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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Soylent?? ...Really???

Moronic name. Didn't they try this decades ago with Carnation Instant Breakfast? As if that's what people really want, a simple, single liquid paste to eat all day, every day. I think we have that now, it's called oatmeal.
 
The ingredients read like heart-attack in a glass.

Graeme
 
Remember in the movie that Green only came after Red and Yellow had run out. Love that movie. The euthanasia room was like something out of a Tom Lowe movie.
 
Red and Yellow WILL run out if we don't change anything… I think I'm not going to witness it, but our children might…
 
I actually backed this project. I'm not sure the ingredients read like a heat attack in a glass. While fat is mentioned a lot, people discount how much our bodies really need fat. Also, I think there is no cholesterol, which would eliminate a lot of that heart attack threat.

The problem here is it has three months of testing on a handful of people. Replacing a diet with this stuff won't have negative effects for probably a few months where random and seemingly minute deficiencies start to pop up. I am going to use it for breakfast (maybe lunch) and continue eating dinner as normal. At least that's the plan.

I edit for a full time job and then go home and work on my personal projects. I basically have a 55 hour a week job and then a 40 hour a week personal job. Getting my meals quickly without having to cook, clean or worry that it's making my insides turn into a ticking time bomb seems like a sweet deal. Although, I am still wicked skeptical.

And I disagree, I think the name is awesome. The secret ingredient is...science, albeit half-baked currently.
 
Zak Brickett said:
I actually backed this project.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm definitely backing this. I'll probably start with 1 or 2 servings a day and then just see how it goes. I plan to get full blood work done before I do it (cheap here) and after I've been taking it a month or so.
 
Not for me, I think.
Even if I did not really love food, and enjoy the time out from other parts of life that a meal can provide, I think that many people will make the same mistake they typically do with supplement liquid nutrition drinks: They will consume the soylent AND food... thus overconsuming with usual detriments to health.

And unless I read this wrong, this really undersupplies two important things Fiber, and water.
You need significant quantities of both to carry undesired wastes out of your body.

Even if that gets addressed.. I don't really want this product
 
Christopher Mills said:
And unless I read this wrong, this really undersupplies two important things Fiber, and water.
You need significant quantities of both to carry undesired wastes out of your body.
Click to expand...

Water you can just drink, but the lack of fiber could be a problem. Very good point.
 
Zak Brickett said:
I actually backed this project. I'm not sure the ingredients read like a heat attack in a glass. While fat is mentioned a lot, people discount how much our bodies really need fat. Also, I think there is no cholesterol, which would eliminate a lot of that heart attack threat.
Click to expand...

The maltodextrin is just glucose, and very rapidly turned into blood sugar. That is inflammatory and as we know, diabetics with their high levels of blood glucose (even under drug control) have a much increased heart attack rate. Grapeseed oil is an industrial seed oil and also highly inflammatory, which again leads to arterial damage. The oats are also rapidly turned to blood glucose.

The (rather famous) Framingham heart study showed that dietary cholesterol was not an issue. Our bodies do indeed need fat (and protein), and if you're going to ingest any significant amount of carbohydrate it should be of the forms that are neither high in fructose nor are turned rapidly to blood glucose.

It appears the engineer who came up with this is basing his diet on very outmoded dietary models, indeed the same models that have lead to obesity and heart disease in our populations.

Graeme
 
This guy designing the ultimate in human nutrition is about like me building a nuclear powered car. Laughable! Except for those who are foolish enough to ingest it. :huh:
 
All food/fuel is good! the problem is when you leave your body/car in the driveway ;)
 
Graeme Nattress said:
The maltodextrin is just glucose, and very rapidly turned into blood sugar. That is inflammatory and as we know, diabetics with their high levels of blood glucose (even under drug control) have a much increased heart attack rate. Grapeseed oil is an industrial seed oil and also highly inflammatory, which again leads to arterial damage. The oats are also rapidly turned to blood glucose.
Graeme
Click to expand...

I'm sure you're right about most of this stuff. And I assume that with time this will be proven to not be the end all be all of foods. But what's missing is the amounts of all these ingredients. Things like maltodextrin do have their advantages when taken in combination with appropriate foods and at the right time. I assume for this concoction it would provide the immediate energy while other ingredients would provide a more slow release energy.

The water and fiber thing - well it's mixed with water and I presume it would be advised to still drink the suggested amount of water per day. Soluble and insoluble fibers, I believe, are used to reduce cholesterol, slow sugar absorption and keep you crapping regularly. --Graeme, feel free to tear this apart-- So while a little may be needed it seems that because this is a liquid based, no cholesterol diet and presumably only contains the sugar your body needs it may be that the need for fiber is reduced.

I backed this mainly because I like the concept. A lot of people don't and some people seem to get flat out upset about this. But anyone who gets overly upset about this or (instead of a response like Graeme's that tries to enlighten) just shoots off comments to the key of "you're foolish" or "this is dumb" are not really adding anything to the conversation.

With that said, I do have a strong inclination that this will not succeed. But I want it to.
 
Indeed I think fibre is sometimes used by people to reduce cholesterol, but we also know that dietary cholesterol has very little impact upon serum cholesterol (see Framingham). But why would you want to? People have been sent off on this "cholesterol is bad for you" route, which is problematic and doesn't adequately explain what we observe. So much research into diet is epidemiological in nature (as in not controlled intervention studies), and is often based on "food recall questionnaires" which are woefully bad. So bad in fact that the top obesity researchers have released a statement: "Going forward we should accept that self reported energy intake is fatally flawed and we should stop publishing inaccurate and misleading energy intake data.". And under reporting intake is not the only bias - people will under-report food they think is "bad" like meat and fat, thus skewing any statistics generated still further.

The other problem is of course that correlation doesn't imply causation. To determine causation we need a properly controlled intervention study, and these are as rare as they are expensive and tricky to perform.

Bodies don't need to digest sugar though. We can manufacture all the glucose we need through gluconeogenesis (from protein, and there's a little-known fat->glucose pathway too) and run the rest of our metabolism on ketones.

However, perhaps the largest problem with such a diet could be psychological, the monotony and lack of pleasure from eating could be very bad for mental health (regardless of the physiological effects on health in general).

Graeme
 
Graeme Nattress said:
The other problem is of course that correlation doesn't imply causation. To determine causation we need a properly controlled intervention study, and these are as rare as they are expensive and tricky to perform.

Graeme
Click to expand...

First off, I need to check out this Framingham study.

Secondly, could not such a controlled diet like Soylent aid in the study of proper nutrition?

I wonder if bowel atrophy (or the bowel version of atrophy) would play a part because your are getting no solids going through your innards.

Clearly, there is a want for something like this; halfway through the funding timeline and they've raised close to half a million dollars. And maybe this is the first step (or stumble) in the right direction. Or maybe the secret ingredient will end up being a heart attack.
 
This project assumes the following:

That science currently knows everything about the best diet
That freshness adds nothing to our food
That vitamins in fresh vegetables and fruits work exactly the same for our body as added vitamins
That chewing food does nothing for our health

All these points are highly debatable. The science of diets is changing on an almost day by day basis.

Then there's this: lately there's been research that shows that old people who are able to chew their own food have a lesser chance of dementia. Here is an article: http://www.myhealthwire.com/news/mind-body/235 I could just as well be that drinking your meals instead of properly chewing them could be bad for your brain. Not something I would be willing to risk for the sake of convenience. I like food too much anyway.
 
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