The Second Apocalypse
Miscellaneous Chatter => Philosophy & Science => Topic started by: jamesA01 on September 10, 2013, 06:12:30 am
-
I want to start a topic on Soylent, which is a food replacement product that recently had an very successful kickstarter, raising nearly a million bucks, and in a few years will be available in stores.
You might have heard of this already, if not you can google it. I'm actually quite excited to be able to talk about it here, since this is one of the few places on the internet with a commentariat smart enough to get it (flattery intended).
Fans of ThreePoundBrain and its advocation of a ruthless examining of unrecognized cognitive bias will appreciatehttp://robrhinehart.com/?p=507 (http://robrhinehart.com/?p=507) this post by Soylent creator Rob Rhinehart.
It strikes me that the semantic apocalypse is not all bad, and that Soylent represents the start of a new way of doing things more suited to this era.
So Soylent is basically the brainchild of a California programmer who decided that surely there must be a way to simplify food. What he has developed is a recipe which basically decodes the human body AS a machine that needs a particular input to function at its maximum. He debugged himself.
So he simply took all the substances that science currently understands the body to need and combined them into a drink.
This is actually a relatively short list:
Fat, protein, fibre, potassium, phosphorus, sodium, choline, sulphur and a list of about 20 other vitamins and minerals.
Here's what makes Soylent so great. We're all supposed to be smugly cynical post modernists able to reel off a derisory list of references in order to scoff at the complexities of modern life. But Soylent reveals how redundant and moronic this attitude is, since even if you decide 'all that health food crap is too complex, i'm going to just eat whatever', you are still doing the same fundamental thing that Soylent does, only you don't realize it. You are still inputting a specific list of substances into your body which are having a specific type of effect on its functioning. There's no way to escape the fact your body is a machine with specific components which produce specific effects and processes depending on what is input.
There is a DIY community where we make our own soylent recipes and refine the medium. It's located here http://discourse.soylent.me/ (http://discourse.soylent.me/)
As someone who has previously had serious narcotics problems, mental health issues requiring repeated hospitalization, and periods of EXTREMELY bad diet, the effect that Soylent has had on my cognitive functioning is nothing short of astounding. The potential good that can be done with this knowledge and this type of recipe is absolutely staggering. You can make Soylent meals for as little as $2 a day, and that will decrease in the future. I presently have and will soon be ordering OVER A YEARS worth of its ingredients which will fit into 2 plastic boxes and sit in my bedroom. For anyone on a low income I urge you to (cautiously) investigate this. Please be warned that incorrect doses of elements that the body requires on a daily basis, such as potassium, can be toxic. However I would bet hard cash that very few of you on this board are getting anywhere NEAR the RDA of this particular element and many others.
The range of mental health problems, illness, and by extension crime and suffering that can and will be alleviated in the future, when smart consumers start to approach their body as the machine it is, is going to be immense. Likewise the potential for illness and derangement as the plethora of drugs and substances the human body can consume expands. Simply eating 'natural' or 'balanced' is not going to do it. Consider the fact that the dividing line between substances we deem as drugs and as food is somewhat arbitrary. The big danger that most of us fall for is fear of complexity and the hassle of caloric expenditure on acquiring and assessing new information. However, there is no going back to a simpler time, and we can't just trust our intuitions coupled with what 'feels right', since what we feel is the result of mechanic processes and processes going on within our body that we have little conscious access to unless we educate ourselves. Soylent and the type of thinking behind it allows us to decode our feelings and sensations and potentially deduce the mechanical causes behind it that we aren't consciously aware of.
It has been very disheartening for those of us doing Soylent to read the media responses to it, so many of which have been dickwitted moronicisms combining a sneery brand of 'humour' with the typical attitude of cynical dismissal of something as a 'fad' backed up with nothing but ignorant gibberish. There have been notable exceptions and I would encourage anyone to do some googling and decide for yourself if the science behind it is legit or not. Just make sure you don't come across the Fox News article where the commenters decide its a plot by the Obama administration to control our brainesssss.
When not receiving its required nutrition, the body will economize and cognition and functioning will be severely impaired. I had a 'moment' after a few weeks on Soylent that I will only share here . I was walking outside and suddenly realized the depth of my vision had massively expanded and for the first time in years I was noticing more details, all the way to the horizon. This effect has been permanent and I am convinced that it was due to my brain having the nutrition to bring some of its systems 'back online'. :) It was a nice confirmation of the fact that our brains are totally blind to themselves, as I had no idea I was missing anything.
-
Are you sustaining yourself exclusively on a variety of Soylent at this point? Do you find that there are any disadvantages to a permanent, all-liquid diet? It sounds like the nutrients are all there, but I imagine it would wreak havoc in certain respects physiologically.
-
Nope, that's a common query, but the fact that it is all liquid has absolutely no detrimental effect, since fibre is included. People assume that all liquid must be bad, but its not, and the Soylent people consulted experts on this.
There are people trying to work on solid recipes, but so far noones got anything substantial.
Most people use it for about 80-90% of their meals. Chewing gum helps.
I just made a few orders, and will soon have the supplies to make more than enough to last me beyond 2014, for a total of approx £250, (not including scales, blender and stuff I've already bought etc.)
If anyone on this board has health issues or feels they might have poor nutrition or mental health problems, Soylent is very very likely to help. If not full Soylent then at least getting a proper multivit and mineral and learning some basics about what the body needs.
I should also add I am not an expert on it and better answers to any queries can be found on the Soylent board.
-
Hmm...
I'm burnt out on my last two posts, I think.
I had thoughts but now I'm more interested in accumulating a dietary thread. I shall be back.
-
"Soylent", unforunate name for a food. But of course the name pays homage to the classic sci-fi film of a Harry Harrison work, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green).
-
Finally got around to reading your whole post.
Sounds interesting, and I'll admit that I'm skeptical, and a bit afraid of it. I've heard numerous times that the human body is simply not that good at processing "synthetic" nutrients. This is mostly in the context of vitamins, where apparently studies have shown that when 2 people consume the same quantities of vitamins/minerals, one person through pills and the other food, the person going the natural route actually absorbs more of it... I haven't seen the studies myself. Any thoughts on that?
I have personally done a bit of research into protein powder/supplements as compared to meat/other foods. I found that the results are mainly inconclusive. Some show that there is no difference, some show a significant loss when using the powders/shakes. Some showed that a significant difference in consuming high quantities all at once compared to over a whole day, others showed no effect or even the opposite.
There is so much bad science out there it can be hard to get an conclusive results.
What do you say about that in general? Is this Soylent stuff some how accounting for some lower absorption amounts, or is it straight by-the-numbers totals that you "need"?
I'm intrigued by the whole concept though. I mean "eating" for $2 a day is insanely awesome.
Oh here's a question: Have you had difficulty eating regular food after prolonged periods of the Soylent diet? My gf's family is Italian, and if I didn't eat over there they would all hate me (not a joke, but still funny).
-
There are some issues with the absorption of nutrients that the team and their hired hands are working on. I would be somewhat skeptical about making a clear distinction between synthetic and natural, since synthetic nutrients are added to foods all the time.
Most of us consume Soylent three times a day. And there are so many different types of protein powders. I'm confident that in the end whatever type is chosen for the official Soylent recipe will be legit.
Since the body is a machine with measurable properties there is indeed a specific figure for every ingredient it needs. The government set RDA is different in different countries and obviously each body might have different needs in different circumstances. However it stands to reason that Soylent, with its scientific basis is likely to be more accurate. I submit to you that in a sense you are already trying to eat Soylent. Think of everything you ate yesterday laid out on a table. It could all be deconstructed into smaller ingredients, which could be measured. Lets say you ate a chocolate bar. Its just a collected assortment of ingredients your body wants to use. However our brains dont know the exact vitamin C content of an orange. We don't have the time to calculate all the ingredients and our brains get us to just grab the easiest most fat and sugar laced thing. With Soylent you get none of the unnecessary junk ingredients. This is why my Body Odour gets better on Soylent then gets worse again if I eat crisps and coke. Check the board and you'll find many others reporting similar effects.
There's absolutely no issue with eating normal food after Soylent. Most of us have the occasional snack or social meal. However Soylent actually makes me feel satiated, which is a new feeling for me. Usually no matter how full I feel I will always crave more sweets. Not on Soylent. I'm down a jeans size already.
-
Yeah I understand the concept and the reasoning behind it. But its not me making the distinction of "synthetic" and "natural", but rather the body itself. But yeah in its most basic form there should be no difference. However, the whole is not always equal to the sum of its parts.
How do you account of the differences in height/weight/gender? How do you "know" the dose of each nutrient is correct (and not just building up in your fatty tissue and slowly killing you :P)
The substance called TPN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parenteral_nutrition), is administered through IV's to people who can't eat (surgery, accidents, etc.). This stuff is highly regulated and exactly calculated on a per patient basis. The issue being that a small OD of many of our required nutrients can be deadly. For example, a 10cc injection of Potassium will kill you almost immediately.
TPN has been around for a long time, and I guess the major difference between that and Soylet is that it isn't ingested but rather injected.
However it stands to reason that Soylent, with its scientific basis is likely to be more accurate.
Not necessarily. RDAs probably come from better funded government scientists. I'm not saying Soylet is bad, but the idea that a computer programmer with no formal training in the medical field can come up with a food substitute more accurately than teams of government funded biologists seems a bit odd.
-
There are different recipes for male and female. We also calculate our daily caloric needs first, most people's recipes are different. I don't know how the official Soylent will deal with these issues.
I understand your point about Potassium, its why noone making their own recipes goes over the 3.5g daily RDA (unless in the early stages of ketosis when you need an extra gram. We are all very careful and critique each others recipes. Did you know that the average person almost never gets enough Potassium? Magnesium deficits in modern diets are also playing havoc. Soylent can potentially fix these, hopefully even educating people along the way.
But I will admit that you are right, since I can't afford bloodwork or in depth medical tests I don't know if my personal experimentation in Soylent is doing some hidden harm. Even in spite of the range of amazingly positive effects its had on me, it could still be doing something else. My previous diet of mainly junk food was so bad that I'm prepared to take the risk. If it turns out I've made a mistake I would be happy to tell the community so noone repeats it. Mr. Rhinehart didn't ask any of us to start making our own, we just did it. In fact he warned us all not to in case we messed up. I'm so enthused about this stuff I'm glad I tooj the risk.
Mr. Rhinehart may be a programmer but he now employees many other nutritionists to make sure he develops the safest and healthiest of products.
-
I'm glad to hear that there are plenty of intelligent people involved with this. This certainly isn't something that everybody should just jump into and start making their own Soylet product. I guess I didn't realize that, at least in the community, its not being rolled out as some kind of "one size fits all" kind of thing, which is really good.
On a side note, I read this article about doctors who are "prescribing" fruits/vegetables. They talked how how (obviously) your diet can affect your health, etc. etc. Lo and behold, people who started eating healthier lost weight and had more energy! The problem they mentioned is that its hard to get people to actually eat healthier, because it take a more time and effort than just rolling up to a window and getting a burger.
It would seem that the potential benefits of something like Soylet are seemingly endless if it can be made safely and tailored properly to each person. It might be best to keep something like this in a small, close knit, community. I foresee problems with it being placed in the public domain, but not for any real fault of Soylet itself.
-
But why bother with the effort of eating vegetables? Why not demand FAST FOOD that's also healthy, or why not MORE healthy than eating carrots and celery all day?
Because you can buy one of these:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000NDME6C/ref=s9_simh_gw_p121_d3_i2?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-4&pf_rd_r=1XF5TZD2D1T6N5RKV6FN&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=418450047&pf_rd_i=468294 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000NDME6C/ref=s9_simh_gw_p121_d3_i2?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-4&pf_rd_r=1XF5TZD2D1T6N5RKV6FN&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=418450047&pf_rd_i=468294)
Which contains more vegetable than you'd be able to get if you spent all day eating an entire market stall of the damn things.
(Not to say that eating fresh fruit and veg isn't a damn good idea, only that we can always do better).
Admittedly its expensive, but the principle is right. There's no reason it can't become cheaper in the future. There's no reason we can't manufacture the actual ingredients in vegetables on a mass scale, a lot faster, more efficient and more refined than actually planting the seeds and waiting for the sun and the soil to do it for us.
-
I can defiantly see your point, and I don't personally disagree with it. There are people that will just never believe that something "artificially created" will equal the nutritive value of something "naturally created", even if its identical down to the molecular level. There is a widespread negative stigma towards synthetic goods, and in some cases for good reason. Its a shame that something with such posibility has to fight and uphill battle from the start.
Just look at diamonds. This kind of this is exactly why "synthetic" diamonds are cheaper than "real" ones, even though a properly synthesized diamond is exactly the same as its "natural" counter part (and also because one company controls the entire diamond industry and is itself artificially inflating the costs and just keeping the "fake" diamonds out of the market for their own business purposes, but thats a different story entirely :P)
Also, I like eating and even cooking (form time to time). There's just nothing quite like a home cooked meal, especially when someone else makes it for you.
-
I'm decided that the Semantic Apocalypse is Shadowrun.
I can't divide the time I want to put in forty minutes this morning to research for this thread and I never seem to make it back to offer cogent arguments in the evening so I apologize to the Quorum for not addressing other points I want to - like checking antecedents histories (for instance, how these dietary criteria are decided).
While I want to get into the meat of this thread, I have an analogy that I feel doesn't belong in the equally enticing drugs thread.
There is, and has been for a number of years, a DIY community (more than one) grown about the concept of 'Stacks.'
james made the point in the drugs thread about drugs simply altering neurophysiology, which I think is a good point, but one that misses some implicative marks. I think it's a good point because it provides a framework for reflecting on the patterns far outside one's ken. I would amend his statement, in light of that framework, to suggest that to your brain, anything that you ingest, is a drug. But more on that when I get around to engaging the other threads.
Stacks communities consist of a whole swath of the disciplinary breadth constituting neuroscience - as james has suggested the Soylent community attracts people qualified with more expertise - but also DIYers who are simply interested in fulfilling the first stage niches of social adoption.
Joe Rogan's even got his own line of Nootropics.
Literally, I've read hundreds of discussions about different stacks - people who adopt a regiment of intake - like james is talking about with diet here.
I felt compelled to add this to the conversation here as I don't feel my writing is going to touch on that in my initial foray into the drugs thread.
Diet is interested with preserving the function of organs generally, not specifically one organ, which I do think is a perspective lost in the Stacks communities. It doesn't matter if you ingest in order to facilitate cognitive function, if the functional preservation of your organs is ignored.
There's no reason we can't manufacture the actual ingredients in vegetables on a mass scale, a lot faster, more efficient and more refined than actually planting the seeds and waiting for the sun and the soil to do it for us.
Excepting vested interests, friend.
-
There's no reason we can't manufacture the actual ingredients in vegetables on a mass scale, a lot faster, more efficient and more refined than actually planting the seeds and waiting for the sun and the soil to do it for us.
Excepting vested interests, friend.
The agricultural industry has a LOT of money. They could probably fight any number of legal battles that they knew they would lose, but simply do it for so long that the new developers go bankrupt. Or, at least, delay developing technology for decades (see: alternative fuels). Over what? I don't know, but I'm sure they could find something.
-
Joe Rogan's even got his own line of Nootropics.
He is chewing alpha brain like candy on his show ;D
-
There's no reason we can't manufacture the actual ingredients in vegetables on a mass scale, a lot faster, more efficient and more refined than actually planting the seeds and waiting for the sun and the soil to do it for us.
Excepting vested interests, friend.
The agricultural industry has a LOT of money. They could probably fight any number of legal battles that they knew they would lose, but simply do it for so long that the new developers go bankrupt. Or, at least, delay developing technology for decades (see: alternative fuels). Over what? I don't know, but I'm sure they could find something.
Well, from what I gathered from the Soylent blog, the food industry already manufacturers LARGE quantities of vital nutrients, it just puts them in different products. Also, did you see the vegetable powder link I posted? I don't think the food industry could really get away with halting this kind of work forever. We've got the internet and we're becoming more and more aware all the time. They won't scam me with their hippie bs about 'nature' being all pure and wholesome!
-
There is at least one real problem with only getting your "food" through liquids - your teeth. Chewing and bitting is a very important part of keeping your mouth healthy. Especially your teeth (and gums). Also your saliva has some important functions that also only get into action if you have the food in your mouth for long enough.
I'm very sceptical about this. Not saying that it is all BS (because i obviously haven't tried it or have any inside data) ... but there are already so many nutrition supplements that have been hailed as "the end all be all" of nourishment that were "disproved" by studies that i will wait for a more thorough research into this product before i forsake the traditional intake of food.
Just look at all those supplements for athlets...for example all those protein shakes that promise you more muscles etc etc ... i recently read a research paper done by a handful of professors of the appropriate fields that clearly shows that the intake of more protein does nothing for muscle growth...they even have hints that too much protein can actually hinder muscle growth.
I also have experience with a handful of so called nutrition supplements of the last couple of years that have been distributed via other means than retail (snowball like systems) that have promoted themselves as perfect complements or even replacements to the traditional food intake. All of them have dropped of the face of the earth because they could not hold what they promised.
Would it be awesome if all about Soylent is true and we have found the "holy grail" of foods? Sure it would. Is it likely? I doubt it.
As for positive effects of said products for some of the customer-base...well, unfortunately, this is no proof that it works. Remember, placebo-effect aka the power of the mind is a very powerful tool. If you believe in Soylent with all your heart it indeed can have a positive effect without it being the product itself that helps you. Just wanted to throw that out there.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this product will continue. Maybe it IS the holy grail of foods...
-
Well, from what I gathered from the Soylent blog, the food industry already manufacturers LARGE quantities of vital nutrients, it just puts them in different products.
Point. We've significantly altered our consumption with additives and irradiation, not to mention next-level advancements like genome sequencing, etc in an effort to compensate for a diet we lost because industrial agriculture is the only option for our problems of scale... which leaves me very incredulous. But there are prevalent historical examples of nutrient deficiency so it is also possible that they are saving us from ourselves...
Also, any species we harvest in an industrial manner already experiences a feed system. However, this is evidently problem-filled for those species and ourselves in our continued consumption of them.
There is at least one real problem with only getting your "food" through liquids - your teeth. Chewing and bitting is a very important part of keeping your mouth healthy. Especially your teeth (and gums). Also your saliva has some important functions that also only get into action if you have the food in your mouth for long enough.
james mentioned that chewing gum was common.
I'm very sceptical about this. Not saying that it is all BS (because i obviously haven't tried it or have any inside data) ... but there are already so many nutrition supplements that have been hailed as "the end all be all" of nourishment that were "disproved" by studies that i will wait for a more thorough research into this product before i forsake the traditional intake of food.
I think the conversation can move to include generalizations beyond Soylent.
No matter what we eat, it's something that was conceived, researched, implemented, and embodied by people up to and including ourselves. Unless you're fortunate enough to inherited the nomadic lifestyle of your forebears, but honestly, the game is everywhere now and many of the few isolated environments left are built in laboratories.
Would it be awesome if all about Soylent is true and we have found the "holy grail" of foods? Sure it would. Is it likely? I doubt it.
As for positive effects of said products for some of the customer-base...well, unfortunately, this is no proof that it works. Remember, placebo-effect aka the power of the mind is a very powerful tool. If you believe in Soylent with all your heart it indeed can have a positive effect without it being the product itself that helps you. Just wanted to throw that out there.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this product will continue. Maybe it IS the holy grail of foods...
The need for sustenance persists.
Unless you've achieved a measure of self-sufficiency than we are subject to a similar illusion. There are all sorts of easy paranoias to adopt. And james' intial points about the common consumption still stand. I'd make some difference arguments about tact - disseminating the why and how of practical instruction about growing, caring, and consuming food - but, perhaps, there are/will be arguments about the benefits and/or advantages of feed for humans.
-
james mentioned that chewing gum was common.
I know he did. I am not convinced that chewing gum solves the problem. It's too soft. We need more challenge, chewing wise, than this. The force of the pressure on our teeth and gums is critical...not only that you chew something.
I think the conversation can move to include generalizations beyond Soylent.
No matter what we eat, it's something that was conceived, researched, implemented, and embodied by people up to and including ourselves. Unless you're fortunate enough to inherited the nomadic lifestyle of your forebears, but honestly, the game is everywhere now and many of the few isolated environments left are built in laboratories.
Sure. Did i somehow imply that it can not?
And yes, it most probably is. Why is that a problem? I know we are not eating like our forebears..especially not like our forebears from before large scale industrialization...BUT why are we so sure that this is a problem? I mean it is not as if those forebears were that much healthier than we are. We live 80 on average, they lived around 30 years if that. I know that there are more factors to that than simple food intake...but still.
And you can try to take in less industrialized food without going the "extreme route".
The need for sustenance persists.
Unless you've achieved a measure of self-sufficiency than we are subject to a similar illusion. There are all sorts of easy paranoias to adopt. And james' intial points about the common consumption still stand. I'd make some difference arguments about tact - disseminating the why and how of practical instruction about growing, caring, and consuming food - but, perhaps, there are/will be arguments about the benefits and/or advantages of feed for humans.
Not sure i get what you are responding to (as you answered to a quote by me)? Care to elaborate?
-
I know he did. I am not convinced that chewing gum solves the problem. It's too soft. We need more challenge, chewing wise, than this. The force of the pressure on our teeth and gums is critical...not only that you chew something.
I wonder if the Soylent community has addressed this?
Sure. Did i somehow imply that it can not?
And yes, it most probably is. Why is that a problem? I know we are not eating like our forebears..especially not like our forebears from before large scale industrialization...BUT why are we so sure that this is a problem? I mean it is not as if those forebears were that much healthier than we are. We live 80 on average, they lived around 30 years if that. I know that there are more factors to that than simple food intake...but still.
And you can try to take in less industrialized food without going the "extreme route".
I felt you were highlighting some disadvantages of Soylent that weren't mutually exclusive from the common intake.
Most of the detractions you voiced about Soylent might equally be voiced about consensual (if there is a majority at all) ingestion. I was thinking specifically about the "food pyramid" that was conceived and popularized, possibly with malicious intent, but most certainly without the understanding we enjoy today.
Has that been revised? Yes and no. But doesn't your perspective discount popularized notions of diet as much as it does Soylent?
Not sure i get what you are responding to (as you answered to a quote by me)? Care to elaborate?
Apologies, I simply used your words as a waystation in the ongoing dialogue.
I, again, felt that your arguments could easily be applied to consensual and popularized diets. Clearly, there are a whole range of diets the world over. Examples of longevity don't exactly pervade popular culture or enjoy mass embodiment (few jump on the Japanese or Mediterranean diets). I think james was right to highlight that most people don't come close to hitting the dietary requirements (and likely, those themselves are in need of revision).
I didn't/don't want opinions reflecting your own to limit the discussion (not that it has). I often try and take a more pervasive perspective in order to tease insight from ambiguity. Also, I like to consider as many perspectives as I can.
I am interested in your thoughts specifically, Kellais, but also in how we might consider the alternatives together (or, more specifically, how we might consider how considering the alternatives actually distorts, discounts, or negates our own personally-held conceptions).
-
Ram Dass(Richard Alpert) talks about this Indian guy whose total input for fifteen years was two glasses of milk. He had lots of energy, slept two hours a night, and weighed 90 pounds. He was in exellent shape.
"All you have got to do is find one guy who is doing it, and it makes a shambles of of the whole trip. The relation of mind to matter is so much more exquisite, and the only way man is able to play with these games is when he has extricated his awareness from his thinking and sensing. Then his awareness becomes just like a laser beam, and it develops a kind of power that is capable of things we do not attribute as possible to human beings. For that power to be developed, however, Buddha points out you must extract yourself from attachment. That is a very tricky concept- what it means to be free of attachment. In the same way you watch your senses, you watch your eyes see and you watch the desires being manifested, but you no longer identify with your own desires"
"There are many very, very clear documented instances in India of a being who is buried alive for a period of time and after a year or two is brought back and they come out of the state of trance they have been in, and there they are- and they were put in an airproof box. One of them when asked, "well, how did you breath?" said, "my cells had enough oxygen to keep my brain and my heart muscle alive, and that was all that was necessary". They had put him in the earth in a box, and there were some ants, and the ants had eaten away part of his arm. He had been in this trance, see......... So where are human drives, let alone our social motives? I mean, do you not need air and food? I mean, after all, we assume those are all necessary."
If these anecdotes are true, there is much we do not know about health.
-
An 'airproof' box that...ants got into.
QI had some material about french peasants going into a sort of hybernation over winter - I'm willing to grant some really strange biology in humans.
But airtight yet also ants got in? Hope I'm not dreadful for that heightening my skepticism.
-
But airtight yet also ants got in? Hope I'm not dreadful for that heightening my skepticism.
Lol. Your skepticism is most welcomed ;) Maybe airproof in India means "airproof". Like 90% tight maybe?
I would suggest that either way, if you lay in a coffin underground for a year or more, it is pretty amazing to be alive and well without food and water.
Of course, maybe Ram Dass is exaggerating in other areas of this story since he fumbled a bit with it not being airtight. They might have been in that coffin for less than a year too, and so on. Anyway, just imagine how a regular western mind would react to such a scenario. Being buried alive. Most likely they would freak out within minutes. We do not at all learn how to train your mind the way they do over there. We think we are our thoughts, and they do not. So they do not get freaked out by thoughts.
I am of course speaking of highly trained beings here. Not even suggesting any right or wrong way. Could there be something in having this immense mind/body control that leads to these guys doing these (for us) "supernatural" acts?
I mean for a westerner to find himself in a scenario like this, he has to fall into a coma, and even then he gets nurture through plastic tubes.
You even have this phenomena called inedia, which is a practice where you live without food, only sunlight is needed. This phenomenon has been obscured by silly westerners who think they could just drop food and lie in the sun all day. Some have died in the attempt.
So I might suggest that mental training is something we in the west can learn a lot from, because I refuse to believe that non of these anecdotes are true. There is a vast amount of them.
-
But airtight yet also ants got in? Hope I'm not dreadful for that heightening my skepticism.
Lol. Your skepticism is most welcomed ;) Maybe airproof in India means "airproof". Like 90% tight maybe?
I would suggest that either way, if you lay in a coffin underground for a year or more, it is pretty amazing to be alive and well without food and water.
Of course, maybe Ram Dass is exaggerating in other areas of this story since he fumbled a bit with it not being airtight. They might have been in that coffin for less than a year too, and so on. Anyway, just imagine how a regular western mind would react to such a scenario. Being buried alive. Most likely they would freak out within minutes. We do not at all learn how to train your mind the way they do over there. We think we are our thoughts, and they do not. So they do not get freaked out by thoughts.
I am of course speaking of highly trained beings here. Not even suggesting any right or wrong way. Could there be something in having this immense mind/body control that leads to these guys doing these (for us) "supernatural" acts?
I mean for a westerner to find himself in a scenario like this, he has to fall into a coma, and even then he gets nurture through plastic tubes.
You even have this phenomena called inedia, which is a practice where you live without food, only sunlight is needed. This phenomenon has been obscured by silly westerners who think they could just drop food and lie in the sun all day. Some have died in the attempt.
So I might suggest that mental training is something we in the west can learn a lot from, because I refuse to believe that non of these anecdotes are true. There is a vast amount of them.
This could necessitate a new topic quickly but the take-away for me is the mental training - and I've been exposed to many of these thoughts before.
There is a documentary called Eat the Sun, by the way, Royce, in case that isn't what you are talking about.
Anecdote isn't a great argument but realistically I think it is science's responsibility to explore these things?
-
There is a documentary called Eat the Sun, by the way, Royce, in case that isn't what you are talking about.
Have not seen that one, will see if I can find it anywhere.
Anecdote isn't a great argument but realistically I think it is science's responsibility to explore these things?
At should at least be very interesting to pursue this as a scientist. So far I have only encountered skeptics claiming it is fraudulent and impossible to live on light. I must admit that to me it sounds really far out too. Do you know if there has been scientists who have looked at this scientifically? I mean studied them in their own environment. It would not work to let lose James Randis hell hounds and put a guru in a lab with a lamp, just to see if he would survive on light :)
P.S I thought about starting a new thread, but the first post had some elements of food/health in it, so I just put it here.
-
Eat the Sun (http://eatthesunmovie.com/home_splash.html) - I didn't check it out and I'm sure you can find it online but you can watch the movie directly on their site for a fee (and you can watch the trailer, if nothing else).
I've actually read somewhere that our eyeballs can photosynthesis to some extent... I'd have to dig to find that.
-
Years later, any update on whether this works James?
The new site is spiffy, so they obviously have made some money: http://www.soylent.me/
Monthly subscription for $255 to totally replace all your food intake (>3 "meals"/day). Almost seems worth it.
-
Ok. I only skimmed this thread so far but I'll actually read it at some point and weigh in. Until then I just wanted to chime in with the fact that I eat soylent and I'm a huge fan.
I don't eat it exclusively but I rely on it heavily. I've never liked eating at all and have a tendency to go for long stretches without eating anything. It's just too gross a process for me. So yeah I use it to supplement the few meals I feel like consuming. It's a huge improvement to my nutritional intake but basically anything edible would be. In any case, I dig it.
Fuck food. I'm over food.
-
Really? That reads rather sarcastically (imo), but if your serious then I'm curious.
Some comments have, to me, seemingly ridiculous claims of this stuff making a drastic improvement on their health. I don't by this. However, something that is marketed as a total food replacement and has been sold for some time now, I'd think it at least has no major negative side effects. Is that true?
What's your experience? How long have you been "eating" this stuff, and how much of your total nutrition intake comes directly from it?
-
What I really want to know WHY on earth would they call this Soylent, given the connotation it has in pop culture? I know I'm being paranoid but that alone freaks me out about it. I feel like one day reading MSN, my eyes are going to gloss over the headline, "Man arrested for duping customers into eating human remains over a period of years."
Also, my limited exposure to the field of nutrition suggests that it's one of the most emotionally charged communities and rife with confirmation bias. I just can't trust any one source to get the cocktail right. I think I'm just gonna stick to eating fruit for breakfast, drinking tea daily, and various combinations of starch, meat, and cheese (maybe trying to cut out the cheese). Kudos to anyone legitimately reaping benefits out of this, though.
-
I am a fan of eating, and my tastes are not healthy, but I'm also terribly lazy and cheap. I can see the draw for this, and I find it rather tempting (though terrifying).
But yes, Soylent, while hysterical (imo) is not a great name for someone seriously trying to sell something. Great for a joke, which does nothing to make this stuff seem viable.
-
Really? That reads rather sarcastically (imo), but if your serious then I'm curious.
Directed at me? If it is then yes, I'm serious. I'm just generally not a fan of eating.
I really do think eating is gross. Not in a compulsive way or anything. I don't actually get skeeved out eating or being around people who are eating but on an abstract kind of philosophical level it is gross. "Oh let me stick this in my face hole and grind it up. Yum."
That said, the fact that eating is aesthetically unappealing is the least of the reasons I don't want to do it. It is a little true but I'm probs emphasizing it because I think it is funny. Animal grossness isn't actually a hangup for me. I can clean stables or change a babies diaper without any problem. Sex is gross but I have no interest in replacing it with a supplement.
In reality, I like to feel like a car that you put fuel in. It puts me in the right mindset to take on the day lol. Like putting on a suit, it focuses and motivates me. When I eat soylent I make healthier choices in general. I'm more likely to go for a run, etc. Regular food is hard to manage. I'm likely to consume too many calories if I'm not careful to manage my urges. I want to stay lean and hot.
Dealing with things in a black and white way makes it simple. Managing food is hard. It's easier for me to just cut it out of my life altogether.
Some comments have, to me, seemingly ridiculous claims of this stuff making a drastic improvement on their health. I don't by this.
Yeah. There are plenty of people making ridiculous claims about its health benefits but that isn't surprising. Some people turn to worship as soon as they buy into something. It's the same thing as how some people who smoke weed become convinced that it is some kind of mystical panacea and preach that it will cure anything.
However, something that is marketed as a total food replacement and has been sold for some time now, I'd think it at least has no major negative side effects. Is that true?
What's your experience? How long have you been "eating" this stuff, and how much of your total nutrition intake comes directly from it?
Only two months so far. I'd estimate that about two thirds of my nutritional intake comes soylent.
As far as I can tell, I'm healthier. I have better control of my caloric intake and I don't eat junk food. I feel good when I consume it. Your hunger goes away completely and you feel well nourished but not overfed. I get good long lasting energy from it. I haven't noticed any ill effects.
What I really want to know WHY on earth would they call this Soylent, given the connotation it has in pop culture? I know I'm being paranoid but that alone freaks me out about it.
But yes, Soylent, while hysterical (imo) is not a great name for someone seriously trying to sell something. Great for a joke, which does nothing to make this stuff seem viable.
It hasn't seemed to hamper their sales. I haven't done any research into it but my guess is that they are doing well. It takes like four months to get your first shipment because according to them they are having to seriously ramp up production. They privilege established customers though. Once you receive your first shipment they will fill your orders in like a week.
I think the soylent name is directed at people like me. Nerds who are dissonance emphasizing. It certainly appeals to me.
-
Yeah Bolivar.
On the "what is it made out of" page they have a clever little ditty beneath it:
"Hint: It's not people"..... creepy
-
Yup dragharrow, all my questions were directed at you.
Thanks for the share. This makes me want to more seriously consider having this stuff around for those days when I'm too lazy to make something decent and end up eating a bag of chips for dinner lol.
I'll probably ping you again in a few months to see if you exploded or something. I should probably poke around on their forums too, but I find it easier to be less skeptical here than other places.
-
Thanks for the share. This makes me want to more seriously consider having this stuff around for those days when I'm too lazy to make something decent and end up eating a bag of chips for dinner lol.
No problem :)
Also I don't think I said this but I think they've done a good job with the taste. It smells like chocolate chip pancakes kind of and I'm trying to think of how to describe the taste specifically. I don't know, it sort of just tastes like pure nourishment in a good way. Like, I'm not trying to argue that it's intrinsically healthy. I'm sure a really well balanced, no junk food, solid food diet would be healthier. But your body can definitely tell how nutrient rich it is and you get like a positive conditioned response.
I'll probably ping you again in a few months to see if you exploded or something. I should probably poke around on their forums too, but I find it easier to be less skeptical here than other places.
sounds good.
I feel that. I've been on their forums a couple times tops.
-
Been messing with it. Trying to utilize it to control my caloric intake somewhat. Its easier when I know exactly how many calories I'm consuming.
Tastes like watered down pancake batter. Doesn't bother me, though my wife hates it. Throw a banana in there or some chocolate syrup and it tastes like a smoothie. Certainly tastes better somehow when its cold, but after consuming a serving once a day for a week or two I've found no real reason to add anything to it.
I mix it with a single serve blender. We got a Ninja blender that came with single serve smoothie cups, so you mix it right in the cup. Simplifies things slightly as you don't have to prepare it the day before and spend a a minute or two shaking the mixing vessel. I also have a scale and I weight out the 85 grams.
The 400 calorie servings go a long way. Considering two pop-tarts have 400 calories, I certainly feel more full with the Soylent for a longer period of time. I have on in the morning for breakfast - might add one for lunch too because I'm lazy.
-
Oh, I thought that stuff came in bottles.
It's actually just a powder?
-
Oh, I thought that stuff came in bottles.
It's actually just a powder?
Comes ins several forms now. The original, and cheapest, version is the powder.
Also comes in liquid (aka Soylent 2.0), which I believe is flavored to be more pallet able. It certainly tastes better than the mixed powder and I think its got more sugar but don't quote me on that.
It also comes in a mixed form with coffee (aka Coffiest). Haven't tried it. I'm not so lazy as to not be able to both brew coffee and make a solyent beverage in the morning.
And then there is a 'snack bar' type deal, which had a rocky start as it caused so digestive issues with people, but its still on the market so I presume they fixed that - i have not tried this either.
If i wasn't a cheap bastard I'd probably buy the Soylent 2.0 rather than the powered (I think the current recipe is Soylent 1.7) as its easier and tastes better... But since its too pricey I'll just mix it myself, thanks.
-
Comes ins several forms now. The original, and cheapest, version is the powder.
Ah, I hadn't seen that. The bottles are pretty expensive. My wife gets a powdered "protein" shake thing to supplement her intake, because it's thought for her to meet her "required" amount with the usual foods. She looked at their breakdown of what Soylent has and it's not really all that bad, seemed like only a relatively "modest" amount of sugar, even if it is a bit high on carbs overall.
I'm pretty OK with what I usually have for breakfast and I cook dinner nearly every night, but lunch is a mish-mosh of leftovers or whatever and trying to get it heated up at work is a pain. Might need to look at options to fill in lunch easily.
-
Lunch works.
Direction say to make with room temp water, shake it, let it sit till its chilled. This method works pretty well, you end up with a pretty smooth shake if it sits overnight.
It ends up being a bit 'clumpy' even when using a protein shaker with a steel ball if you don't let it sit for some time. Which is why went to single-serve blender portions, but its really not necessary if you aren't overly sensitive about it.
It says consume within 2 days once mixed, so you can prep the night before. The direction indicate preparing an entire bag/pitcher (pitcher provided for free with first order) at once, each one makes 5x 400 calorie 'meals', each 'meal' is ~16oz as prepared I think. If you're doing 1 a day for lunch, doing the whole bag might be a bit much - easy enough to do half I suppose. Helps to have a scale - a decent kitchen scale will run you $15 - if you aren't doing the whole bag at once.
-
Update since June last year I guess, so 8 months?
Been doing 1x 400 calorie 'meal' between the hours of 6am and 4pm. I usually eat something small when I get home from work, or simply make dinner. For convenience we do a meal delivery - we cook it, but the ingredients are shipped. Love it.
Anyway, back to Soylent. I have noticed nothing usual at all in regard to my physical health. No magical change in eyesight, or anything else that some have noted elsewhere.
My goal was to lose weight by stringently controlling caloric intake during the day when its easiest to control (at work, there isn't a bunch of food laying around). I drink about 12-16oz of coffee with cream and sugar throughout the day. I drink about 1/4 to 1/3 of my daily soylent right after I make it. With sipping coffee, I normally get hungry around 12 or 1pm and grab it from the work fridge. I sip on it throughout the rest of the day.
Still using single serve blender shakes. 85grams of soylent, fill rest with water, blend for like 10 seconds, transfer to shake. Rinse blender accoutrements. Whole thing takes a minute or two. I throw in 3 icecubes to chill it before I take my breafast swig.
I don't add anything too it. Flavorings added too many calories, and after trying a couple they didn't seem worth the trouble. Though, if we've got fruit laying around, sometimes I'll throw some blueberries in there, but not often.
I estimate, given a 400 calorie shake and 100- 200 calories of coffee, I probably consume about 500-600 calories from when I wake up until I get home. I stop counting after that because I'm lazy. Dinner is probably about 800. Given my base basil metabolic rate, I figured this gave me maybe 400 - 800 calories to play with for snacking and I'd still be losing weight.
I've lost about 25 pounds so far - from 220 down to 195. Have I mentioned I'm lazy? For a guy that doesn't exercise, I'm pretty pleased with these results, considering I'm also saving money (only costs something like $3.50/day since I'm splitting one Soylent meal between breakfast and lunch) and it only takes about 5 minutes total to prepare, clean, and consume each 'meal'.
Other than weight loss, I haven't noticed anything particularly noteworthy. It still tastes like bland pancake batter, and is better chilled. I don't think I'd really recommend it to anyone unless they had some particular goal in mind like me. Its not very good - though not bad - and I've taken to referring to it as 'nutritive goo' whenever I talk about it with the wife.
-
Thanks for the update Wilshire. Interesting to read!
Sent from mobile using Tapatalk