Plenty. I have actually tried soylent. Before I got into nutrition properly though and I haven’t done any kind of thorough analysis on them. In my personal experience they’re … fine? … flavour wise pretty bland and neutral, better if you blend them with some fruit or something. The sensation after having one was pretty weird though. Like, you’ve just taken in a ton of nutrition, but you don’t feel “full” – just kind of not hungry. It’s also a lot of liquid that hangs around in your stomach for longer than it feels like a liquid should.
Nutrition wise, off the top of my head, I don’t think they’re a bad idea, at least conceptually. Lifestyle wise they’re a pretty good solution to the “no time / skill to cook a decent meal” problem that a lot of people run into. They’re also good for those “need to eat but don’t want anything” moments. I’d hesitate to have them for every meal because IIRC they do lack a couple things (fibre, maybe?) but once or twice a week shouldn’t be a massive deal.
I’d have to do a ton more work to break down the actual nutrition, value for money and any other possible knock-on effects though. Off the top of my head there might be long-term issues with digestion and possibly oral health, but that’s just a guess.
Interesting, thank you. You sound like you know your stuff and you had concluded that the Total thing was “very unpleasant” in the long term. I was into Soylent myself and actually tried to subsist mostly on it for about a year when life circumstances changed my path. I was wondering if I had inadvertently exploded my kidneys or whatever with my own personal Soylent experiment.
It sounds like Soylent is a little better than Total and I’m curious as to why
It’s been a while, and like I said, I haven’t done proper analysis (that would probably be another three or four days work at this rate) but from memory soylent is a lot closer to an actual meal (at least an attempt at a complete protein, a reasonable amount of carbs, essential fatty acids, a wider variety of micronutrients) even before you add whatever liquid you’re using. Total is just fortified wheat flakes, sugar, honey and salt. Pragmatically, if you absolutely had to subsist on one of them, I’d say soylent is probably the less-bad option, but I wouldn’t recommend either.
Do you have thoughts on meal replacements?
Plenty. I have actually tried soylent. Before I got into nutrition properly though and I haven’t done any kind of thorough analysis on them. In my personal experience they’re … fine? … flavour wise pretty bland and neutral, better if you blend them with some fruit or something. The sensation after having one was pretty weird though. Like, you’ve just taken in a ton of nutrition, but you don’t feel “full” – just kind of not hungry. It’s also a lot of liquid that hangs around in your stomach for longer than it feels like a liquid should.
Nutrition wise, off the top of my head, I don’t think they’re a bad idea, at least conceptually. Lifestyle wise they’re a pretty good solution to the “no time / skill to cook a decent meal” problem that a lot of people run into. They’re also good for those “need to eat but don’t want anything” moments. I’d hesitate to have them for every meal because IIRC they do lack a couple things (fibre, maybe?) but once or twice a week shouldn’t be a massive deal.
I’d have to do a ton more work to break down the actual nutrition, value for money and any other possible knock-on effects though. Off the top of my head there might be long-term issues with digestion and possibly oral health, but that’s just a guess.
Interesting, thank you. You sound like you know your stuff and you had concluded that the Total thing was “very unpleasant” in the long term. I was into Soylent myself and actually tried to subsist mostly on it for about a year when life circumstances changed my path. I was wondering if I had inadvertently exploded my kidneys or whatever with my own personal Soylent experiment.
It sounds like Soylent is a little better than Total and I’m curious as to why
It’s been a while, and like I said, I haven’t done proper analysis (that would probably be another three or four days work at this rate) but from memory soylent is a lot closer to an actual meal (at least an attempt at a complete protein, a reasonable amount of carbs, essential fatty acids, a wider variety of micronutrients) even before you add whatever liquid you’re using. Total is just fortified wheat flakes, sugar, honey and salt. Pragmatically, if you absolutely had to subsist on one of them, I’d say soylent is probably the less-bad option, but I wouldn’t recommend either.
Thank you!