
Soylent: What Happened When I Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks - rjsamson
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2013/08/20/soylent/
======
alphaoverlord
I'm all for people having the freedom to eat whatever they want and I really
like the quantified self aspect of seeing how diet affects how they feel and
metrics of health, but I have to say the author grossly does not understand
the medical tests he had done and misinterprets the data. I'm not going to
comment on the drink, but rather on his misunderstanding of medicine.

First, EGFR is not "Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor", rather is it estimated
glomerular filtration rate, which is a metric of kidney function and is
derived entirely from age, sex, and Cr.

Second, all his labs are normal, well within the range of normal and stay
normal after two weeks. There is normal daily fluctuation (for example, my Cr
will probably go from 1 to 1.2 just by not drinking water for a day) which the
labs show. All the changes he mention in his metabolic panel does not even
register to me as changes and most likely would happen had he ate a regular
diet.

Third, the body is a powerfully homeostatic system, even had he not ate for
two weeks, most of the labs he got would stay the same. Recently, on HN there
was the article of the guy who didn't eat for a year - his BMP would have been
similar. The only potentially reasonable medical test to get would have been
the lipid panel, which stayed grossly the same.

Finally, a DEXA scan is really silly in this scenario. It's for old ladies and
others at risk for osteoporosis. Your bones are a large of reservoir that it
wouldn't put a dent on your Ca levels even if you had no Ca for two weeks, and
even if it did, it would not show up as a meaningful change on a DEXA scan.

~~~
marze
Nice job missing the forest but spotting a few trees. I see some promising
initial signs given the short duration of the trial.

Imagine if there was a new drug that gave the mental benefits the guy reported
after two weeks of use and saved you money too. It would be front page news.

The guy doesn't claim to be a medical expert, he just did his best to report
the results of a bunch of miscellaneous tests that were suggested to him.

With a drug for which if you took 40x the daily dose you might die, or a drug
that might cause significant harmful side effects at normal dose, you need
careful studies to prove a benefit and quantify risks. With a dietary change,
the risks are orders of magnitude lower. I'd be surprised if the average
American wouldn't improve their nutritional status doing this for a while,
with an existing diet likely low in magnesium, copper, zinc, vitamin c and d
and probably more.

The need for careful studies is greatly reduced for a food product like this
one. People can try it, report how they feel. If other think is worth trying,
they can see exactly how it works for them by giving it a try. That is the
power of self experimentation.

~~~
alphaoverlord
Again, my first paragraph is: > I'm all for people having the freedom to eat
whatever they want and I really like the quantified self aspect of seeing how
diet affects how they feel and metrics of health, but I have to say the author
grossly does not understand the medical tests he had done and misinterprets
the data. I'm not going to comment on the drink, but rather on his
misunderstanding of medicine.

I'm not trying to refute what he says about how he feels, whether that saves
him money, or his mental ability - those aren't my areas of expertise. I do
know a little about medical tests, and I think it's valid to point out that he
clearly does not and how the results he reports are either incorrect or
irrelevant. I'm just suggesting you shouldn't consider his medical tests in
deciding how good this product is.

I have no horse in this race, but I'll tell you if this racetrack is not
standard regulation. Self experimentation might be useful, but only if you
understand the metrics you measure and whether it's stochastic noise or
meaningful results.

~~~
marze
"Self experimentation might be useful, but only if you understand the metrics
you measure and whether its stochastic noise or meaningful results."

I feel you miss the whole point of self experimentation. If your aim is for
improved mental function, more energy, less health problems, etc., you don't
need to know how to interpret any obscure tests. You'll know.

A low-risk food product (such as this) can simply be trialed in a n=1 trial.
If the results are positive, great. If not, go back to what you were doing
before.

All the studies in the world only suggest how something might work for you. It
is only the n=1 test that matters.

~~~
nonchalance
> If your aim is for improved mental function, more energy, less health
> problems, etc., you don't need to know how to interpret any obscure tests.
> You'll know.

Perception is different from reality, as exemplified by an Apple anecdote:

[http://www.asktog.com/TOI/toi06KeyboardVMouse1.html](http://www.asktog.com/TOI/toi06KeyboardVMouse1.html)

We’ve done a cool $50 million of R & D on the Apple Human Interface. We
discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts:

\- Test subjects consistently report that keyboarding is faster than mousing.

\- The stopwatch consistently proves mousing is faster than keyboarding.

This contradiction between user-experience and reality apparently forms the
basis for many user/developers’ belief that the keyboard is faster.

~~~
marze
No doubt people can misjudge things. With health changes, I think it is often
easier to see changes in the negative direction, like the author when he
stopped the soylent trial.

If the changes are great enough in magnitude to be obvious, then you know
you're on to something. Also, measures like weight and computer mental agility
tests can be quite reliable if you are consistent in your testing, and they
aren't subject to misinterpretation or wishful thinking.

Edit:

Below, skore is skeptical that a person can notice a significant change to
their own health. I respectfully disagree.

Check out the blog of Seth Roberts. He is a professor who is involved in the
quantified self movement. He records many subjective measures qualitatively,
and feels he has made some significant discoveries doing so. I won't try to
summarize anything here, but anyone interested can read for themselves on his
blog. Roberts studies rats, and he is the ultimate human rat.

~~~
skore
> then you know you're on to something

No, no you don't. That's the whole point of doing _scientific_ experiments.
Your brain is very, very, extremely bad at judging objectively. Any subjective
"test" is simply no test at all.

> Also, numbers like weight and computer mental agility tests also can be
> quite reliable if you are consistent in your testing...

That's a pretty big 'if', plus a 'can' and a 'quite'.

> ...and they aren't subject to misinterpretation or wishful thinking

That's the whole point of the OT in this discussion thread. They very much
clearly are subject to misinterpretation. A zillion factors can impact weight
and "mental agility".

People aren't lab rats because they don't live in labs and aren't rats.

------
cup
Soylent aside, im amazed at how terrible his traditional normal days meal is?
I mean hes eating a processed breakfast subsitute in the morning, take away
mexican food with a soft drink for lunch and more take away for dinner.

You don't need to be a nutritionist to know thats going to have a terrible
impact on his life later down the track.

Postnote: Now that Ive read the whole article, I wonder if all the benefits he
attributes to Soylent could actually be attributed to cutting so much crap out
of his diet?

~~~
tocomment
Is a protien shake for breakfast really that bad? I have not been able to find
a breakfast food that's quick, tastes ok, and isn't high in carbs.

~~~
__--__
Steak and eggs. Quick, tasty, high in protein, low in carbs. Considered a
traditional breakfast.

~~~
gnaritas
Requires cooking, not quick.

~~~
IanCal
It doesn't require much attention though. Boil kettle, drop eggs into water on
the stove, leave for 5 minutes. Put steaks on a foreman grill, take off when
done.

I'm pretty sure I can do this with less than 60 seconds of attentive time, the
rest can be spent catching up on tech stories, pull requests or whatever.

Frying it all would be even easier, too. Heat pan, put steak and eggs in,
leave for a couple of minutes. Turn steak, leave for a couple of minutes.
Slide everything onto a plate, eat.

~~~
gnaritas
You've missed the point of fast. It's not about attentive time, it's about
total time and not cooking. What you suggest fails on all counts. People who
want fast want it because they're in a hurry, often because they're running
late for something. They don't have time to boil water or prep a steak. Love
my foreman, but it takes a solid 4 minutes cook time and 10 minutes rest time
to make a proper steak, that's not fast.

~~~
IanCal
> They don't have time to boil water

I refuse to live a life where I regularly cannot find time to boil water.
That's just absolute insanity.

> but it takes a solid 4 minutes cook time and 10 minutes rest time to make a
> proper steak, that's not fast.

If we're comparing it against eating soylent, then I don't think resting it is
going to be vital. An unrested steak is still tasty, which means we're talking
about 4 minutes.

Maybe we've got vastly different ideas of "quick".

~~~
gnaritas
> I refuse to live a life where I regularly cannot find time to boil water.
> That's just absolute insanity.

That's fine for you; others don't want to have to take that time just to
refuel. We don't all think of eating as an event or a treat, it's often just a
burden of being biological.

> An unrested steak is still tasty, which means we're talking about 4 minutes.

Then we seriously disagree about the proper way to make a steak. :)

~~~
IanCal
> We don't all think of eating as an event or a treat, it's often just a
> burden of being biological.

 _Boiling a kettle_ is so burdensome it's only done by those looking for a
treat or some special event?

I'd understand if we were talking about preparing a roast (I still think that
takes very little time out of a day), but boiling a kettle or frying a steak?
These are things that can be done while thinking, reading, playing air guitar.

I mean seriously we're talking about very small parts of a day here.

> Then we seriously disagree about the proper way to make a steak. :)

Well we're talking about people who seem to find boiling an egg such an ordeal
they're giving up food altogether as it's a "burden of being biological", I
don't think the difference is going to be a deal-breaker.

~~~
gnaritas
Do you fail to understand what "in a hurry" means? Slapping together a
sandwich is fast, microwaving something is fast, cooking is not fast. I could
be out the door before the water even warms up.

> Well we're talking about people who seem to find boiling an egg such an
> ordeal they're giving up food altogether as it's a "burden of being
> biological", I don't think the difference is going to be a deal-breaker.

Yes it would be, eating a meal replacement doesn't change the way I like my
food prepared and an un-rested steak is just awful IMHO.

~~~
IanCal
> Do you fail to understand what "in a hurry" means?

The original question was "I have not been able to find a breakfast food
that's quick, tastes ok, and isn't high in carbs.", not "What can I make in
less than 20 seconds?". You introduced that

I'm saying if you're regularly in such a hurry then you're doing things wrong.
This is an extreme hurry. Yes, yes, every so often you'll sleep through an
alarm and need to run out of the door but if you're always doing this then
something is very wrong with your schedule.

> Yes it would be, eating a meal replacement doesn't change the way I like my
> food prepared and an un-rested steak is just awful IMHO.

Well then you might have to plan in an _entire 10 minutes of reading or
coding_ into your schedule. Shocking I know, but such is the terrible price of
haute cuisine.

I really don't get how this is such a terrible thing. Read HN? Steak on, read
a couple of stories, take steak off, go through a docker tut or read more,
eat. That's the amount of time required to have _steak_ for breakfast. Or
start reading your emails, or coding, or ...

Or cook something other than steak. Bacon and eggs on toast, or just bacon and
eggs. You can even take it with you if you don't have time to eat at home.

------
tsumnia
I'm still reading this, but this paragraph just made me incredibly frustrated:

"...The white stuff that was mixed into the tan stuff was floating to the top
and congealing together... So I just started just scooping them out... I’m
pretty sure the white chunks were the rice protein, and perhaps something else
important."

You're the first review of Soylent, and you throwing away blobs because ...?
It looked icky? This is a meal replacement focused on giving you exactly what
your body needs, and it just seems like a terrible move to throw 'what your
body needs' away.

~~~
ohWhatever
Yeah, but so what? I mean, consider how much that honestly could have amounted
to. 100 calories, distributed across 10 grams of nutrients per shake?

He still drank a shake, and at no point does he claim to have reformulated the
mix by adding to it, or deliberately attempting to chemically alter it, or
switch to different products.

Anyway, human nutrition must be capable of tolerating human error and
envionmental hazards. It's not like this is some kind of a high-powered
pharmaceutical. If anything, there should be room for that kind of error,
because an inability to tolerate mistakes would actually be worse when it
comes to food. You really don't want a casual fumble to cascade into some
unforgivable and horrific, punishing mistake. You want to have some
flexibility for spills, or maybe drinking an extra shake here and there, if
you skipped dinner and breakfast one friday night/saturday morning.

If this behavior actually did introduce augmented outcomes, then consider this
an important caveat of the product. This means it's sensitive to specific
mixing habits, and is prone to user error. This would be an important detail
to shake out during trials.

If the powder settles oddly during shipping, or mixes unevenly, and demands
thorough mechanized blending, those are important instructions to communicate
explicitly. Otherwise, if a bag lasts two weeks, and all the fine particles of
vitamin powder settles at the bottom, leaving the fiber at the top, and you
don't mix and shake the bag, it might take you a week to reach the bottom of
the bag, and you'll inadvertantly be overdosing yourself with fiber one week
and vitamins the next, when you try to finish off the bag.

~~~
jcrites
The loss of those blobs may have been more than just calories. The blobs, of a
composition such that they accumulate at the top in this way, may have been
/all of/ some particular nutrients in the mix.

I'm just speculating, but when consuming Soylent I would assume that one needs
to eat all of it (or rather, all of the dose, if that's the right term).

------
stiff
It's very, very naive to think that you can simply put all the recommended
dosages of vitamins and macro-/micro- elements into a single shake and have it
fulfil all the nutritional needs. You need enzymes to digest food, specific
enzymes and specific chemical conditions for absorbing specific nutrients, and
you can not intake all nutrients from a single portion of food because, well,
physics happens. There is a fundamental need of the human body for variety in
food intake. You can get some idea of how complicated this gets from reading
papers on some commonly known patterns of nutrient interaction, like
copper+zinc:

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3625315](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3625315)

[http://jn.nutrition.org/content/130/5/1378S.full](http://jn.nutrition.org/content/130/5/1378S.full)

------
jyu
Soylent is quickly becoming a great case study on marketing and human
behavior. These guys have definitely hit on something people want. However, I
do not have confidence that this team can deliver on Soylent's promises.

There are many other reasons to be skeptical of Soylent, even from a cursory
read on Wikipedia, the website, and Kickstarter page. First, the diet has
caused Rob Rhinehart anemia, tachylcardia, arrhythmia, and joint pain from
taking Soylent (from Wikipedia, Economist article). While the formula has
changed since, do you trust a diet that only months ago caused the creator
serious health ailments? Secondly, even if Rob Rhinehart has no nutrition
background, and neither does anyone else on the Soylent team. I would expect
someone on the team that knows something about nutrition. Looking on the
website the Soylent team includes no mention of a nutritionist or dietician or
foods manufacturing expert; key people in developing a new meal replacement
product. Thirdly, anything to do with creating a new, stand alone meal
replacement product requires someone know about the foods business or
operations or something along those lines. It is not clear that their current
team understands how far you can go with marketing claims, how to test medical
claims, nutrient interactions, etc.

This is not the first time people have been skeptical of Soylent, and
certainly not the last. There are so many red flags from just a quick search
and gut checking against their claims that I would definitely not recommend it
to anyone I know, let alone trying it out myself.

------
malbs
The guy claim himself to be a "mildly out of shape 28 year old", and then
state: "I consider myself a pretty health-conscious person. No alcohol. No
meat. Slow-carbs when possible. Run three miles, three times a week. Pull-ups,
push-ups on the days I don’t run" which indicates he's more active than 90% of
the population (I just made that stat up)

I was irritated from that point on-wards.

~~~
mynameishere
You stopped too late. The whole post is a farce. Take the title _When I
Stopped Eating For 2 Weeks_. I've actually done this. I mean, stopped eating
aside from water for weeks, and it's really no big deal. The body is designed
for that kind of privation. He's just some yuppie going for page views without
a discernible reason, unless he's marketing for blah-blah-blah health tonic.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _I mean, stopped eating aside from water for weeks, and it 's really no big
> deal. The body is designed for that kind of privation._ //

I've fasted for 2 days. I felt weak, dizzy and unwell on the second day (yes I
had plenty of water). I was unable to do normal activities. It was a big deal.

~~~
outworlder
That's probably the first time ever you did that. But the body adapts.

My brother is a diabetic. Whenever his suger level dropped from 80, he'd start
shaking, have headaches and other hypoglicemia symptoms. A few years now and
he can hit much lower levels without feeling any ill symptoms.

Try fasting for a day, see how that works out. Then do it more frequently.
Then try two days.

Our ancestors were probably(*) used to spending days hunting for food without
success, so occasional fasting should not be that big of a deal.

Also, do some checkups. You might have a condition which is preventing you
from spending that much time without eating (low blood pressure, for instance,
or even existing nutritional imbalances).

------
theboss
This soylent discussion that I constantly see on HN is what happens when
computer nerds who know nothing about nutrition (and a couple who do) talk
about health.

This guy is going to make a ton of money but I think that people should be
thinking, "Do I really want to live a life where I don't have time for food or
I don't enjoy preparing and eating it".

Personally I think it is kind of sad and hope in the future that 'Eating'
doesn't become what 'face-to-face communication' or 'playing outside' has
become today.....

------
ekianjo
You don't just do a test for 2 weeks and expect to find something significant
out of it. Go for one year, 2 years and then let's find out what really
happens then.

~~~
zobzu
eating right shows visible results in a week (ie physical change and mental
changes), every time - IMO thats significant. 2 years shows if this is
sustainable/etc.

note: i'm not saying solyent is eating right. its hard to define what eating
right is, but basically no soda, no processed foods (well, solyent sort of
is:P), etc.

~~~
ekianjo
As said somewhere else this does not prove anything. This could just happening
as well if you fast. People fasting for a couple of weeks have reported better
mental abilities as well. Nothing of what was written is unheard of, and
besides you have to realize there is a placebo effect since the guy knows he
is going to take Soylent and expects something out of it (even if he does not
realize it himself). Placebo effect can be extremely powerful.

So this kind of first hand report has close to zero credibility.

------
secstate
When are people going to start appreciating the biology of the human species
for the miracle that it is? I'm not talking faith-based logic here ... but
consider for a moment that the placebo effect exists.

That's it. Game over for nutrition science.

You can convince someone's mind to change physical attributes of their body
using psychology.

Who's to say this guy's brain wasn't really excited about the prospect of a
new diet that he was told by a really smart dude was going to make him more
productive and healthier? Hook, line, sinker.

This also doesn't address any of the social rituals associated with food.
Personally, for me, breakfast is the only meal that is removable, but that's
because I'm not a morning person. I telecommute and have a family. Sitting
down to lunch with my kids and wife (or just wife, _joy_ when the kiddos are
in school), is a great break in my day.

And dinner ... don't even get me started. I love sitting down to dinner. Makes
me really just feel sorry for single folks whose lives revolve around
productivity to such an extent.

------
deathanatos
Has anyone considered the cultural implications of something like this? Meals,
to me, are not just about eating — they offer a valuable break in the day to
interact with people. I'm not sure that'll be the same if we're all eating
grey goo. (Just stick a needle in me then…) The meal can often be a source of
conversation — at least, if it isn't the same thing, every day. I'm thinking
co-workers, and going to lunch: will soylent-users decline invites for lunch,
because they have their grey goo? (They could potentially bring it with them,
but wasn't the whole point to be lazy?)

I also, on occasion, find cooking to be a good way to de-stress. I get to make
something that nobody else will ever care about. (My SO just loves that I made
something, so in a sense, I'm fulfilling the soylent's "too lazy to cook" …
but my way is tastier.) I get to snack (I regularly sample the (safe!) raw
ingredients, the partially cooked meal…). I get time to just think to myself.
Eating the same thing every day would be depressing. Mouse said it well:

> Dozer: It's a single cell protein combined with synthetic aminos, vitamins,
> and minerals. Everything the body needs.

> Mouse: It doesn't have everything the body needs.

(I'm also of the mindset that cooking isn't hard. Boiling water can make a lot
of things, requires little oversight, and is dead simple. And oh so much
tastier. That said, I know someone who would sign up for something like this…)

~~~
__--__
_they offer a valuable break in the day to interact with people._

I laughed when I read this. I'm an introvert, so meals offer me a valuable
break in the day to NOT interact with people. :)

------
redacted
"Rob is a Y Combinator alumnus with professional experience in electrical
engineering, computer science and entrepreneurship. Lacking the means to
produce cheap energy, he invented a form of fusion as a more efficient
approach to powering his home and hopes to use it to reduce the global
disparity of electrification."

On one hand, the entire field of nutritional science (and several associated
topics), coupled with a wealthy and powerful nutrition industry who, despite
literally decades of research, have never succeeded in creating a total meal
replacement. Oh, and don't forget the world's militaries, who throw enormous
amounts of money at research groups for anything even remotely useful and for
who full meal replacements would be a holy grail.

On the other, this one computer hacker dude who is going to 'disrupt' the
expert opinion and hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution. He read
some papers guys!

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And yet the sum total
evidence is 'Me and my friends haven't died yet, and we feel good'. His
company still has no staff with biology experience, and the blog sells more
merchandise than science.

Still, otherwise incredibly smart and driven people on HN eat this up.

~~~
gwern
> Oh, and don't forget the world's militaries, who throw enormous amounts of
> money at research groups for anything even remotely useful and for who full
> meal replacements would be a holy grail.

Not a good objection, because for military purposes, Soylent is completely
unacceptable. How well do the ingredients tolerate extremes of heat and cold,
no access to a kitchen, being stored in crates for months or years...? Not too
well. And those are just the obvious requirements for an MRE.

------
russellallen
I enjoy eating more than I enjoy most other things I do, so saving time by not
eating in order to spend more time doing other stuff doesn't really appeal...

Oh well. I guess there must be people out there who spend all their time doing
things more fascinating and enjoyable than eating a tasty meal.

------
lingben
More pseudo-science from Tim. Sigh.

~~~
graeme
Did you read Tim's comments at the bottom? He's hardly endorsing Soylent.

From the post:

\------------------

Among the Soylent claims Shane outlined, there are the below. I’ve added my
comments:

Soylent provides all the energy and nutrients the body needs. [TIM: I'm not
convinced Soylent can prove this.] The body can absorb all the nutrients
Soylent provides. [TIM: I'm not convinced Soylent can prove this.] Soylent
makes one more alert. [TIM: If measured, this could potentially be
demonstrated.] Soylent can help people cut fat and maintain good body weight.
[TIM: Be wary of any structure or function claims. Reword.] Soylent saves time
and money. [TIM: Provable compared to another defined group (e.g. eating at
Chipotle), but not across the board.] And at the end of the day: Soylent isn’t
dangerous. [TIM: I'm not convinced Soylent can prove this. Where are the data?
Safe for how long?]

~~~
anigbrowl
No, he's just featuring it on his blog to draw traffic. It's the equivalent of
the mainstream media staple 'Could X help you lose weight, avoid cancer, and
enjoy better sex?'

~~~
graeme
I don't understand your criticism. Virtually every post that hits the HN front
page was designed to draw traffic.

If you've followed Tim Ferriss, it's clear this is something he'd be
interested in. His first company was a sports supplement manufacturer, and
he's written two books that touch on nutrition.

I don't see this as a shallow post aimed at promoting a product. Did you even
read it?

~~~
anigbrowl
_I don 't see this as a shallow post aimed at promoting a product. Did you
even read it?_

Not what I said, and yes I did. I know why he'd be interested in it, or more
to the point I know why his readership would. Having someone else do the
(unscientific) experiment pulls all the traffic while allowing TF to look
objective without investing anything. It's shallow in that (as shown above)
the medical claims made are quite meaningless.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

------
jerf
“Last night I had a dream that I ate a brownie, and halfway through the
brownie realized that I was only supposed to be eating Soylent for the next
two weeks.”

I'm 35, and I've known I have Celiac disease for about five years now. I still
have that dream about every month or two, excepting of course that I realize
I'm going to be very sick instead of being supposed to eat/drink/consume only
Soylent.

------
damian2000
How different is Soylent from some existing protein shake products (eg. muscle
milk)? these also contain fats, carbs, protein and vitamins.

~~~
jimbokun
What's the benefit of Muscle Milk over the same amount of Cow Milk? Is there
some science demonstrating Muscle Milk is better?

~~~
damian2000
I believe muscle milk doesn't contain lactose. So I suppose soy milk might be
equivalent to muscle milk.

~~~
platz
muscle milk isn't milk

------
rdl
What I don't get about all the criticism of Soylent is that people seem to be
comparing it to a perfect diet of conventional food -- the most likely
alternative for most of the users is far worse than that, and probably worse
than even the most naive form of Soylent.

I'd love to try something like Soylent when away from my kitchen for weeks at
a time. I'm going to be in the Nevada desert for two weeks doing something I
enjoy (NOT Burning Man! A bunch of shotgun/pistol classes at Frontsight next
month!), and not having to deal with food when waking up at 0430 and going to
bed at 2230 every day would be really nice. It looks a bit too heavy on carbs
and too light on protein for my taste, but it wouldn't be hard to cut it with
protein powder or something.

The biggest practical problem I see is "tastes best at <42F". Powders,
especially with fat and protein, mix poorly in cold water, and cold water
isn't always available. Something which worked better at 60-80F would be
ideal.

(As it is, the most practical thing for me is probably beef jerky, fiber and
vitamin pills, lots of water, and a few trips to steakhouses. Maybe some
Capriotti's sandwiches in a cooler.)

------
curuinor
This is all a bit silly.

Here's an advertisement for a bunch of full meal replacements for people of
normal health or crappier:

[http://www.abbottnutrition.ca/static/cms_workspace/en_CA/con...](http://www.abbottnutrition.ca/static/cms_workspace/en_CA/content/document/DIR134A08.pdf)

As you can see, they've been on the market for decades, and people have been
using them as sole-source nutrition for decades.

~~~
sirsar
Unless Amazon is really overpriced, it seems 1500 calories of Ensure Regular
is $36, while 2400 calories of Soylent is $9

------
nazgulnarsil
I'll keep bumping my open source, whole food, cheaper alternative as long as
soylent remains popular. I've been using this as about 40% of my calories for
about a year now and my blood panel numbers are great.

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjA38cUd4BZBdGZ...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjA38cUd4BZBdGZYM012N0JZTzEtVk05MVF4dlZyZ2c)

~~~
tocomment
That's pretty cool. How does it taste? How long does it last after prepared?
Have you considered olive oil?

~~~
nazgulnarsil
Olive oil is something you can add to alter the macro breakdown, but I'm happy
with the fat content of the whole milk as it stands. It tastes good to me,
though the marmite and potassium make it taste strange to some. I always drink
it immediately, and reports say it separates too much if left to sit in the
fridge. Though I suppose one could use a magic bullet and reblend right before
drinking.

------
ogig
When Soylent is talked about here i'm surprised by the amount of people who
seems to like the idea. I couldn't understand why would anyone, at anytime
pick a Soylent meal over something else. Then i read this article and see the
picture of the author's normal everyday food, and reading the comments here
others say this is in fact an average American diet.

I don't want to sound harsh, but you are missing something big about life if
you dismiss the pleasure of tasty food, the social moment of eating, and
health benefits of a varied, natural diet.

I'm from Spain, eating is important here. It's something beyond nutrition, is
about people. You sit at the table while chatting and enjoying the taste of
the seasonal ingredients. There are gastronomic events during the whole year,
and having conversations about this or that thing you ate, or a new restaurant
found, is common. Some of my life "best moments" were around a table.

To my eyes Soylent proposal is akin to replace the sexual act from
reproduction just because it's a waste of time.

------
Reventon
With the plethora of well known and well researched meal replacement solutions
out there, why is Soylent getting so much attention?

~~~
KingdomSprite
Soylent is affordable. Many other complete food supplements which are
primarily used by hospitals and other care facilities, will cost significantly
more. Other than that, it's a "fun" experiment as it has not been clinically
proven to be either healthful or harmful, though the ingredients are FDA
approved.

~~~
curuinor
Soylent is $65 for 21 meals

Jevity is $40 for a case of 24 cans
[http://www.amazon.com/Jevity-1-2-Cal-8-oz-
case/dp/B002HQMBZM...](http://www.amazon.com/Jevity-1-2-Cal-8-oz-
case/dp/B002HQMBZM/ref=sr_1_22?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1377058675&sr=1-22&keywords=jevity)

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
To be fair, I believe you wouldn't have an entire diet based only on Jevity,
while that's their goal for Soylent.

------
sirsar
I have a big problem with the "you might miss unknown-to-science
micronutrients" argument. If that's the case with Soylent, it should also be
the case for the average person's diet, which is far from optimal.

I'd rather get all my protein, fat, carbs, vitamins, etc and potentially miss
an unknown nutrient than eat what I currently do.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
> I have a big problem with the "you might miss unknown-to-science
> micronutrients" argument. If that's the case with Soylent, it should also be
> the case for the average person's diet (...)

And it _is_ the case. But because most people vary their diets, the
deficiencies are not so severe. For instance, most diets lack magnesium, but
on average, people also rarely go long periods without eating something like
fish or sea food, which provide a good amount in one meal and keep the person
above dysfunctional levels for some more time (it will still be a problem
later in life).

This is why restrictive diets (vegetarian, vegan, zero-[something]) and other
fads should never be taken lightly. Nutritional deficiencies compound over
time and wreck havoc on your body. That includes concoctions like Soylent (and
even the ones used on patients in critical condition, which cost way more, are
more complete, and _still_ are not advertised as perfect meal replacements).

~~~
enscr
Are you saying that vegetarian diet is a fad. You need to step out from
underneath that rock.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
"restrictive diets AND other fads".

------
bparsons
Most people's diets are horrible. It is really hard to eat anything even close
to balanced-- especially if you eat out at different restaurants quite often.

So, even if these guys don't really know what they are doing, even someone
with the most basic understanding of nutrition could concoct something, that
if consumed in the prescribed portion each day, would be better than what 90%
of the population is eating.

Users are controlling their calories, getting a mix of micro-nutrients, with
their ratio of macro-nutrients set up at a reasonable proportion.

If this business continues, I would imagine that different proportions of
macro and micro nutrients would be offered depending on the consumers health
profile and nutrition goals.

------
mathattack
He lost weight, but his body fat % went up. D'oh! Seems like a lot of water
loss. And losing 3% of your dry (muscle) mass seems worrying, especially since
he got enough protein. Perhaps these measurements aren't very specific?

------
FrankBlack
He didn't stop eating. He stopped chewing.

~~~
pertinhower
Thank you. I was a bit confused by that myself. Why say you're not eating when
you've just changed what you're eating? Shock value maybe? Helping to make the
whole expedition feel more important?

------
graeme
I just posted this to Tim's Blog:

\---------------------

It seems probable that soylent is better than much of the manufactured food on
the market. It also seems unlikely that soylent is better than quality whole
food.

I take Nassim Taleb's approach. We don’t know what we don’t know about food.
I’d like to address two of Shane’s points. I'm listing the objections Shane
raises, then his reply:

Shane's first point:

Objection: The body needs whole foods, not atomic nutrients; the synergy
between diverse ingredients is what matters in nutritional uptake. Shane's
reply –> This sounds nice, but has not been scientifically proven. (Shane
links to the naturalistic fallacy)

My reply: It’s true that nature doesn’t prove something is good. We can
nonetheless have a strong presumption that the body does best on whole foods.

We have thousands of years of history of humans doing well on whole foods, and
zero evidence that the human body can do as well on artificial foods.

Nassim Taleb would tell us there is a presumption in favour of natural system
that has stood the test of time. Human biology is very, very complex. If whole
foods serve it well, they may do so for reasons we can fathom.

One problem for Soylent is that it would have to prove itself safe on the
timescale of a human lifetime. That’s very, very hard to do.

Shane’s second point

Objection: We don’t know what we don’t know about nutrition (i.e. Soylent
might be unexpectedly harmful). Shane's reply —> That’s not a good reason to
not try to innovate. Why not do some tests?

My reply: See my point above. How can you test that Soylent is better than
whole foods? There is a massive potential for false positives.

With natural foods, if something seems effective, it probably is. We would
have discovered poisonous or second order effects long ago.

With an artificial food like soylent, it could appear effective for, say, ten
years, while introducing a variety of malignant effects.

Or maybe it is totally healthy. I have no idea. How can we know? You can’t
prove a good is safe without using it for a long, long time.

That said, I would expect soylent to be better than a diet of pure artificial
junk food, as many americans eat. They’re also engineered foods, but in that
case we can positively identify the harm.

One additional problem of soylent: the designers assume we need a steady
inejection of the same macronutrients every time we eat.

We know positively that this is false. Bodybuilders have long known that
carbohydrates are more effective after a workout. As with increased protein
after a workout.

~~~
bsbechtel
>That’s not a good reason to not try to innovate.

Innovation only really works if you're solving a problem. I don't really see
much of a problem with our food/nutrition system as is. Yes, there are parts
of the world where people are starving, so maybe there is an application for
this there, but if the aim is to test this product out in the Bay Area, I
don't really see it going anywhere. I could be wrong, but that's my 2 cents.

~~~
md224
I'll just say this: I hate cooking, and ordering delivery every night, while
easy, isn't ideal (cost, etc.). Eating delicious, real food every once in a
while is a great treat, but why the hell do I have to put so much energy into
this ritual of choosing/preparing/acquiring meals _every single day of my
life_? Sometimes I just don't want to be hungry, and I don't really care how I
get not-hungry.

I'm withholding judgement on this Soylent thing because there seems to be
quite a bit of controversy, but I can't say I agree that it isn't solving a
problem.

~~~
jlgreco
Buy a crate of MREs.

~~~
rdl
Converting a sealed MRE to food is actually more hassle than cooking ramen or
opening a can/pouch of tuna or microwaving frozen food. The ration heaters are
a huge pain if you're in a civilized environment; you don't _really_ want to
use them indoors due to H2 gas.

(I only ever ate MREs in transit, and at most for ~10 meals in a row. My
preferred strategy was to eat the main antree "cold" (I only got them in 90F+
weather, so they were plenty warm), maybe the candy (if it was the carmels, or
I think M&Ms), pocket the little bottle of tabasco for future bloody mary use,
and give away or trash the rest. Otherwise, far too much hassle. Given the
choice, the tuna pouches from the PX were 10x superior, even if I had to pay
for them, especially if I had some packets of mustard and relish and salt and
pepper).

------
helgeman
The main issue i have with this is not wether it works or not. Even if it
would be as healthy as the healthiest foods you could cook and it would
therefore "work" i still would despise this. Why? First off I think somethings
simply do not need to be fixed. The making, eating and sharing of food is one
of life's greatest pleasures. It is like saying .. well how can i fix this
this sex thing? its taking too much of my time away.

I know there are indeed people who don't have much time because they are very
busy. My suggestion is indeed .. fix your time management and/or your schedule
instead of fixing your food.

If you dont enjoy food than i would suggest there is something wrong with you.
Because we were all programmed to enjoy it .. like sex .. it is one of our
main motivators in life.

~~~
precisioncoder
The great thing about life is that we can make our own choices. I don't think
judging other people based on the decisions they make is a healthy attitude.
The more we provide new options for people the more diversity in human
experience we create and that is often beneficial. Guess who didn't choose to
partake in sex despite plenty of opportunity: Nikola Tesla. Of course he never
did anything important...

~~~
helgeman
I am not sure where you are coming from or if you got my point. If you do not
enjoy food/sex or whatever doesnt mean you are not a genius and can actually
be important. The one thing doesnt have anything to do with the other.

I would still argue that these people are a minority and that there is
actually something wrong with them, instead of there is something wrong with
our consumption of food.

Of course if you dont find pleasures in these activities you wont feel sick or
bad about it. But you should consider that this is not a problem that a lot of
people face because most of them actually enjoy eating.

~~~
precisioncoder
Saying "If you don't enjoy what I enjoy there is something wrong with you" is
a value judgement. Not seeing eating, or sex, or other commonly enjoyed
activities as enjoyable (or simply not as priorities) does not mean you need
to be fixed. Personally I love eating, but I would gladly have a substitute to
take care of the nutrition aspect so I didn't have to bother about it and
could eat a few times a week purely for pleasure.

~~~
helgeman
I agree. There is nothing wrong with them in the sense that it needs to be
fixed. And if they fixed a time problem for people who dont enjoy food. Fine.
I still disagree with their approach and i think i have the right to state
that without be labled as judgemental. I do actually have a friend who is the
same way. He says he eats just to be not hungry. He couldnt care less about
food. I dont like this attitude. But he is still my friend. There is a
difference between pointing out a different opinion and being judgemental. Its
just a small part of his persona anyway.

~~~
precisioncoder
I understand where you're coming from. It's hard to have friends with opinions
that you think are wrong. One of the reasons that I'm taking the time to
provide a counterview is because if the feedback is primarily negative people
often feel ashamed of their attributes. I'm vegetarian and I receive primarily
negative feedback for it. Same with being a geek, and a programmer. Due to how
this affected with me when I was younger I tend to think that negative
feedback for attributes without a clear negative should be kept to a minimum.

------
Shorel
More people are hacking their diet, in other ways than simply changing the
base ingredients but keeping the same macro ratios, and keeping the accepted
nutrition guidelines. In other words, it is not much of an improvement over
the status quo that's making the USA fat.

If Soylent fails, it is also because of the inherent failure with the accepted
nutrition guidelines.

The other people who are hacking their diets, with great success, are commonly
referred as the Keto community. We don't have “tired headaches” like the
poster.

For us, 45g of fat and 400g of carbohydrates seem way too unhealthy. Make it
the other way around and we can talk.

------
zekenie
Even with all the data he's recorded, you just can't draw any sort of
conclusions from this. The diet's effects on health can take years to take
effect. Just because his standard blood panels are normal for two weeks
doesn't mean it isn't causing problems. Specifically, the bioavailibility of
the supplements in soylent may not be high. I think it could be really
dangerous to eat this stuff as your primary source of food for a long period
of time. Eating it from time to time, though, could be convenient and
nutritious.

------
dinkumthinkum
So, I see a lot of people excited about this Soylent stuff here and that's
great but to those that actually excited by this and are very interested in
replacing all your meals and "don't understand what the big deal is about
food, other than the not dying part" ... do you all expect anyone to take you
seriously as human beings? I mean that in the most sincere way possible. It
just looks so ridiculous and honestly, somewhat pretentious: "Oh I would never
waste my time with food." Maybe I'm the crazy one.

------
enscr
Soylent completely discounts the act of chewing. It's not needed for the
mechanical action, but for its chemical benefits. Maybe they can ship a
chewing toy or something with the crinky bags :)

[http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=dailytip&dbid=337](http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=dailytip&dbid=337)

------
Semiapies
If this is something someone could live on, why does this guy's experience
eating it sound _exactly_ like a fast?

------
smcl
The pictures he takes reminds me of those deceptive "before" and "after" shots
from makeover shows (dour, poorly lit shot before, and lovely smiling pic
after). It starts with him looking a bit peaky with his face illuminated by
artificial light and ends with him grinning in the sunshine.

------
chmike
Ask author: did you kept regular "eating" times or did you sip here and there
from the bottle ?

How did the eating time socialization worked out ? Did you zap them ?

How would you explain the fact that you seamed intellectually more alert ? Do
you think it can only be the food ? Or could the fitness you did contribute to
it ?

------
siculars
What I get out of this and, by proxy, a lot of successful crowd funding is
that it is a market validator. This guy will no doubt make some money on
selling Soylent, but what will also happen is that a large multinational will
swoop in with more credible competition.

------
c0rtex
It would be very exciting to see some long-term study results on this.

Also: Q: As long as we're food hacking, why not open-source it and post it on
GitHub? A: It's a liquid. You can't fork it.

But seriously, the open-source version of this could be the nutritional
version of the OLPC.

~~~
gnoway
see discourse.soylent.me. This is more or less happening already.

------
krallja
Cutting caffeine probably caused the big changes in heart rate.

------
OhHeyItsE
Wow! A meal replacement powder! Groundbreaking! Why are we talking about this
again? Oh right. Because Tim Ferris is talking about it.

------
conjectures
Medical issues aside, do I really want to buy a food substitute named after a
dodgy scifi flick about industrial scale cannibalism?

------
saejox
I will never understand why would anyone eat the same food everyday. Eating is
fun, more fun than anything i know of.

~~~
peterwwillis
_> Eating is fun, more fun than anything i know of._

I think you're doing sex wrong.

------
theorique
What does soylent give you that a vitamix and a fridge full of fresh fruit,
vegetables, and nuts does not?

~~~
djt
Sense of adventure, by the looks of it.

~~~
namdnay
and an empty wallet...

------
pothibo
Most of what he described in the first days could have been caused by fructose
withdrawal syndrome.

------
reillyse
First time I've read the whole way through a blog post in a long long time.
Nice writing!

------
lsiebert
So where are the animal tests?

