuSI is going to be some of the first good science to really look at this stuff. We'll see though.
• deleted 12y ago
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• smegel 12y ago
  I don't cook either. Snap-dried frozen dinners can be healthy, taste like real food* and you also know exactly how many calories you are eating. Food science has come a long way and quality frozen meals are not the salt-drenched, fat/sugar bombs of the "TV-dinners" of past. * (edit) are real food
• crimsonalucard 12y ago
  Are there any actual studies on this kind of diet yet? I feel this author's anecdotal experiences are colored by other changes in his life style.
• kelvie 12y ago
  What's wrong with the meal replacement drinks that you can purchase at any drug store and are prescribed by doctors and such currently for people who can't conveniently eat? During busier days where I don't want to bother deciding what to eat, I just take one of those. Why do we need soylent, when meal replacement drinks have already existed for years?
  • threefour 12y ago
    To me, meal replacement drinks sold at drugstore are to Soylent what Microsoft is to open source. Both have their merits and I use both types of products, but I really like a world with open source in it.
  • brandon272 12y ago
    One thing that meal replacement drinks seem to lack (among other things, if I recall correctly) is fibre. The ones I've purchased (Ensure, Boost, etc.) don't contain any fibre whatsoever. If you're at all prone to constipation and you rely a lot on those drinks you are in for a hard road.
• pixie_ 12y ago
  I have to agree that Soylent is pretty great. I have it for breakfast everyday and sometimes dinner. I'll throw half a scoop of protein powder in there as well because I workout. Weekends I'll usually have 2 meals Soylent and 1 meal normal. I like cooking and eating out, but not 3 times a day. Sometimes I just want to get 500 (perfectly balanced) calories in me and go about my business.
• Thelo33 12y ago
  Can anyone parse why the "What's Soylent made of?" (http://www.soylent.me/ http://www.soylent.me/) screen is so different from their "Complete-Soylent-Nutrition-Facts.pdf" (https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0421/5993/t/14/assets/files_Complete-Soylent-Nutrition-Facts-1p4.pdf https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0421/5993/t/14/assets/file...)? At first I thought it was a simple serving size multiple, but carbs are 5x (51,252), Sodium is 2.5x (410,1050), Fiber is 7x (4,27), Potassium is 4x (866, 3500). The only reason I care is that I was curious about Omega 3s, but that's only listed on less official looking table that doesn't give a serving size. And so now I'm questioning what that's actually based on.
• officer_gotcha 12y ago
  Desperate autosuggestion is desperate. People with healthy eating habits don't obsess over whatever they eat for pages and pages; people who are not 'religious' about food don't pepper it with righteous words; people who are happy with their choice don't feel the need to justify it with a long, pseudo-philosophical rants on the Internets. Now, proceed to shower me in down-votes.
• prostoalex 12y ago
  Is anybody working on a ketogenic (i.e., zero-carb) version of this?
  • frankacter 12y ago
    Here you go: http://diy.soylent.me/recipes?tags=Ketogenic http://diy.soylent.me/recipes?tags=Ketogenic
  • tracker1 12y ago
    http://www.ketosoy.com/ http://www.ketosoy.com/ It isn't zero carb, but it's low enough that you can maintain ketosis.
• SCAQTony 12y ago
  I wonder if milk alone (breast milk? cow milk?) is better for you and more healthy than Soylent?
• fpgaminer 12y ago
  I'm surprised by the number of people who say they like the taste, as I found it quite unpalatable both in smell and flavor. Of course, taste varies, but that doesn't seem to show in the general conversations surrounding Soylent; most say it tastes fine or good. Perhaps more curious is how people respond to such comments on Soylent's taste. 'savanaly' below mentions a dislike of the flavor, and most of the replies are suggesting that he/she did something wrong, or there is something wrong/unusual with 'savanaly's taste buds. When someone says they dislike the taste of mango, wouldn't response like "you prepared it wrong", or "you must be a supertaster" be odd and out of place? The lack of proper dissenting dialog regarding Soylent's flavor makes me a bit suspicious of a social PR campaign. But maybe that's me being a bit too jaded, and perhaps people like me and 'savanaly' are just the odd few who don't handle Soylent's taste well. Regardless, this lack of dialog leaves me with a problem. I would like to find a way to alter the taste, as the concept of Soylent still intrigues me. But my so far brief searches have yielded little wisdom in doing so, again because the overarching internet consensus seems to be that Soylent by itself is delicious and, excuse the exaggeration, holy manna from the Gods' themselves, requiring no modification. P.S. For reference, I enjoy the taste of cilantro, and have a generally mild palate (neither picky nor adventurous). I drink protein shakes regularly as part of my current bodybuilding program, and tolerate the taste of those just fine.
  • adrow 12y ago
    have you tried /r/soylent? There's loads of discussion there on flavourings.
  • RubyPinch 12y ago
    Well, mangos take so little to prepare. Meat, beer, cheese, wine, etc, all have an unreasonably high number of snobs, who, by default, assume people do things wrong or buy the wrong things. Its a social campaign unintentionally powered by fans and the such, not some overall evil scheme powered by PR firms
  • syntheticnature 12y ago
    I'd figure it must be some sort of selection bias; something such as those who aren't as into the taste of food, regardless of their tasting aspects, are more likely to try it. FWIW, back when I was doing the protein shakes and weightlifting thing, I found some protein shakes tasted fine... and others were nasty. The biology of taste is more complex than a simple non-taster < taster < supertaster continuum, that's merely an obvious aspect.