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Comment by lsdafjklsd | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty obese at 275lbs, and binging on food is my drug of choice. Soylent has been invaluable in my addiction management. Because food is something you can't quit cold turkey, I have to try and focus on eating for nutrition instead of emotional support. Soylent allows me to get nutrition fast and in a non-food manner when my blood sugar is low and I can't reliably make a sensible food choice.

I drink 500 calories and 42 grams of protein upon waking, and found that it increases my ability to fight urges to binge throughout the day. I'll often have another 500 calorie shot of Soylent around 4 o'clock so in a couple of hours when I have to decide on real dinner food, I'm in a good place to eat sensibly. I'm very excited at the trend of meal replacements, it's an indispensable tool in managing my addiction and I'm down 20lbs since January just as a side effect.

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Lack of convenience is a major hurdle to eating healthy, however I'm not convinced that a highly-processed food supplement like Soylent is the best way to do it.

I have found that pre-packaged salads from Trader Joes are a decent tradeoff between price, quality, and convenience, at least for fast lunches and dinners. They are well portioned and easy to supplement with other ingredients like additional meat. Plus (most) salads have the benefit of low sugars and carbs which after a while will help cut cravings for less healthy foods altogether. The downside is that they don't keep for very long so you still have to make a trip to the store every few days.

I've been meaning to give Soylent a try, currently I am in a pretty bad fast food habit. It's just so convenient! I really don't feel like standing in line after a day at work. Why aren't there any healthy fast food chains? Seems like there would be plenty of demand, is it just too expensive? Too hard to keep things fresh? Or preparation takes too long? I don't require too much, just a drive through Subway would be a great start.

Thought the same thing. I have no idea why there's none.

Real food is expensive.

That is because meat, dairy, corn etc are all heavily subsidized, whereas fruits and vegetables are not.

Chipotle is good. A burrito bowl with black beans, chicken, lettuce, salsa, guacamole and cheese is 660 calories with ~50g of protein.

I think healthy fast food is starting to arrive -- I live in Colorado, and we've got quite a few good places (like "Mad Greens" http://www.madgreens.com/ "the Protein Bar" http://www.theproteinbar.com/, "Modmarket" http://modmarket.com/, etc.). Many of them are expanding to other markets, so hopefully this trend will grow! They're generally 2-4 dollars more expensive than other fast food options, however.

We've always had the best fast food - fruits. We can eat as much fruit as we want (most fruits anyway). They are super healthy, digest fast etc etc. Just peel a couple of bananas and eat it, takes two mins. Only problem is they are expensive. Here in NYC, a watermelon costs me 8 dollars at whole foods. For 8$, I can buy a ton of junk food.

Most food sold in supermarkets are optimized for storage and profit, not for health.

Bananas are only 40 to 45 cents a pound (around here). They seem to be cheaper than many fruits in general.

Whole foods is a luxury store, you can find watermelon much cheaper.

What is wrong the processed nature of Soylent? It's less processed than bread, and no one slams bread for being unhealthy for being highly processed.

There are plenty of people who slam bread for being unhealthy for being highly processed. In particular, they maintain that the milling process discards the fiber- and vitamin-containing bran and germ, leaving empty quickly-absorbed calories.

Liquid foods are pretty terrible in regards to appetite control since you don't feel full for quite as much time as with solid food. Something to consider once your maintenance calories drop and you have a harder time losing weight.

I'm not convinced this is the case, at least for me. Making it through 2000cal of soylent/day was actually pretty difficult, and I didn't have cravings during the day. Appetite/portion control with regular food continues to be a challenge for me.

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