Soylent: No Food For 30 Days

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.'"

Comments

Brian Merchant

[wrackspurt]

A real people person ;)

Or...

[drater]

it could be that it's just flat out bad for you.

Re:Or...

[AlphaWolf_HK]

The blood work tells you pretty well what is and isn't supposed to be in your body (if a given nutrient isn't carried in your blood serum, then nothing gets it)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Reference_ranges_for_blood_tests_-_by_mass.svg

The only problem his had was being D deficient. I think D is one of the most expensive ones to test for (I heard it costs around $500) so I think if they included that in his blood work panel then they were probably very comprehensive in their testing.

With that being the case, it probably is that this isn't (fully) healthy for you in that it doesn't satisfy your D requirements, but that is actually easy to address.

There exists the possibility that this wouldn't satisfy every persons metabolic requirements as well (for example, some people need different amounts of electrolytes such as potassium and sodium than other people, which genetics are known to play a heavy role in) so if/when they do clinical tests they should also isolate based on race and do the same regular blood work throughout the trials.

Re:Who was eating all those excess calories?

[asmkm22]

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.

You do not only feed yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

When you eat, you are not only feeding yourself. There is an entire ecosystem of bacteria that you are feeding.

All that stuff that is NOT calories, can becomes calories, vitamins, and various other things, depending on your gut bacteria. That is one of the reasons to eat fiber, vegetables, and similar stuff. Gut bacteria is the reason why eating too much meat causes heart disease. Etc. etc.

If you do not feed your gut bacteria, there may be consequences that neither you nor your doctor can understand. And these consequences could be long term and maybe not even easily reversible.

As a summary and FYI, our shit is 50% bacteria (mostly e. coli.) by mass. That bacteria is more critical to our health than almost anything else. And that is why we still eat - to feed that bacteria. Otherwise, we could just live with intravenous system without the need for stomachs and related, messy plumbing.

Re:Daniel Tosh was right

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Ahem

[garompeta]

"but if I had any money or a girlfriend I would probably eat out more often"

lol, that explains a lot

Re:Who was eating all those excess calories?

[icebike]

Pretty much covered by the first respondent.

I had a friend in College from Australia. He found he always had digestive problems returning home for a visit after every semester. A semester was just long enough for his native flora to die off, and it took a day or three of cramps and trots (a bad case of the "dampass" as he called it) to get his gut primed again.

So he got these pills from his doctor, who got them from the military, and would take them on the flight home. They were nothing more than "seed stock" for his gut. This was back in the 60s and apparently Australian Diet of that era was just enough different from American fare that some people had trouble adjusting.

Re:It's People.

[ArcadeMan]

Nope. It's old PC towers. Turns out, they DO blend!

Re: Daniel Tosh was right

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

So... Not only are you losing weight, you're saving money. If you keep this up ... You'll be thin and rich?