I'm withholding judgement on this Soylent thing because there seems to be quite a bit of controversy, but I can't say I agree that it isn't solving a problem.
I'm withholding judgement on this Soylent thing because there seems to be quite a bit of controversy, but I can't say I agree that it isn't solving a problem.
2. There are companies that will prepare and deliver meals for you. Usually lower in sodium than dining out / take-away.
3. Soylent is surrounded with controversy because of the deliberate avoidance of expert input leading to trivial but potentially life-threatening errors:
http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/1jvsie/the_man_w...
I'm not disregarding what Herman says, he seems knowledgeable. But if you act like a dick, it's less likely that most people will really warm to your advice.
But his general point is still correct: a mix of foods trumps a formula, especially given population variations in requirement and uptake.
I do agree though that a mix of foods does seem to trump a formula, at least at our current level of understanding. And I can’t say I’d really be willing to make myself a guinea pig in this experiment at this juncture, but I’m still glad people are thinking about this issue and trying new things.
Bag of flaxmeal, Bananas ,Oats ,Yogurt
Mixed Nuts, Raisins, Power bar
Blend & drink the first four, munch on the nuts & raisins during the day, have the occasional power bar, take a multivitamin and toss in a nice diverse meal once a week to catch anything else and... profit?
There are meal replacement shakes on the market already. There is fast food (cheap!) there are hot dog stands...
So then, the correct question is "Is a diet of only Soylent healthy?" Even here we run into some pretty significant trouble: nutrition is not a developed enough science to really answer that question yet. We don't have a good metric of healthiness, even for an entire diet. What we can do, though, is make comparisons. We can ask if a diet of only Soylent is healthier than a diet of only rocks. That one's a pretty easy yes. More meaningfully, we can ask if a diet of only Soylent is healthier than a diet of only fast food. I'm confident that it is, but this is where the disagreement begins. Unfortunately, this stuff is hard to test. Forcing someone to eat nothing but fast food for an experiment would be completely unethical, and observing people who already only eat fast food would be subject to some really significant sampling bias.
This has all been a long-winded way of saying that there's no way to know, yet. I would strongly argue that adult consumers should be free to experiment with their diet as long as they do it responsibly. There are definitely some moral and legal gray areas here ('experimenting with your diet' by downing a bottle of pills is still attempted suicide).
I think it's highly likely that a diet of only Soylent is quite a bit healthier than the diet I'm currently eating (way more fast food and take out than I should, for a variety of reasons). That being the case, I'm very happy to give it a try.
(I only ever ate MREs in transit, and at most for ~10 meals in a row. My preferred strategy was to eat the main antree "cold" (I only got them in 90F+ weather, so they were plenty warm), maybe the candy (if it was the carmels, or I think M&Ms), pocket the little bottle of tabasco for future bloody mary use, and give away or trash the rest. Otherwise, far too much hassle. Given the choice, the tuna pouches from the PX were 10x superior, even if I had to pay for them, especially if I had some packets of mustard and relish and salt and pepper).