I'm guessing from this that you've never cooked in your life?
(Hint: Pretty much nobody cooks five hours a day unless it is their job. I mostly cook for myself, and I don't think I've ever really spent more than 30 minutes of active work on it).
Everyone here saying anything along the lines of "ZOMG, my healthy meals like toast+juice only take me 15 minutes each" has no idea what they are talking about. The list of healthy whole foods (those that don't come out of boxes or bags) that can be prepped and cooked and cleaned in 15 minutes is a short one. I know because I spend a lot of time planning, shopping, and cooking a variety of foods. If anyone cares, right now I eat 90% paleo with occasional dairy and legumes. For years I was involved in veganism/vegetarianism, but quit when I realized it was more like a food religion than a rational healthy choice.
Think of the average grocery store. All that crap lining the aisle shelves is going to get bought by somebody, and even if we allow for the longer "residence time" of packaged food products compared to fresh produce/meats we can infer that the average shopper is leaving with the preparations for a depressingly monotonous and nutritionally poor diet of mostly corn-derivatives, flour, and sugar. If you had to empty out a standard grocery store one cart at a time, the average haul would be far worse than anything the writer admits eating. As fun as it is to get self righteous about food ideology, anybody who actually thinks the writer's diet is poor in comparison to the average American diet isn't thinking far enough beyond their own experience.
Also, your argument here is silly. This guy's diet is not "above average" in quality by any means and a Chipotle Burito Bol is not a "legit meal" based on what one would consider to be a healthy lifestyle. The amount of sodium alone in those things is enough to make me and some of your organs cringe - literally.
Go to the grocery store. Pick up some raw foods. Cook them on a Sunday night. Put them in the fridge. Pat yourself on the back. You've just managed to prep your lunch/dinner for the week and you did it all without having to find a stay-at-home wife.
Go play around with their nutrition calculator [1]. It's fast food.
[1] - http://www.chipotle.com/en-us/menu/nutrition_calculator/nutr...
So? It's not like he's eating two of those a day.
I was also amazed by the cost of his daily diet: $24 per day, excluding restaurants on weekends?!? I eat natural, 'normal' food for much less than $10 per day, and I live in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
PS That said, I'm intrigued by Soylent and would like to try it -- although not at its current price point.
The health hysteria over aspartame hasn't really been fully debunked, there are still countless conflicting studies about the effects of aspartame, one of the more recent ones finding the metabolic effects of artificial sweetener to be the same as an actual HFCS-sweetened soda.
Soda may or may not be bad for you, but it's certainly empty calories. He shows a picture of Diet Coke but mentions Vanilla Coke throughout. Your parent comment is on the mark.
Not diet soda. There are NO calories in it. It's not "empty calories". With your level of ignorance, I'm surprised you haven't poisoned yourself.
>Even the veggie burrito bol is in the 800 range for calories, and based on how employees heap stuff on,
The calorie counts have to be based on the average serving size, or they will be fined by the FDA for lying.
Yeah, and that is above average. You are seriously over-estimating how healthy the average american's diet is. This is one of the big reasons people are interested in soylent, getting 100% of all your vitamins and minerals by just eating "real food" is actually very difficult.