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>Also, if you look at the rise of processed foods along with obesity, diabetes, and other health problems that have increased over the past century it's clear that there are some serious problems, and they haven't been explained conclusively by this or that macro-nutrient trend.

>So given the state of the evidence, a vague evolutionary assertion that whole foods are generally healthier than a distilled diet of completely isolated nutrients is not granola flag-waving woowoo nonsense, it's a perfectly reasonable belief based on imperfect evidence.

Isn't it possible that this is more indicative of the rise in an imbalanced diet? Processed foods may have lead the majority of people into having an imbalanced diet, but if they were instead eating a perfectly balanced diet of processed materials like this man is doing, isn't it possible there wouldn't be the whole diabetes, obesity, etc. health crisis?

To put it bluntly, is there actually evidence that a balanced processed diet is any worse than a balanced whole foods diet?

If not, I think professionals should attempt to recreate this type of experiment to find out, obviously safely on animals first. The whole principal of science is that you don't hold onto preconceived opinions when testing theories. Holding onto a "processed foods are bad, because look what's been happening" POV is very unscientific and harmful.

This guy lost 27lbs on a balanced diet of nothing but junk food snack cakes, cookies, and Doritos.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/...

Ahem:

> Two-thirds of his total intake came from junk food. He also took a multivitamin pill and drank a protein shake daily. And he ate vegetables, typically a can of green beans or three to four celery stalks.

And of course, "he lost weight" doesn't unequivocally mean "he got healthier".

I don't think you can't really establish a correlation between animal and human diet, and how a specific "balanced" diet might affect them. The difference in diet and life span are two important factors that might affect any study.

It sounds like the drink is made from natural sources, so it probably contains compounds that he isn't aware of. The risk (and the value of the experimental results) would probably be higher if he had found a way to isolate the compounds in the drink so he could enumerate the exact chemical composition.

If there is a risk, it is that his diet is potentially more homogenous than a typical diet, and doesn't include anything from some class of foods that nearly everyone on a more heterogeneous diet eats occasionally.

But he said he does eat out occasionally.

> If this guy wants to experiment on himself than I'm happy to reap the benefits, but I do believe it's risky.

What I'm wondering is is this any more risky than, let's say - eating at McDonalds instead of drinking this stuff?