3 ms·

You're right, I can't come up with a single meal that is as nutritious and balanced as one serving of Soylent. The thing is that unlike with Soylent you're not

by jules 11y ago

You're right, I can't come up with a single meal that is as nutritious and balanced as one serving of Soylent. The thing is that unlike with Soylent you're not eating the exact same meal every time. If there's one thing we've learned the last couple of years it's that a lot of food science is bogus, and that we really don't know much about nutrition. The safe thing to do is to eat a large variety of foods. Is it safe to eat Soylent every day or almost every day? Maybe. Is it healthier than eating a different reasonably healthy meal every day? Unlikely. Consider the reports by people who have flatulence, food nightmares, extreme craving of certain foods. That last point is likely an indication that your body is missing something. Maybe not all humans work well on exactly the same diet, but it depends on their genetics and activities. Our body gives us feedback about what it needs needs by making us crave certain foods. Most people also start to crave variety after eating the same food for several days, even if they do like that food. I think there's a reason for that. So here's the value proposition that I see: 1. It's quite likely less healthy than eating a variety of foods. 2. It tastes bad. 3. It saves 10 minutes per day. How much time do you spend maintaining your garden?

bane 11y ago
> Is it healthier than eating a different reasonably healthy meal every day? Unlikely. run the numbers! don't guess! I also agree that if you're going to eat food, eat a wide variety of stuffs. It's about the only way to accumulate the best possible nutrition, and it keeps it from getting boring. I personally prefer lots of variety in food, but I really want to spend the time to enjoy it when I sit down to eat it. > 3. It saves 10 minutes per day. No, it saves 10x3 + cleanup (let's say 10minutes per meal) or 1 hour per day if you eat it for every meal (I don't). Actually for my use-case it saves 0 minutes per day since I was just grabbing donuts at the coffee shop or breakfast bars or whatever on the way out the door in the morning. So in this case, it's not any less convenient, while it's far more nutritious. > 2. It tastes bad. It tastes "meh". But so do most things. One thing I've started to appreciate even more since getting Soylent is how "meh" most meals are, no matter where they're from or how they're made. I think sometimes we just have different kinds of meals just because it's "different" even if it's not better or even good. > How much time do you spend maintaining your garden? More than I'd like to, but not so much it's a huge burden. We grow long peppers, lettuce, perilla (just now starting to get good flavor), green onions. The lettuce and onions are from seed, the rest from sprouts. We're thinking of squash and cucumbers for next year. We've tried tomatoes but they're super fussy and you end up fighting with the stupid plant half the time. I'd like to get into garlic and potatoes.
- clarky07 11y ago
  >run the numbers! don't guess! you can't just run numbers. none of the daily recommended numbers tell us what will happen when you eat the stuff for 100% of your meals for 10 or 20 years. On the other hand, eating a variety of normal has been shown over thousands of years to be mostly reasonable. Soylent may or may not be fine and even better for people, but numbers in a chart simply can't possibly tell us that. >It tastes "meh". But so do most things. I think you must have been eating the wrong things. I enjoy pretty much everything I ever eat (and avoid things that I don't like to eat) while sticking as much as possible to "healthy" foods. Frankly I think eating is one of the most enjoyable activities in life, IMO. Now that being said, I can still see a reasonable argument for using soylent for maybe 1 meal a day, likely breakfast as a time saver. I can't even remotely imagine replacing all meals with it.
athenot 11y ago
I think the issue of variety of food is overlooked. My family back in the countryside has orchards of various fruits. When it's cherry season, everyone is eating pounds of cherries every day... till that 2 week season is over and you don't touch a fresh cherry for another year. I can't help but thing this functions as some natural cleansing process. For me, something like Soylent reminds me of when I prepared bottles for my baby. An all-in-one food was her primary formulation for the first 6 months of her life. But even in that case, there's more variety: because she breastfed. So her nutrients changed from day to day depending on what my wife ate, and slowly changing over the weeks to match her developmental stages. To assume that a grown adult can survive on a monotonous diet does not sit well with me. I think this relies on some assumptions that haven't been well understood yet.

by jules 11y ago

bane 11y ago

> Is it healthier than eating a different reasonably healthy meal every day? Unlikely. run the numbers! don't guess! I also agree that if you're going to eat food, eat a wide variety of stuffs. It's about the only way to accumulate the best possible nutrition, and it keeps it from getting boring. I personally prefer lots of variety in food, but I really want to spend the time to enjoy it when I sit down to eat it. > 3. It saves 10 minutes per day. No, it saves 10x3 + cleanup (let's say 10minutes per meal) or 1 hour per day if you eat it for every meal (I don't). Actually for my use-case it saves 0 minutes per day since I was just grabbing donuts at the coffee shop or breakfast bars or whatever on the way out the door in the morning. So in this case, it's not any less convenient, while it's far more nutritious. > 2. It tastes bad. It tastes "meh". But so do most things. One thing I've started to appreciate even more since getting Soylent is how "meh" most meals are, no matter where they're from or how they're made. I think sometimes we just have different kinds of meals just because it's "different" even if it's not better or even good. > How much time do you spend maintaining your garden? More than I'd like to, but not so much it's a huge burden. We grow long peppers, lettuce, perilla (just now starting to get good flavor), green onions. The lettuce and onions are from seed, the rest from sprouts. We're thinking of squash and cucumbers for next year. We've tried tomatoes but they're super fussy and you end up fighting with the stupid plant half the time. I'd like to get into garlic and potatoes.

clarky07 11y ago
>run the numbers! don't guess! you can't just run numbers. none of the daily recommended numbers tell us what will happen when you eat the stuff for 100% of your meals for 10 or 20 years. On the other hand, eating a variety of normal has been shown over thousands of years to be mostly reasonable. Soylent may or may not be fine and even better for people, but numbers in a chart simply can't possibly tell us that. >It tastes "meh". But so do most things. I think you must have been eating the wrong things. I enjoy pretty much everything I ever eat (and avoid things that I don't like to eat) while sticking as much as possible to "healthy" foods. Frankly I think eating is one of the most enjoyable activities in life, IMO. Now that being said, I can still see a reasonable argument for using soylent for maybe 1 meal a day, likely breakfast as a time saver. I can't even remotely imagine replacing all meals with it.

athenot 11y ago

I think the issue of variety of food is overlooked. My family back in the countryside has orchards of various fruits. When it's cherry season, everyone is eating pounds of cherries every day... till that 2 week season is over and you don't touch a fresh cherry for another year. I can't help but thing this functions as some natural cleansing process. For me, something like Soylent reminds me of when I prepared bottles for my baby. An all-in-one food was her primary formulation for the first 6 months of her life. But even in that case, there's more variety: because she breastfed. So her nutrients changed from day to day depending on what my wife ate, and slowly changing over the weeks to match her developmental stages. To assume that a grown adult can survive on a monotonous diet does not sit well with me. I think this relies on some assumptions that haven't been well understood yet.