10 replies to this topic

[socialpiranha]

I would like to develop a diet which incorporates foods which contain the highest density of what is needed vs what is not needed.

Time to the body is largely determined by the amount of cellular activity, Caloric restriction works because the body is cycling through digestion less. If you think of the body as a machine which can only produce a limited amount of cellular activity before the minute diversity leads to dysfunction, the easiest way to extend life is to reduce cellular activity on a daily basis.

If you look at demographics which live longest, you will see that the diet is the same every day,food is nutrient dense and limited and lifestyle limits daily cellular activity. It's not a coincidence that these same people are the happiest demographic.

Caloric restriction is extremely hard to maintain and isn't optimal in terms of muscle and brain health. If we could get adequate calories while maintaining the same amount of digestion that would be the optimal situation.

what i'm looking for are foods or substances which require the least amount of cellular action to digest, while providing the most amount of nutrients/energy. for example things like oatmeal even though they are thought to be healthy would be out because it burns more calories digesting it than it produces.

My ideas so far are:

Whey hydrolysate
romaine/kale juice
almond/cashew butter
ground chicken
mct oil

possibly some substances which might reduce the amount of substances the body has to make like the following:

d-ribose
nadh
coq10
digestive enzymes

anyway please contribute what you will

[JohnD60]

If you look at demographics which live longest, you will see that the diet is the same every day,food is nutrient dense and limited and lifestyle limits daily cellular activity.

I am skeptical that this is true.
Do you realize there is literally a product called Soylent that claims to be an all purpose food replacement? It is being marketed by a group of chronic self promoters out of I think San Francisco.

Edited by JohnD60, 09 February 2014 - 06:43 AM.

[nupi]

Except their version uses cheap, crappy ingredients sold at an incredible mark up. But it seems like they are wildly successful.

[Jeoshua]

I can see the use for this idea.

Even without CR, having a liquid meal replacement that requires no digestion would be useful post-workout, for surgical recovery, even weaning children (smart, nootropic loving children).

MCT oil sounds good as a base. Lots of calories and nutrition, doesn't require a lot of digestion, and overall keeps the volume down.

Deffinitely no liquified chicken. There are better sources of protein that are easier to digest (Free Aminos, Protein Powders), and you could easilly add B12 and D3 to make up for the lack of animal products.

[JohnD60]

Except their version uses cheap, crappy ingredients sold at an incredible mark up. But it seems like they are wildly successful.

I don't doubt that they use cheap, crappy ingredients. My reference was not intended as an endorsement. Putting forth the appearance of being wildly successful is standard operating procedure for chronic self promoters. IMO, it is likely they will be out of business in a year.

Edited by JohnD60, 09 February 2014 - 06:03 PM.

[MizTen]

The ingredients missing in these mixtures are flavanols and polyphenols. Even though research has not yet identified them as necessary for life, as vitamins, minerals, and macronutrients have been, polyphenols are probably necessary for longevity and overall well-being. I'm betting that an optimal polyphenol supplement will vary a lot for each person.
But you could add a superfood powder of some sort to cover that nutrient gap in a “soylent” type mix. Red superfood powder in morning drink and green for evening to include more polyphenols. The cost would go up considerably, I think.

[socialpiranha]

Yeah johnd60 i was referencing soylent not soylent green, i saw a video about it when it first came out. I later did some research on it and wasn't very impressed. I'd like to start a sort of open source meal replacement on here so it can be honed and refined.

There is a meme going around in modern society that you must eat a variety of foods to be healthy and the greater the variety the healthier you will be. unfortunately its only true to a certain extent. We have so many different types of food available to us today, we can go to the supermarket and buy foods from all around the world not to mention countless things invented by humans. Of course it is harder for the body to process 10 different kinds of food than 1 or 2. Even if its just random fruits or vegetables from around the world.The body has to produce different enzymes and acids etc to digest different things. Until a very short time ago people had very limited cuisine, it was limited by what was available in their region at the time.

The fact is the less diversity,waste and volume the better as long as all the necessary nutrients are being supplied. The problems with soylent are the taste, bioavailability of nutrients, unnecessary substances, and just generally using suboptimal ingredients.

I would like to create a sort of open source food replacement for longecity members that once honed and refined could be released to the market.Is anyone interested in helping develop this?

[PWAIN]

These guys probably could proved a good bit of help:

http://www.reddit.com/r/soylent

They are making up their own.

[jadamgo]

for example things like oatmeal even though they are thought to be healthy would be out because it burns more calories digesting it than it produces.

Are you saying that oatmeal would be an excellent weight-loss miracle because it would consume more calories than it nets? Could fat people just eat massive amounts of oatmeal every day and "cancel out" calories from other foods, and burn large amounts of fat digesting oatmeal?

Surely not! How have I misunderstood what you mean to say?

[socialpiranha]

oatmeal is basically calorically neutral afaik it burns as much calories to digest it as it produces thats why it is the number one weight loss food, thats WITHOUT sugar or anything as soon as you put anything on it it changes

[PWAIN]

So I'm guessing without milk too? Are rolled oats ok? Has this actually been tested, any formal studies completed?