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Comment by zck | Hacker News Reader

>Soylent contains all of the nutritive components of a balanced diet, but with just a third of the calories...

This worries me. It's not a misquote, either. From his blog^0 :

>...I get all the nutrition and energy I need with about 1/3 the calories the average American consumes...

The average American consumes 2,757 calories^2 . There's a term called the Basal Metabolic Rate. It is the amount of calories your body needs just to keep living, without thinking about movement^2 . A sample man's basal metabolic rate is over 1800 calories^3 . So thinking you can drop that down to 900 is suspect, especially in the long term.

[0]http://robrhinehart.com/?p=298

[1]http://www.livestrong.com/article/347737-the-average-america...

[2]http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/metabolism/WT00006

[3]http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ for a 5'10", 175 lbs, 30 years old, inactive man

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I wonder if it's an efficiency thing.

Maybe the human body is not efficient when eating heavy, processed things like bread, steak, etc. etc.

Is it possible that by eating only what is essential, and in the right balances, the body is more efficient and can extract more useable energy from what goes in?

And obviously the mix is different for every person / body type / activity level etc. You can't do this kind of thing and not watch your weight, blood content, etc. carefully.

How is steak processed?

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_aging

If you're eating aged beef, you're going to know about it, because it's going to be $30/pound... and this is hardly the sort of processing people should be concerned about.

I thought all beef was aged. I have heard the taste is unpalatable at best if it's not aged at all. I'm really curious.

I looked into this a year ago. You're right: "dry-aged beef" is the fancy expensive stuff your yuppie butcher is selling you. "Wet-aged" is everything else -- they pretty much stick it in a plastic bag in a brine that breaks down tissue. If you don't do anything what you have is a curiously tough meat product.

Wet aging is cheaper because you raise the water content (and thus the weight) a little, whereas in dry aging you lose a bunch of moisture, and because it only takes a week or so.

It's worth noting that "processed" is a very loosely-defined term when it comes to food. At it's broadest, even peeling a banana could count as processing.

Digestion involves heavy duty mechanical crushing and grinding, at least three sets of enyzymes, dissolving in acid strong enough cut metal, more mechanical squeezing action, and anything microbes can do to the remainder, over the course of several hours.

Up against that, ageing a steak is not going to make a difference. As for bread, if anything, it is easier to digest than something "natural" like raw grains since it has less fibre and anti-nutrients.

The food in question is ever more "processed", since it seems to be made mostly of the base nutritional chemicals.

25% of calories are wasted digesting protein, <5% for everything else.

I suspect this is an example of oversimplification; it doesn't make sense to say "1/3 the calories" without including the quantity. The actual meaning is probably closer to "equivalent nutrition from an average American diet would require consuming 3x more calories", which sounds reasonable.

The article mentions that he can raise or lower his weight by simply changing how much of the stuff he drinks, so consuming more calories is simply a matter of drinking an extra glass at "dinner".

His "What's In Soylet" [0] article provides a little insight.

Carbohydrates (200g) 200 * 4 kcal = 800 kcal

Protein (50g) 50 * 4 kcal = 200 kcal

Fat (65g) 65 * 9 kcal = 585 kcal

That's a total of 1585 calories.

[0]: http://robrhinehart.com/?p=424

"That's a total of 1585 calories."

That fits with the reported claim of being 1/3 of an american diet. That also explains why he's the only person at walmart taller than he is wide.

The average American eats a lot, but not 5000 calories!

Unless he has almost no physical activity those calories are lower than recommended for weight loss. Also, when on a diet with calories as low as this your body's protein requirements increase, as they also do with higher physical activity. 50g is much lower than recommended.

I'm sorry, but the dude doesn't exactly look like the portrait of health, either. I don't think the Scrawny Pale Guy Diet would sell well. Not that it would be remotely scientific to judge the diet based on a sample of 1. Which is essentially what the article is doing.

And let me also point out something: Why didn't the journalist think to ask what the diet costs him per week/day/month? I'm interested.

He looks far healthier than the majority of Americans.

He's only been doing it for approximate 6 weeks, so I wouldn't expect to see a significant change in his appearance just yet.

Nor is that a stated goal here: He simply wants to eat easier, not necessarily lose weight. The ideal experiment would be to completely replace his current food intake, not also reduce it. That would introduce an additional variable for which there is no control.

Given the recipe on his blog, from just carbohydrates, protein, and fat (at 4 cal/gram, 4 cal/gram, 9 cal/gram respectively), he's consuming -at least- 1585 calories a day.

(It says 200 grams of carbs, 65 grams of fat, 50 grams of protein)

Actually there is a lot of evidence to show that calorie restriction can lead to longer lifespans. I'm not a nutritionist, doctor or someone who is on a calorie restriction diet (though I'm sure I eat less than the average American).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction

Caloric restriction used to be thought to increase lifespan, but more recent studies don't support this.[1][2]

[1] - http://earthsky.org/human-world/oops-caloric-restriction-may...

[2] - http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7415/full/nature1...

Yeah it didn't make much sense to me either. More I was just saying that obviously people can go well below these "minimums" with limited ill effects.

The article doesn't support "calori restriction" -> "longer lifespan"

<quote> No clinical trial has been performed involving humans. Two trials have been performed involving primates, but have not demonstrated increases in median lifespan. A study of rhesus monkeys begun in 1987 by the National Institute on Aging published results in August 2012 that found evidence of health benefits, but did not demonstrate increased median lifespan.[2] A study by the University of Wisconsin beginning in 1989 is still ongoing.[1][3][4] Research on maximum life span in that study is still ongoing. </quote>

assertTrue() recently did a series on this. If you're interested in this kind of thing, it's worth a read.

Here's one of the posts (ignore the linkbait headline) - http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2013/03/how-to-live-30-longer...

But isn't it a plus to put yourself at a slight caloric deficit, so you can make up the difference with whatever real food you indulge in?

I don't think you should take that quote literally, it's just figure of speech. He probably exaggerated both the average and his reduction in calorie intake.

Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_food_energ...

Not saying this guy isn't a quack, but I have seen studies (or articles about studies, at least) by reputable universities on low calorie diets that suggest they increase your lifespan.

I can't recall the details, but if you're interested, start googling - it's a legitimate field of study with some surprising outcomes (to a layman like me, at least).

My impression is that everyone is dialing back their excitement over those results. They were based on rats, they failed to hold up for primates and almost certainly will shorten lifespan for humans.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=calorie-res...

Perhaps, but I believe the one I saw was on people, not rats.

It's quite possible to live on a very low calorie diet[1] of 800 calories or less. In fact I've read about successful studies using only 300 calories per day.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_low_calorie_diet

Indeed, if I was to make this I would have to up the fats. If you're a health 5'10 175. You may have some fat you can burn.

I'm 6'2 and uh... not nearly that heavy. So I think this drink might be a bit dangerous for me, as it is.

I'm 6'2, 175, with a lean somewhat muscular build, more in the core and legs than in the arms.

(Wow, this is starting to sound like a personal ad, heh)

Anyway, if you're not "nearly that heavy" then I imagine you are quite thin? So yeah you don't need to be dropping weight! Beef it up!

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