42 replies to this topic

[maxwatt]

"How I Stopped Eating Food"

Not me, but this blog describes an experiment in meal replacement that so far is working.

The blogger should beware that he may be missing as yet unknown essential nutrients. He gives an approximate formula for his drink (it does contain fiber, I doubt if it's enough though) and will supply a week's worth to anyone who agrees to abide by his ground-rules, which include blood work before and after, and abstaining from food other than his drink.

His first drink, after mixing a batch:

It was delicious! I felt like I'd just had the best breakfast of my life. It tasted like a sweet, succulent, hearty meal in a glass, which is what it is, I suppose. I immediately felt full, yet energized, and started my day. Several hours later I got hungry again. I quickly downed another glass and immediately felt relief. The next day I made another batch and felt even better. My energy level had skyrocketed at this point, I felt like a kid again. But on day 3 I noticed my heart was racing and my energy level was suddenly dropping. Hemoglobin! I think, my heart is having trouble getting enough oxygen to all my organs. I check my formula and realize iron is completely absent. I quickly purchase an iron supplement and add it to the mixture the next day. I have to be more careful not to leave anything out.

The effects sound similar to what we have seen reported for C60-OO, and even for resveratrol when it first became available.

He goes on to describe the ongoing effects:

On day 4 I noticed how much healthier my skin was. It's long been dry and rough, with splotches and red bumps but now it's soft, smooth and clear. Before I rarely had enough energy to go to the gym, but this day I had plenty so I decided to put the diet to the test. I'd been running off and on for several months, never able to do more than a mile straight, but this day I ran 3.14 miles non-stop. This is an irrational improvement.

Improvements like this in endurance seem to be a hallmark with several supplements our members have self-tested as described in the forums, including the aforementioned resveratrol and C60-OO, not to mention near-homeopathic doses of methylene-blue. I am sure such self-reported improvements are anything but irrational.

The blogger calls his supplement "soylent". We should suggest he add a few milligrams of methylene-blue for additional energy. He could call the improved mixture "soylent blue."

Edited by maxwatt, 14 March 2013 - 06:41 PM.

[anagram]

Thanks!

[Bron]

Losing 4lbs a week is too much.

He also didn't get much blood work done at all.

The main worry I have on a CR diet is the severe drop I have had in my testosterone levels. I would like to see this guys.

Edited by Bron, 14 March 2013 - 08:13 PM.

[niner]

There's a long history of nutrient mixtures as food replacements. This guy is doing this in order to save the planet. (g'luck with that...) I think that he will change his mind in a few weeks or so, when his health starts going to hell. If he really does well on it, then my hat's off to him, he's a hell of a nutritional scientist. I kind of doubt that, though, after reading his loopy "hemoglobin" comment.

[renfr]

Soylent? Like Soylent Green? That sounds suspicious.
I looked up at the formula and while it seems quite OK there is something dangerous, 18mg of iron? Really? Our body only excrete 1-3mg a day, his levels are going to skyrocket, this isn't a good thing at all.

[dz93]

Soylent? Like Soylent Green? That sounds suspicious.
I looked up at the formula and while it seems quite OK there is something dangerous, 18mg of iron? Really? Our body only excrete 1-3mg a day, his levels are going to skyrocket, this isn't a good thing at all.

What makes you think that the body only excretes 1-3mg?

[renfr]

http://m.ajcn.nutrit.../89/6/1792.full

[anagram]

The Blogger is a worker perhaps trying to actively discredit the "supplement" based lifestyle with his hilariously ultra high Ferric content. He is lucky though because Iron competes for absorption with other principle metals so he is unlikely to get a full amount of iron with every gulp of toylet green. I would not trust consuming this product, I dislike Iron for many reasons more legitimate than this person's health claim.

[Elus]

There's a long history of nutrient mixtures as food replacements. This guy is doing this in order to save the planet. (g'luck with that...) I think that he will change his mind in a few weeks or so, when his health starts going to hell. If he really does well on it, then my hat's off to him, he's a hell of a nutritional scientist. I kind of doubt that, though, after reading his loopy "hemoglobin" comment.

Might there be some benefit if this type of nutrient mixture eliminates toxins found in conventional diets?

I would be willing to take one for the team and do this for 1 week, with blood tests before and after.

[niner]

Might there be some benefit if this type of nutrient mixture eliminates toxins found in conventional diets?

I would be willing to take one for the team and do this for 1 week, with blood tests before and after.

Well, I suppose it could be made in such a way that it wasn't cooked, so it wouldn't have AGEs, which I think are the worst toxins in conventional food. IF it were nutritionally complete, which is a very big 'if', then there might be some benefit from that, but I think you'd be better off just becoming a raw foodist. There is actually a raw food restaurant in my town now, which I've been meaning to check out.

[YOLF]

I find this prospect very interesting. We should raise money to do more tests and such and help him work out his food replacement. The way I see it, living toxin free for a few months at a time and returning to a standard diet would be beneficial itself (maybe 3-6 weeks at a time on/off). It would certainly decrease toxin load and creation. It isn't like calorie restriction either. CR still gives you bad stuff in regular food. This is all good stuff. We should support his work and raise money to test for cancer, malnutrition, and other indicators that might be relevant. Handled with the right effort and support, this could be the precipice of radical life extension and a solution to many things including starvation. This could be one of the discoveries that increase the carrying capacity of the planet. This approach benefits everyone, and esp. those of us seeking eternal youth as it minimizes the concern for starvation from over population. I'm ready to get started.

Does anyone know when this project started?

Edited by cryonicsculture, 02 April 2013 - 03:31 AM.

[JohnD60]

Please repost after he has done it for a year. One chance in a hundred he makes it a year. Until then, in my book, he is just another guy with ambitions bigger than his attention span.

[YOLF]

I think helping him or at least raising money to help him would give him a greater attention span. If he starts to see distant organizations reaching out to support him and feels a part of something, he'll have the attention span. If not, that's when his attention loses the idea. We have to give him the success through our support and see him as an asset.

[Ames]

I have a hypothesis that any benefit from this is due solely to the fact that his meals are in liquid form rather than due to any nutrients in the mix. If this is correct, he could blend anything and get the same benefit, similar to what you would do if you had your jaw wired shut (calorie rich shakes only). I'm no fan, but I remember that's what occurred with the celebrity 50 cent when he apparently was healing from an assassination attempt. Guy used to be overweight, but had to take everything in milkshake form and subsequently emerged a cut brickhouse. A dubious example, I know, but I think that the aforementioned premise may have hypothetical merit nonetheless.

We have little information, of which I'm aware, of the biochemical cost of solid food digestion and the hormonal consequences when compared to long term consumption of blended or liquid foods. Freeing the gut from needing to significantly digest anything, for a long period of time, could have potential metabolic, and more, benefit that hasn't yet been studied.

There's a theory of evolution that posits that the human brain developed quickly after fire was discovered, because it enabled us to begin digestion outside of the gut (cooking). Putting energy rich, yet physically much less volume of foodstuffs into our guts allowed them to shrink. Digesting less food freed up metabolic energy for our minds to evolve (that's an immense oversimplification - read the theory instead). Personally, it's the most credible theory I've read on the subject and I put credence in it. The theory is called the expensive tissue hypothesis. You can google it.

If this guy is realizing a calorie deficit and a resultant chronic state of catabolism, then he's going to do damage similar to what would be seen in starvation. He's wrong when he hypothesizes that the body only needs nutrients. Of course, said calorie requirement is completely individual to him and his hormonal profile. That being said, I can tell that no one could live on that thin liquid that he's drinking, for long, without starving. There are ways to carefully ramp down your calorie requirement, but he's not pursuing them. In fact, in my experience, large periodic doses of thin liquids are going to drive his metabolism in the opposite direction of where he wants to be given his low calorie consumption.

Edited by golgi1, 18 April 2013 - 11:22 PM.

[nupi]

I had jaw bone surgery at 18 that required me to eat mostly liquids/blended foods for 4 months. Nothing I would really recommend.

I do like my proteine/berry/avocado smoothies, though.

[8bitmore]

Update from this guy's blog: What’s In Soylent, as a human-being-more-so-than-marketer I find it highly annoying that the main aspect of interest around this guy's experiments stems from the fact that he is deliberately keeping data on what is in the drink to himself.

The sales pitch is already there in the first post: "It was delicious! I felt like I'd just had the best breakfast of my life. It tasted like a sweet, succulent, hearty meal in a glass [..]" - I mean, how many people are going to, in their first try!, concoct a chemical cocktail out of nutritional supplements where this is the result taste-wise?!

Last of all: I might just be too cynical here; I certainly hope and would like something like this to be possible for humanity at large to benefit from it!

[lelf]

Blog update (http://robrhinehart.com/?p=570):

After three months I should be finding deficiencies, and I did. …

Edited by lelf, 01 May 2013 - 09:50 PM.

[YOLF]

Sounds very interesting, I'd love to try it!

[anonymousplease1]

I actually wonder at times what would happen if you were liguid fed (intravenous) your whole life.... like on a drip... because the nutrients would bypass metabolism and go straight to blood stream... like how would it affect your lifespan since a slow metabolism means a longer lifespan...

[YOLF]

Bypassing digestion would be cool. Though it all depends on how complete and non toxic your drip is I suppose.

[anonymousplease1]

maybe something to experiment on with mice haha, though sounds like it requires ALOT of effort. going off topic abit here but what I don't get is why these scientists don't try and incorporate all these methods of life extension into a few mice and see how far they can come... complete nutritional setup, c60oo, hypothalamus activation, knock off growth hormone, good environment, young blood etc... because several methods are going to be more beneficial than one

[maxwatt]

Guys, I believe the whole thing started as an April Fools joke that has gotten out of hand.

FWIW, though. Purina used to make a "Large Primate Chow" for gorillas and Chimpanzies, everything they needed to thrive and reproduce. They sold that business, but you can still buy, over the internet, Zupreem Large Primate Feed. Not liquid, but a similar concept that actually works on large primates!

[YOLF]

So this guy isn't actually doing this?

[maxwatt]

Read it closely; too much seems tongue-in-cheeek, and his conditions for actually getting a sample of "Soylent Green' (the name itself should be a tip-off) are consistent with a complicated prank. If he IS serious, though, maybe I've lost an opportunity to "buy the Brooklyn Bridge cheaply."

[YOLF]

IIRC soylent comes from Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison. I could easily be wrong though. It is a really good idea though. It started in February rather than April also. So it's far off from that. It's a good idea in any case.

[tydi]

To be quite honest i would atleast like to attempt a 3 day trial of this to see how my own body reacts to a mixture of this, while adding some essentials and basics i think it could be a very healthy, and smart idea on top of a small stack for longevity.

That or work it into small weekly cycles, or even a once in a while "snack" and have it somewhat like a lactose alternative milk shake.

Edited by tydi, 26 May 2013 - 06:00 PM.

[JBForrester]

Aaaand the campaign has officially started! Check it out and feast on your first soylent meals starting August 2013:

https://campaign.soy...-free-your-body

[allstargajo]

This subject made me curious. Why haven't we reached a nutrition list baseline to work with? We are all different (even at different times of our lives) but a baseline is a baseline... surely this was done already, no?

[YOLF]

Maybe they'll make it piece meal, you'll just add some stuff to it if you want more.

[JBForrester]

Maybe they'll make it piece meal, you'll just add some stuff to it if you want more.

It's supposedly going to come in powder form, and I'm assuming with scoop measuring cups, thus you can divide/add whatever you want.