16 replies to this topic

[Ari]

I've recently started switching a large part of my diet to soylent, which is a "powdered food" that contains the RDI for all macro- and micronutrients that have an RDI, so a good mix of carbs, fats and proteins, and all the necessary vitamins and minerals etc. The reason is largely convenience and price, but this diet should also, in theory, be quite healthy, since I won't get too much or too little of anything of which science has concluded that you can get sick if you get too much or too little. However, what I'm missing out on are all the little phytonutrients that aren't essential but might still do good things for me. I'm flavoring my soylent with cinnamon, cocoa and blueberries and I drink a lot of tea, so I should be ok in antioxidants, but there are all kinds of little molecules that I could benefit.

 

There seems to be some supplements focusing on delivering these phytonutrients. Should I be taking one of them? Is there something I should watch for specifically? I'm not talking about things like cycloastragenol or resveratrol right now, just good stuff that most people are getting in their diet that I might be missing out on because of the soylent thing. I was hoping I could get a single pill or powder that contains a bunch of them, but I don't want to pay for some arbitrary mix of unsupported and useless compounds with a heafty pricetag. So I was hoping you guys could give me some tips? Any good phytonutrient supplements out there? I'm grateful for any advice; I'm pretty new at this!

 

(I'm a 30-yo male, btw.)

[Steve Zissou]

I've been taking the supergreen blend from here: http://www.iherb.com...Labs-Superfoods . I have had a pretty poor diet recently (not eating enough vegetables), and taking a scoop daily definitely had a mood boosting property to it.  Shame it's expensive, as I would like to give the berry formulation a try.

[Ari]

Thanks, that looks like a pretty good one. It's good that it contains a bunch of different things, and doesn't seem to have too many vitamins and minerals (which I get enough of from my soylent anyway). At $15/month + shipping, it's not cheap, but not terribly expensive, either. My soylent (the european "Joylent" version) costs me €165/month, so if this makes it more "complete" I can chalk it up as a food expense. I'll still be saving lots of money on food.

[boylan]

Ari,

 

Soylent green or soylent red?  I'm dating myself on that ref.

[Ari]

Soylent green or soylent red?  I'm dating myself on that ref.

 

Trust me, this joke is very worn out in soylent circles. I have seen the movie, though, although according to the inventor of Soylent (capital 'S' for the official formula, lowecase 's' for the concept), he took the name from the novel "Make Room! Make Room!", in which there is no Soylent Green made of people.

 

Anyway, it's actually pretty neat, and I'm getting 100% of all vitamins and minerals, along with an exact amount of calories according to a known split of macronutriets, every single day. Also no cooking, no waste and a very small food budget!

[krillin]

The Joylent ingredient list looks incompetent and cheap. 3000 IU of preformed vitamin A is an osteoporosis risk for women. Choline bitartrate isn't absorbed very well so you risk TMAO production. It also has inferior forms of calcium, magnesium, zinc, vitamin E, folic acid, and selenium. And it's missing K2. The iron (32 mg), copper (2 mg), and manganese (8 mg) are inexplicably overdosed. That amount of copper is associated with a 50% increase in all-cause mortality, and high manganese and iron are associated with a 90% increase in Parkinson's risk.

 

[Ari]

The Joylent ingredient list looks incompetent and cheap. 3000 IU of preformed vitamin A is an osteoporosis risk for women. Choline bitartrate isn't absorbed very well so you risk TMAO production. It also has inferior forms of calcium, magnesium, zinc, vitamin E, folic acid, and selenium. And it's missing K2. The iron (32 mg), copper (2 mg), and manganese (8 mg) are inexplicably overdosed. That amount of copper is associated with a 50% increase in all-cause mortality, and high manganese and iron are associated with a 90% increase in Parkinson's risk.

 

Thank you! I've been preparing to delve into the specifics of this and I was worrying (or assuming) that there were some problems with the formula. Your list gives me a great place to start. I've been considering working on a DIY blend that would be optimized for health and longevity, and your comment makes me want to hurry up with that, but I'd have to wait until I move to Norway next week.

 

I'd be extremely thankful if you could have a look at the ingredient list and nutritional breakdown of official Soylent here: http://blog.soylent....final-nutrition . I'm not informed enough to do it myself. I've been thinking I should switch over to official Soylent as soon as it becomes availible in Europe, but if it's as bad as you say Joylent is, maybe I shouldn't bother and just start working on my own DIY instead.

[Ari]

Better link to Soylent nutrients breakdown:

 

http://cdn.shopify.c...ition-Facts.pdf

[krillin]

If you're going DIY you might as well just keep the vitamins/minerals separate so that you have the option of increasing/decreasing calories without overdosing or going deficient on anything. The Wikipedia page makes it look like Soylent is using some incorrect RDAs: 5000 IU for vitamin A and 300 mcg for biotin. Both of these are excessive.

 

I like Soylent's use of rice protein instead of Joylent's whey protein (mTOR stimulant) and soy protein (dementia risk). It still needs glycine (from glycine or gelatin) to detox the methionine.

 

Here are the different nutrient forms I would use: potassium citrate, calcium hydroxyapatite or butyrate, choline from either triple-strength lecithin or alpha-GPC (It takes a lot to get to the RDA. And be sure to account for the omega-6 in lecithin when calculating your omega-3 needs.), magnesium glycinate or butyrate, zinc citrate, Jarrow FamilE, B3 as inositol hexanicotinate, copper and manganese from nuts, vitamin A from vegetables (Baby carrots wouldn't be too much of a burden.), 5-methylfolate, methylselenocysteine, vitamin K2 from MK-7, and vitamin D3 titrated with blood testing.

 

I personally would only resort to such a diet if I couldn't afford real food and an apartment with a kitchen. I don't think anyone's ever done a long-term study of living on meal-replacements, and monotonous diets have been found to be harmful. If you're going to do it anyway, here are some ways to make it suck less.

 

Since there's no meat, you'll need taurine. You might need carnitine, but supplements are poorly absorbed so you run into the TMAO production problem just like with choline bitartrate.

Since there's no fruit or vegetables, you'll need to supplement lutein, lycopene (cheaper to just eat 1/2 cup of pasta sauce per day), chlorophyllin, Broccomax (included in Jarrow's methylselenocysteine), citrus bioflavonoids, Kyolic garlic, coffee extract (unless that's what you drink), green tea extract (unless that's what you drink), and grapeseed extract.

[Ari]

Thank you again, this is really helpful. It'll take me a lot of time to dig through all this information. Unfortunately I couldn't get my copper and manganese from nuts, since I have an allergy, so I'd have to find a different source for that.

 

Allergies, convenience and time are reasons I like using a replacement like this, though it's designed to be a meal and not just a replacement. And with a properly designed one (even if I have to go DIY) I could make sure I get everything I need in the right doses all the time, which I don't think people on "monotonous diets" tend to get. And, of course, it's cheap!

[krillin]

I just checked CRON-o-Meter, and 1/2 cup oats will get you to 54% of copper and 167% of manganese. (Add in everything else and I get a terrifying 7 mg of manganese.) My breakfast is oats, rice protein, gelatin, and frozen fruit and the beverage is glycine + apple cider vinegar. Glycine neutralizes the acidic sting and the vinegar converts the sickly sweet glycine taste into something like apple juice. The oats etc. should be stirred prior to heating or the gelatin will turn into hard glue instead of Jello.

[deeptrance]

If I were looking to boost phytonutrients I would do as I already do --- buy bags or containers of pre-washed baby "power greens" like spinach, arugula, chard, kale, etc., and snack on them right out of the bag instead of snacking on chips. They taste great, they're very low in calories, and they don't have any crap added to them. You get lots of phytonutrients and it's from a "living whole food" which I think is something we benefit from that cannot be supplied by processed powders that have been sitting in containers for weeks or months. I'm not saying we NEED it, just suggesting that we evolved on living (fresh, whole) foods, not on powders, and science is far from complete in its exploration of nutrition. 

 

Of course it would be even better to get a wider variety of whole plant foods such as in a daily salad or piles of mixed steamed veggies. 

[noots6494]

If you're going DIY you might as well just keep the vitamins/minerals separate so that you have the option of increasing/decreasing calories without overdosing or going deficient on anything. The Wikipedia page makes it look like Soylent is using some incorrect RDAs: 5000 IU for vitamin A and 300 mcg for biotin. Both of these are excessive.

 

I like Soylent's use of rice protein instead of Joylent's whey protein (mTOR stimulant) and soy protein (dementia risk). It still needs glycine (from glycine or gelatin) to detox the methionine.

 

Here are the different nutrient forms I would use: potassium citrate, calcium hydroxyapatite or butyrate, choline from either triple-strength lecithin or alpha-GPC (It takes a lot to get to the RDA. And be sure to account for the omega-6 in lecithin when calculating your omega-3 needs.), magnesium glycinate or butyrate, zinc citrate, Jarrow FamilE, B3 as inositol hexanicotinate, copper and manganese from nuts, vitamin A from vegetables (Baby carrots wouldn't be too much of a burden.), 5-methylfolate, methylselenocysteine, vitamin K2 from MK-7, and vitamin D3 titrated with blood testing.

 

I personally would only resort to such a diet if I couldn't afford real food and an apartment with a kitchen. I don't think anyone's ever done a long-term study of living on meal-replacements, and monotonous diets have been found to be harmful. If you're going to do it anyway, here are some ways to make it suck less.

 

Since there's no meat, you'll need taurine. You might need carnitine, but supplements are poorly absorbed so you run into the TMAO production problem just like with choline bitartrate.

Since there's no fruit or vegetables, you'll need to supplement lutein, lycopene (cheaper to just eat 1/2 cup of pasta sauce per day), chlorophyllin, Broccomax (included in Jarrow's methylselenocysteine), citrus bioflavonoids, Kyolic garlic, coffee extract (unless that's what you drink), green tea extract (unless that's what you drink), and grapeseed extract.

Great post. Thanks for actually addressing some of the possible deficiencies in a Soylent diet instead of hiding behind vague statements like "you need more fruits and vegetables" as most of the people against the concept seem to do.

For the protein powder, wouldn't pea protein be a better choice? Compared to rice protein, pea protein is cheaper, lower in methionine, higher in glycine, and it doesn't have as many allergies associated with it.

 

Your recommendations for supplements are really good and I can see why you'd recommend all those by Googling (aside from the coffee extract?) I think that probiotics is another good thing to add in there since that's another thing naturally occurring in fruits that we're missing out on and I can say anecdotally that digestion has been a lot easier since I started adding them. Also, what about curcumin? I was under the impression that there was a ton of evidence for it as being great all-around and again anecdotally the mild anti-depressant properties stack well with the cacao used as flavoring.

[krillin]

I've tried pea protein, and the only way I could eat it without gagging was to mix it with pasta sauce. It tastes pretty good that way, but I didn't want that kind of flavor with breakfast so I moved on to rice protein. Maybe pea protein + pasta sauce can be the foundation of a Soylent Red.

 

Coffee extract has the same things as Fernblock, an expensive UV-protective supplement. Fernblock's phenolic compounds "were identified as 3,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid, 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, vanillic acid, caffeic acid, 4-hydroxycinnamic acid, 4-hydroxycinnamoyl-quinic acid, ferulic acid, and five chlorogenic acid isomers." PMID: 16810341. Coffee has chlorogenic acid, caffeic acid, ferulic acid, vanillic acid, hydroxycinnamic acids, etc. and also provides UV protection PMID: 25041334, PMID: 23860951. PMID: 17923816 suggests that it needs to be stacked with caffeine to be effective for skin cancer prevention.

 

I'm currently off of curcumin since I learned how unbioavailable the current offerings are. Meriva and Theracurmin are absorbed just as metabolites. It takes at least 4 grams of Longvida to get to 0.2 microM (which is probably what we need to fight amyloid plaque), and 4 g of Curcugel/BCM-95/Biocurcumin yields only 0.2-0.5 microM. See these blog posts for some of the numbers. (And read Josh Trutt's first comment on the second post for the dirt on Theracurmin.) That's not enough bang for my buck. I'm hoping that NovaSOL pans out and is affordable. This paper says 500 mg gets you 3.2 microM, which is not just anti-amyloid, it's also mTOR-inhibiting.

[aribadabar]

B3 as inositol hexanicotinate

 

I thought that the consensus here is that this is an ineffective form of B3 compared to nicotinic acid (niacin). Care to expand on your reasoning behind picking IH instead of NA?

 

Many thanks!

[niner]

 

B3 as inositol hexanicotinate

 

I thought that the consensus here is that this is an ineffective form of B3 compared to nicotinic acid (niacin). Care to expand on your reasoning behind picking IH instead of NA?

 

It's ok as a vitamin, but not effective as a source of niacin for high dose lipid-modifying therapy. 

[krillin]

 

B3 as inositol hexanicotinate

 

I thought that the consensus here is that this is an ineffective form of B3 compared to nicotinic acid (niacin). Care to expand on your reasoning behind picking IH instead of NA?

 

Many thanks!

 

Niacin makes me feel like I have a full-body sunburn.