The drab stupidity of Soylent

Re:The drab stupidity of Soylent by kevingadd on Tuesday August 13, 2013 @08:31AM (#6205264)

I don't know if you can just claim that variety in diet is unimportant. The body's needs change on a regular basis; do you really think dietary needs don't change? I thought his point with the anecdote was not 'this anecdote proves x', but rather 'we all do stupid things and get away with them when we're young'. He's trying to discourage the kind of one-size-fits-all thinking that leads a guy to leap from 'this meal replacement works good for me' to 'this meal replacement will work good for everyone'.

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Re:The drab stupidity of Soylent by oinksoft on Tuesday August 13, 2013 @08:37AM (#6205283)

Be it in prison camps or the "Big Mac" guy, we have so many case studies of people living, and remaining able persons, for long periods of time with an utterly static diet. A varied diet may be key for optimal health or for perceived quality of life, but the human body is surprisingly adaptive and resilient.

The frightening thing about Soylent (to me) is that I am not sure if it constitutes a "diet" any more than the mud patties and other non-food yet objectively nutritional foodstuffs consumed amongst the poorest of the poor in Africa.

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Re:The drab stupidity of Soylent by drharris on Tuesday August 13, 2013 @09:19AM (#6205491)

The body's needs only change because you're not getting everything you need with every meal. Soylent gives you everything you need all at once. I don't see why people in the 21st century still believe there's something magic about the food we eat.

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Re:The drab stupidity of Soylent by kevingadd on Tuesday August 13, 2013 @10:01AM (#6205702)

That's blatantly ignorant. To give a few obvious examples: Changes in metabolism, bigger life changes like puberty and menopause, obviously pregnancy - these all change your dietary needs.

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Re:The drab stupidity of Soylent by drharris on Tuesday August 13, 2013 @10:18AM (#6205813)

> The body's needs change on a regular basis

> Changes in metabolism, bigger life changes like puberty and menopause, obviously pregnancy

I do not think these things happen on a regular basis.

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Re:The drab stupidity of Soylent by kevingadd on Tuesday August 13, 2013 @10:19AM (#6205821)

They happen to everyone at least twice in their life! Some people dozens of times! How common do they need to be for you to believe that messing up nutrition is problematic? It can literally kill people!

If you're going to argue that all the nutritional changes can be accounted for, I won't disagree with you. But to argue that people's dietary needs don't change is just uninformed.

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Re:The drab stupidity of Soylent by jacques_chester on Tuesday August 13, 2013 @08:00PM (#6209138)

> Soylent gives you everything you need all at once.

It probably doesn't. Some people can't metabolise certain forms of B-group vitamins. Unless Soylent includes all the different forms, those people are going to develop a serious deficiency.

That's just one micronutrient, out hundreds that are currently known about.

More worrying is the consistent pattern of being dismissive of feedback from the people who study this subject as their primary concern.

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