Soylent: No Food For 30 Days 440
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Senior Editor of Motherboard Brian Merchant went an entire month without eating regular food. Instead, the journalist whisked up a concoction called soylent, an efficient take on the future of nourishment and nutrition. Merchant says: 'It was my second day on Soylent and my stomach felt like a coil of knotty old rope, slowly tightening. I wasn't hungry, but something was off. I was tired, light-headed, low-energy, but my heart was racing. My eyes glazed over as I stared out the window of our rental SUV as we drove over the fog-shrouded Bay Bridge to Oakland. Some of this was nerves, sure. I had twenty-eight days left of my month-long all-Soylent diet—I was attempting to live on the full food replacement longer than anyone besides its inventor—and I felt woozy already. ... By the third week of Soylent, not eating food seemed normal. I saw a doctor, who said I was healthy; I was still losing weight, but nothing serious. Yet, given that a daily mixture of Soylent contains 2,400 calories, both Rob and Dr. Engel thought it was odd that I’d shed so much. Dr. Engel said that given my weight, height, and body mass, I should only require about 1,800 calories a day. I could still be adjusting to the new diet, or I could have such a hyperactive metabolism that before Soylent, I was tearing through hundreds of extra calories per day and staying trim.'"
Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who was eating all those excess calories? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe the Gut bacteria [slashdot.org] found the soylent concoction particularly tasty and were eating more of it than the human, hence the weight loss.
Re:Daniel Tosh was right (Score:2, Insightful)
You can win a million dollars for surviving on a place where people already live!
Nevermind the camera crew that follows them around everywhere.
I think that's on par with wilderness camping in your mom's basement.
Re:Who was eating all those excess calories? (Score:5, Insightful)
He probably went from an unregulated diet (random food when hungry, different foods each day, plus various snacks as desired, etc) to the highly-regulated soylent concoction (2,400 calories with no variation). It's surprising how much we eat if we add in all the little things that we don't really think about, like extra drinks or whatever.
It's also possible his body simply became more efficient with handling the same number and type of calories each day, rather than store the excess due to normal daily variations in consumption.
Marketing Scam (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Daniel Tosh was right (Score:3, Insightful)
In poor countries, only the rich can afford to get fat.
In rich countries, only the rich can afford to stay thin.
Re:Daniel Tosh was right (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh stop fooling yourself. Other countries don't hate you because you're rich or even wasteful. They hate you because Your Government Interferes With Their Country. Period.
Re: Calories (Score:3, Insightful)
No it isn't.
FFS. We seem to have this discussion weekly on Slashdot.
A little review of the literature: http://www.ketotic.org/2013/09/the-ketogenic-diet-reverses-indicators.html [ketotic.org]
Re:Calories (Score:4, Insightful)
It's pure PHYSICS that if you need a certain number of calories, and if you do not consume enough, you will lose weight.
There are several edge cases, things like fiber that your body can't digest (or lactose if you're in the unlucky few). And there are some that some that will suppress your appetite, versus those that stimulate it. But those DON'T MATTER at allon a strictly calorie controlled diet... that's only affects your un-monitored calorie consumption, or possibly your will-power at sticking to the stringent diet.
Absolutely ZERO doctors or scientists will claim you can maintain a healthy weight without consuming the number of calories the math says you need. If there was ANY WAY to do that, the US Military would be paying HUGE amounts of money to get the secret formula that lets them transport half as much food, halfway across the planet (through war-zones) to feed all those hungry soldiers.
The reverse isn't so strictly true, but honestly, there aren't THAT many examples of foods that don't properly digest (like fiber), or that stimulate your metabolism (like caffeine), and they neither cause HUGE effects, nor can they go unnoticed by the person who constantly running to the toilet, and/or who's sweating through winter and can't get to sleep.
Re:Marketing Scam (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Macro Nutrients... (Score:2, Insightful)
As I recall there's not even any insoluable fiber in the stuff. Pass.
Isn't this ketosis? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure the product keeps him from starving to death; I'm just not seeing how his doctor saw the fat loss and other things as such a mystery. Is there something I'm missing here?
Re:Calories (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Not all the calories are the same - try pumping diesel into a petrol car or vice versa, same calories very different effects. Compare long term effects of different ethanol-petrol ratios on your car. Human metabolism is even more complicated than a car's engine. Compare consuming 2000 calories of sugar water with consuming 2000 calories of protein mix.
2) most conveniently forget to measure the _excreted_ calories - for example, how much you shit out. Even a 5% difference in individuals can become significant over time.
3) There's also satiety factors. For "dieting" purposes different foods with the same amount of calories have different satiety.
A partial truth can be just as damaging as flat out lies. And there have been plenty saying harmful bullshit like "a calorie is a calorie" when it's not so simple as that.
Why all the negativity? (Score:4, Insightful)
I love food, and I love sharing meals with friends. But many of my meals are purely functional. It would be awesome if there was a meal replacement for those purely functional meals. I hate everything currently on the market that I've tried, it's all too sweet and usually has a strange aftertaste (presumably because of artificial sweeteners or flavors.) If I could replace about 50% of my meals with something like Soylent and still be healthy, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
I have no idea if Soylent is a viable meal replacement, nor if it's any better than what's already on the market. But I hope it is.
Hate to be pedantic, but how is this "not food?" (Score:4, Insightful)
Do the ingredients here have non-food plant or animal sources? Are they actually made of completely synthetic chemicals? If not, then how is this considered *not food* as opposed to *extremely processed,* food fortified with synthetic vitamins, with most food-like characteristics stripped from it? I don't get it.
Re:Daniel Tosh was right (Score:2, Insightful)
Only if the camera crew and the cast have the same accommodations. Otherwise, by that same logic, the living conditions of the wild animals featured in National Geographic must be "on par with wilderness camping in your mom's basement".
That analogy only works if the crew is actually filming at the local zoo.
Survivor is just a Popularity-Contest style game show set in an outdoor environment, none of them are actually "surviving".
Re: Calories (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to go all ad-hominem but could you find a source supporting the Ketogenic diet that isn't called ketotic.org?
It might be a great resource, and their literature review might be unbiased and very high quality. But they could also be a pair of diet evangelists outside of their field of expertise who are cherry picking and misrepresenting studies (intentionally or not).
They could be completely accurate and reliable, but they've also got all the hallmarks of YAIC (Yet Another Internet Crank).
Re:Daniel Tosh was right (Score:5, Insightful)
"In rich countries, only the rich can afford to stay thin."
Bullshit. You can eat a healthy diet and control calories cheaply. I shop at Walmart and local grocery stores (all that's available where I live), and since I quit all soda, all refined starches, all sweets, all juices (if I want juice I eat fruit) my grocery bill has dropped considerably. I eat about 1300 calories/day, including meat, fruit, fish and veggies. I no longer eat out, at all. No need, and because I don't eat vending machine food that's more money saved and less shit ingested.
I dropped over 50lbs since July and feel great.
The Americans who CHOOSE to stop being fatasses have an option. It's called PUT DOWN THE FUCKING FORK. Used exercise bikes are dirt cheap on Craigslist (expect a flood after every holiday season) and make for convenient cardio at home.
If I can do it so can anyone else because I'm not special.