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Comment by mixmastamyk | Hacker News Reader

I've been supportive of the idea of soylent, but this article actually made me worried, is it accurate?

Only rice protein? Not complete... there's a reason it is usually paired with beans.

That amount of carbs does not match the early human diet, but rather the modern one. Not the end of the world, though.

Also a physician isn't a dietitian/nutritionist. The fact they've brought the former on board instead of the latter is another unfortunate red flag re: cluelessness. Hopefully I've missed something.

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Wow, where to start. You are seriously repeating the protein combining myth? In 2013? Protein is measured by scaling its amino acid profile compared to the ideal for a human. 100g of rice protein provides 100g of usable protein for a human, the same as 100g of beef protein does. That 100g of rice protein is just significantly more than 100g of raw ingredient, as there's a bunch of "wasted" amino acids.

We have little to no evidence to support the paleo fad. Human beings have consumed grains for at least 100,000 years.

A physician is not a dietitian or a nutritionist. They are far more qualified. A dietitian requires simply a bachelor's degree in pretty much anything (social sciences is fine) and then a short internship where you learn to repeat what the book says. Nutritionist is just something anyone can call themselves with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever. Picking a doctor over those options is not a red flag.

As a sole nutrition source as soylent is, the increased biological value of vegetable protein combining would be a valuable improvement in efficiency. The "myth" is that micromanaging every meal is necessary (it's not), ... unless of course you are on a meal replacement product for weeks at a time.

A higher number of nutrition sources is better than a single one... a varied diet.

Grains, not in large quantity. Agriculture is about 10,000 years old. Yes, the diet of ~4 million years is a "fad" while the one 400 times shorter is normal. Taken to extreme, the modern diet, where everything is pumped full of sugar has lead to an obesity epidemic.

Also, physicians are far more qualified in other subjects and take only a fraction of the nutrition courses a dietitian would. There's a reason a doctor will refer you to one--it's not because they are less qualified.

Efficiency of what? You need X protein. They provide far more than X. There is absolutely no problem with their protein source. The fact that they could use slightly less raw ingredient to get there doesn't matter if that other ingredient is hard to source consistently.

We've had proof of grains being milled 100,000 years ago for several years now. The 10,000 myth that is used to promote fad diets is not accurate.

Dietitians require barely any training. Just a degree in whatever and a brief "read this book and learn how to repeat what it says". You can do it in two weeks. They are absolutely less qualified than doctors. Doctors refer you to them because doctors have limited time and teaching people the food pyramid is not a valuable use of it.

Astroturfer or troll?

"Rice protein is high in the sulfur-containing amino acids, cysteine and methionine, but low in lysine. Pea protein, on the other hand, is low in cysteine and methionine but high in lysine." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_protein]

Lysine is an essential amino acid, i.e. humans cannot produce it and need to ingest it from a protein source - otherwise, they can't synthesise protein.

There's a nutritional reason why pea protein should have been there - by taking out their lysine source, Soylent just got nutritionally less complete.

Why respond if you don't bother to read what you respond to? Lysine is the lowest in rice. It is not absent. You therefore get "complete protein" up to the amount of lysine available. You absolutely do not need to combine it with anything else, you can just eat more.

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

The link you quoted directly states that the quality of grain protein is relatively very poor and limited by lysine content (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_Digestibility_Corrected...)

I don't dispute that man can live on rice protein alone. But, this decision clearly doesn't have any foundation in good nutrition.

>The link you quoted directly states that the quality of grain protein is relatively very poor and limited by lysine content

Which is why it is corrected rather than reporting 1:1 like with proteins that are close to an ideal ratio. That is the entire point, you literally just complained that I provided evidence supporting my claim.

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