Soylent - Food replacement

[Elendur]

I don't really have the time to participate in this thread in full, but I thought that I'd share this with you.

Blog post that describes how he started and how he feels:
How I Stopped Eating Food : Mostly Harmless

Blog post with ingredients:
What’s In Soylent : Mostly Harmless

To someone like me, who's in pain eating about 50% of the times (although it's better now that I'm older), this would be perfect. Disregarding his claims of improved health it would still be perfect to me due to the simplicity.

Some selected quotes of interest from the first blog post:

I feel full after drinking a single glass of Soylent and while the smell of Mexican food from the street used to drive me crazy, now I am unaffected.

I feel like the six million dollar man. My physique has noticeably improved, my skin is clearer, my teeth whiter, my hair thicker and my dandruff gone.

Now I spend about 5 minutes in the evening preparing for the next day, and every meal takes a few seconds.

Soylent costs me about $50/month

Here's from the second:

The proportions in Soylent are loosely based off the recommendations of the FDA, though I added a couple extras and changed a few based on my testing.

If you want to make Soylent for yourself, be very careful. We're not making pie here. It's a lot easier to overdose or underdose with the raw elemental form than it is with food.

So…I'll just ship you some of my batch. If you are willing to consume exclusively soylent, and get a CBC, chem panel, and lipid blood test before and after the week and share your results with me it's on the house.

Edit: It seems that I'll try this for a week this summer, hopefully it won't be a flop. If I don't change my mind (or die halfway) I'll post the blood test results from before and after.

 

[Michael]

Edit: It seems that I'll try this for a week this summer, hopefully it won't be a flop. If I don't change my mind (or die halfway) I'll post the blood test results from before and after.

I'd be a bit worried about your ability to get all the nutrients that you will need over the long haul that way, but if it has the potential to make your life "easier", it might be worth a shot for a short period of time. I like the idea of blood tests before and after since that will tell you a lot about how 'balanced' your diet might be.

It is actually possible to lose wait eating nothing but junk food, and end up "healthier" at the end in terms of cholesterol counts.

Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds - CNN.com

 

[Michael]

The section on the ingredients ended up being quite long so I'll save that for a future post. The first morning my kitchen looked more like a chemistry lab than a cookery, but I eventually ended up with an thick, odorless, beige liquid. I call it 'Soylent'. At the time I didn't know if it was going to kill me or give me superpowers. I held my nose and tepidly lifted it to my mouth, expecting an awful taste.

Since I'm not sure about the list of ingredients, I'm speculating, but:

Keep in mind that soy is one of the most heavily genetically modified forms of food on the planet. I know that Henry Ford was a big fan of soy, and lived a long life, but I doubt he ate much in way of genetically altered foods. If your "pain" is in any way related to a sensitivity to foods, the *same* food over and over again could in theory become counterproductive, particularly if you're just aggravating the condition.

It certainly urge you to "be careful" and cautious, but hey, it's possible to lose weight eating nothing but junk food.

 

[Elendur]

I'd be a bit worried about your ability to get all the nutrients that you will need over the long haul that way, but if it has the potential to make your life "easier", it might be worth a shot for a short period of time. I like the idea of blood tests before and after since that will tell you a lot about how 'balanced' your diet might be.

It is actually possible to lose wait eating nothing but junk food, and end up "healthier" at the end in terms of cholesterol counts.

Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds - CNN.com

Well, given that it seems to have more nutrients than most other foods, I'd say that it's well thought through and healthy 'nuff.
I'm only planning on trying it as a 100% diet for that week, I won't try something as drastic as to change my diet 100% for a long time, at most I'd continue at 50%.

Since I'm not sure about the list of ingredients, I'm speculating, but:

Keep in mind that soy is one of the most heavily genetically modified forms of food on the planet. I know that Henry Ford was a big fan of soy, and lived a long life, but I doubt he ate much in way of genetically altered foods. If your "pain" is in any way related to a sensitivity to foods, the *same* food over and over again could in theory become counterproductive, particularly if you're just aggravating the condition.

Actually the pain is from Aphthous_stomatitis, I get those every time my immune system gets worse (hypothesis of mine and several others), like sleeping an hour or two less than necessary or getting a cold.

I think the name Soylent is a tribute to the movie Soylent Green from 1973, not from using any actual soy, in fact he never even mentions soy .
The second link listed what he put in it, it seems very well thought through and well motivated.

It certainly urge you to "be careful" and cautious, but hey, it's possible to lose weight eating nothing but junk food.

I'm not eating to manage my weight, it's steady at 60-65 kg and I can't get it higher without training 5-6 hours per week.
I'm one of those rude persons who have the ability to eat anything without gaining weight

 

[Paulos23]

It just has to be said:

Soylent Green is people!

 

[Michael]

Well, given that it seems to have more nutrients than most other foods, I'd say that it's well thought through and healthy 'nuff.
I'm only planning on trying it as a 100% diet for that week, I won't try something as drastic as to change my diet 100% for a long time, at most I'd continue at 50%.

Ok. As long as you're 'reasonable' about it, it sounds like a good plan.

Actually the pain is from Aphthous_stomatitis, I get those every time my immune system gets worse (hypothesis of mine and several others), like sleeping an hour or two less than necessary or getting a cold.

Ouch! Fortunately my canker sores seemed to go away and stay away once I started eating sunflower seeds, drinking coffee, and cutting down on sugary soft drinks. I have no idea if those specific things really helped or not, since the sores were uncommon even before then.

I'm not eating to manage my weight, it's steady at 60-65 kg and I can't get it higher without training 5-6 hours per week.
I'm one of those rude persons who have the ability to eat anything without gaining weight

You people really bug me.

 

[Strathos]

It just has to be said:

Soylent Green is people!

IT'S PEOPLE! - YouTube

 

[pgp_protector]

It just has to be said:

Soylent Green is people!

I was wondering by the title if their was going to be some connection

 

[Elendur]

Ok. As long as you're 'reasonable' about it, it sounds like a good plan.

I always have good plans, now off to jump from the roof! (Or not )

Ouch! Fortunately my canker sores seemed to go away and stay away once I started eating sunflower seeds, drinking coffee, and cutting down on sugary soft drinks. I have no idea if those specific things really helped or not, since the sores were uncommon even before then.

I've tried so many things, sooooooooooo many things... Including really powerful local anesthetic, that incidentally numbed my whole mouth for a couple of hours. That one actually worked well, except for the time it took to work.

You people really bug me.

 

[Joshua0]

To someone like me, who's in pain eating about 50% of the times

Yep, I have a friend that was starting to have problems eating. I knew that inflammation was a part of it. So we started to feed him like a baby. Made a big difference. My grandmother lived for years off of one of those formula health food drinks that they give to old people. I often wondered if the soy milk formula they feed to babies really has all the right stuff in them the same as mom. But it seems to keep them alive. Some of the women complain that the man made formula lacks some of the natural antibiotics that the baby gets from the mom.