
Muesli – An alternative approach to Soylent - L29Ah
https://github.com/l29ah/muesli
======
opportune
One thing I don't understand about soylent is how it can be so expensive and
yet still so flawed.

First, as a male I am concerned about isoflavones. I've read sources that go
either way on how much it actually affects hormone levels, but since I suspect
there is a lot more pressure from the agriculture / vegetarian community to
make it seem safer than it is than from any other community to not, I lean
towards it not being that good for you.

Second, the consistency is absolutely terrible. They don't need to make it too
seedy, but leaving some of the nuts and seeds at least somewhat coarse would
improve its texture beyond "slime that makes your teeth feel terrible and
gross".

As is, it doesn't even make economic sense, because I can feed myself much
tastier food than soylent for like $3-6 a day. Like, why would you choose
soylent over food such as eggs, chicken, spinach, broccoli, oatmeal, etc?

What I really wish someone would do, is make a milk-based soylent with stuff
that is actually good for you like sunflower seeds. That would actually taste
good and probably be much better for you.

~~~
fermuch
I think the selling point of soylent is how easy it is to consume. You just
drink it and done. Cleaning is as easy as washing your cup. That's an
attractive point if you don't enjoy the ritual of eating, or simply want to
spend the time doing something else.

I agree it is too expensive for what it offers, though.

~~~
aembleton
I've never tried Soylent, but I do have the UK equivalent - Huel [1]. This
isn't as simple as drinking it, because you need to measure it out, add water
and mix it for a minute or two. Then when it comes to cleaning, it isn't just
a cup. There is also this grid like piece of plastic that helps to break up
chunks of Huel but is hard to clean.

I like the idea; but in reality I'd rather jut have some toast if I want
something quick. I know it's not as good for me but food is more than just
getting calories and nutrients in. I get pleasure from eating a variety of
textures and flavours.

1\. [https://huel.com/](https://huel.com/)

~~~
djhworld
I have Huel for breakfast on work days only. I agree that the preparation and
cleaning isn't that much different from say, having a bowl of cereal.

It works for me though, I wake up at 6:40, get a shower, iron some clothes,
drink some Huel and am out the door at 7:20 to get the tube to go to work.

Other meals during the day are "normal", but it ticks the box for breakfast
for me (quick to consume, fits in with my routine etc)

------
eljimmy
Soylent is so awful for you. They really capitalized on the ignorance of
millenials with regard to proper nutrition.

edit: Shouldn't have trigger responded, but one of my biggest gripes with
Soylent is their use of maltodextrin. It's not something you want to be
consuming in mass every day. It is good for post-workout nutrition but as a
meal you may as well be consuming sugar.

~~~
virtuallynathan
In what way? According to who?

~~~
dogecoinbase
The dozens of people on the Soylent subreddit who got weeks of diarrhea
followed by jaundice? Though I think my favorite was the people who were
arguing that some level of mold was acceptable if it meant they didn't have to
deal with the inconvenience of foil seals.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
Really? I don't want to laugh, but _snrk_

Both my current and previous company got in Soylent on occasion; the current
one has gotten Coffiest a few times, which I haven't tried, while the earlier
one got in the bottled Soylent and the short-lived Soylent Bar. I tried the
bottled version once--maybe twice?--and had no ill effects, but didn't
particularly like it, either. I had no ill effects from the bar, either, and I
confess I actually rather liked it. I'd probably order it again, assuming it
seemed safe.

But as someone who, well, actually _likes_ eating, I don't see the attraction
of using this stuff as anything other than "I don't have enough time to cook
or even go to a sit-down restaurant" type meals, the same way I would any
other breakfast bar or meal drink. And looking at it that way makes their meal
drinks much less appealing to me compared to, say, Ensure. Yes, Ensure has way
more sugar, but it has a half-dozen fairly reasonable flavors, none of which
are "dilute pancake batter."

~~~
jeremiahlukus
I have pretty heavy scarring in my esophagus. This causes me to choke on
numerous types of foods very frequently. Soylent is a solution to this
problem. Also, it helps balance my diet.

------
Dunedan
I guess that would integrate nicely with MyMuesli
([https://uk.mymuesli.com/](https://uk.mymuesli.com/)).

For those who don't know MyMuesli: It's a company which lets you mix your own
muesli (from ~350 ingredients) and ship it to you. It's one of Germanys most
successful non-VC-funded startups. They started in 2007 with just a website
and nowadawys got shops in most major german cities where you can pick up your
ordered muesli (useful for customers who avoid the delivery costs) or buy pre-
mixed packs. Even though their muesli is anything but cheap they're hugely
successful.

------
StavrosK
I have no idea what this is, and the README isn't helping. Why is it a
program?

~~~
L29Ah
What else could it have been? I needed a way to do simple arithmetic and
pretty-print my recipe and its nutrients as I (re-)adjust it at least.

~~~
yeukhon
> What else could it have been?

UGH. Sorry, but this came across kind of strong.

I think what OP is really asking is how is this suppose to be used? If this is
a simple "let me show you", all right, but the README and the screenshot are
confusing, but all right....

But I think people here generally expect a "so this is how you can actually
use my program" when you do a shameless plug.

~~~
L29Ah
Thank you; I've expanded it a bit.

------
smallnamespace
Ugh -- Soylent and now this seems to represent a branch of scientism at its
worse.

Our bodies are complicated. Therefore, nutrition science is complicated, and
very much a work in progress. Because people eat various things all their
lives in an uncontrolled way, and because what you eat can have impacts on you
10, 20, or 50 years down the line, _getting reliable nutritional data is
extremely expensive and difficult_.

There are many interactions that we still don't understand, unknown unknowns
where we don't even know what the questions yet. For example, we know now that
our gut microbiome has important influence on our metabolism, immune systems,
and overall health. And yet little of this research existed 20 years ago
because there was no cheap DNA sequencing, and we _still_ don't know today how
what we eat influences our internal ecology. We certainly don't know what
eating a bunch of Soylent for a couple decades would do to a person's
microbiome, because nobody has ever tried it.

A dose of humility and common sense would suggest that radically transforming
your diet based on our _current_ reductive knowledge of nutrition is an
extremely risky bet.

The much safer bet is eating traditionally: eat foods in combinations and
proportions that our ancestors and cultures have actually tried and tweaked
over thousands of years of empirical experimentation and co-evolution.

~~~
affinehat
I disagree with your assertion that it is "extremely risky" to apply current
nutrition knowledge. Since we don't understand the effects of the
"traditional" diet, it's not clear whether it is helping or hurting us. Yes,
we have empirical evidence, but as you said it is poorly controlled. So all we
can know is that if we eat a "traditional" diet, we will probably live close
to the average lifespan and have average health issues as has been observed
for traditional diets.

Additionally, there are a wide variety of traditional diets that cover very
different foods. Since everything in the body interacts in complicated ways,
we cannot even generalize specific foods as being "non-risky" to eat, since
the empirical evidence we have only applies to the interactions of each food
with the rest of the diet. So it's not clear what would actually constitute a
definitive "traditional" diet; the best we could do would be to try and mimic
a specific traditional diet as closely as possible, which still doesn't take
into account the interactions caused by non-diet aspects of health like amount
of exercise.

There is value in that kind of stability, but by incorporating mainstream
nutrition research into your diet you can trade increased risk for what is
likely to be a better average result. I say likely to be better than average
because, as incomplete as nutrition data is, some data is still better than no
data. It doesn't make sense to ignore what we know in the moment just because
it might be wrong later. As long as you research carefully and stick to the
most well studied aspects of nutrition, risk is minimal.

It's also worth pointing out that the normal person's diet today is already a
large departure from traditional diets. So even if we assume a "traditional"
diet is the goal, it does not follow that that Soylent would be better or
worse than the normal person's diet today. It's likely that the human body is
adaptable enough to handle whatever you eat.

~~~
smallnamespace
Just to clarify, I 100% support judicious use of what we know about
nutritional science today.

I also happen to think that Soylent is definitely _not_ a wise application of
our current knowledge. The sophomoric notion that we already understand
nutrition well enough to create a full fledged meal replacement with
everything that the body requires is false, misleading, and highly
irresponsible.

From their front page:

> Protein, carbohydrates, lipids, and micronutrients: each Soylent product
> contains a complete blend of everything the body needs to thrive.

The micronutrients claim in particular invites scrutiny -- we definitely don't
know yet whether we've succeeded in identifying every micronutrient that the
body needs for survival, much less to 'thrive'.

I mean, they actually sickened a whole bunch of people with some algae powder
ingredient, not realizing it would be problematic ahead of time. If they can't
design a food product that avoids acute illness, why should you have
confidence that they have something that is safe and healthy to use long term?

------
cyberferret
I appreciate the coincidental irony that I am eating a bowl of muesli while
reading this article this morning (AM in Aus., that is).

* Whole rolled oats

* Pumpkin seeds

* LSA (powdered)

* Sunflower seeds

* Chopped green apple

* Coconut water and Orange Juice 50/50 mix (NOT Milk, Ugh!)

* Mango flavoured thick greek yoghurt

Mmm...

~~~
contingencies
For other people who have no idea what LSA is...

 _LSA is a 3 in 1 solution [...] made of ground linseed, ground sunflower
seeds and ground almonds_

Seems to be a thing in Australia and New Zealand.

~~~
pacaro
And just because I didn't know this until yesterday, Linseed is Flax seed,
just different names for the same stuff.

You can use your kitchen grade flaxseed oil for painting, putting your art
supplies linseed oil on your quark is more questionable.

~~~
cyberferret
I used to use it on my cricket bats all the time, and nowadays on my Kendo
Shinai.

I guess it is one of those oils like Coconut oil, where you can ingest it or
use it for a myriad of lubricating and protective purposes.

~~~
contingencies
Apparently the ground linseed/flax loses its goodness (major non-fish source
of omegas) very quickly after grinding unless refrigerated. So the store
bought LSA is no good. You need to grind it yourself and either eat it
immediately or keep it in the fridge. Apparently it has a magical smell when
ground.

------
nnfy
The whole purpose of soylent is to allow me to spend 13 hours per day coding
on adderall without leaving my room. Healthy or not, I think OP missed the
point of ready made, no cleanup food.

------
nwrk
Cool!

See the sample here [https://dump.bitcheese.net/files/cacobil/muesli-
example.html](https://dump.bitcheese.net/files/cacobil/muesli-example.html)

~~~
djur
So about a half kilogram of oats and raisins with oil and various additives? I
guess it's slightly more palatable than Soylent but eating it seems just
incredibly grueling.

~~~
VectorLock
I think thats the point. He specifies that "excessive chewing activates
digestion" or something on the github page. Its designed to be a real jaw
grinder.

~~~
freehunter
Excessive chewing also causes TMJ disorders or at the very least, a very sore
jaw. Humans aren't cows chewing cud.

------
peterhajas
I've been eating Soylent twice a day for more than a year as my primary food
source. I'm always interested in new variants (especially ones that cut down
on cost) - this one seems interesting. Any chance that there's an Amazon
shopping cart that someone can add to get all this stuff easily?

Also, I noticed that the Readme links to Rob Rhinehart's page
([http://robrhinehart.com](http://robrhinehart.com)). Unfortunately, it looks
like it's all been taken down. Anybody know why?

~~~
kpil
Honest question: Do you not enjoy food? What do you think the benefits are?

I'm asking because I think I would be severely depressed on such a monotone
diet. I love cooking and it gives me great joy to eat good food, or new kinds
of food, or even the boring lunch restaurant type food if it's done reasonably
well.

Lunch is also a nice social event. I'm skipping lunch sometimes (when I'm not
that hungry) but I feel like I missing the social aspect then.

~~~
apocolyps6
The choice for me is pretty simple. No breakfast, or soylent. I'd rather be
eating something than nothing.

If I have the chance to eat a real meal I take it, but there are also times
where I literally can't.

Idk why it is suddenly in vogue to shit on people for being busy.

~~~
pbowyer
> Idk why it is suddenly in vogue to shit on people for being busy.

Maybe because the HN crowd is getting older or more burned out, and their
values are changing?

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pacificresearch
Is there a recipe for this? Or even an ingredient list? This seems like a very
weird way to present an idea for food

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gehwartzen
I personally view Soylant in the same way I do infant formula. It has changed
drastically since it was first introduced as we learn more and more about what
is in actual breastmilk and why it matters for development. Similarly there
are probably many other components in whole foods that are important that we
may not even quantify yet. Not to mention the importance of actualy chewing
food so that the enzymes from saliva accompany the meal and assist in breaking
down various components.

Imagine what Soylant would have looked like 50 years ago and how much it would
have been missing. Now imagine how in 50 years we will learn just as much if
not more and look back at our crude attempts in the same vain.

------
ziedaniel1
I enjoy MealSquares: [http://mealsquares.com](http://mealsquares.com) . A bit
expensive, but fulfills many of the same objectives.

------
kevin_thibedeau
Seems to be missing people from the ingredients.

~~~
choward
I'm pretty sure this joke has been attempted every time anything is posted
about soylent.

~~~
StavrosK
And it's not even Soylent Green, so the joke doesn't even work.

