1. Nutrition is an ongoing research project.
2. Therefore wilful ignorance is better than being versed in what is currently understood.
Trying to paint my nuanced argument in such a bleak light is exactly the type of needless polarization I'm frustrated with.
That's interesting. What were they saying? Any sources?
Personally, I don't care about soylent, because like I said, it feels a bit premature to try and make heads/tails out of any meal-replacement plans anyway. But yeah, given that they were marketing themselves as 'consulting with nutritionists' (I believe, could be wrong though), that's interesting.
Either way, it's important to note that Nutritionist != Dietician != Scientist/Researcher.
As for a source of one such account:
http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/1jvsie/the_man_w...
I have a vested interest in this whole debate, being that I went ahead and bought a month's supply. After reading Rob's blog throughout the development of the product, I'm not as much worried about the "almost dying" and rampant self testing, as it seemed an honest and open process. He was solving a personal problem in a complex area and tested his solution on himself constantly. From an amateur science standpoint, a well documented approach such as this is better than most. I also am not as concerned by the full diet replacement route, as I only ever planned to replace breakfast and/or lunch most days.
The critiques that concern me from this dietician are those about the source of weight-loss coming from too little protein (the daily recommended amounts are clearly under anything I've ever heard from modern nutritionists; including a NASA nutritionist), the medical meal replacement this is based off of being woefully incomplete, and the possibility that the founder actively shuns criticism from dieticians/nutritionists.
The first concern can be supplemented with another protein source, but the other two definitely mean I have more research ahead of me. I'm glad the author in those comments included a different meal replacement formula to compare against. At the very least, the commentary provided has many small things that could be incorporated into my own Soylent to improve it (carnitine, spirulina, etc.)
The fact that nobody likes to admit is that nutrition is still a large 'black box' in the human system, and we only know a handful of basic correlations that involve it. Macro nutrients aren't nearly as important as 'low carb' dieters like to think they are; glycemic index and blood sugar levels aren't nearly as important as some others like to think they are; similar story for acidity and all kinds of other theories. Then for caloric intake, most arguments stand on top of the high-horse of having the most scientific backup and leave it at that, without ever giving much practical information. No, exercise is not an efficient way to burn calories; and No, just because a diet is backed by some misguided theory does not mean it's not a significantly more practical approach to take. However, because there is such polarization, nobody ever reaches a consensus for what's a good practical (!) approach to eating healthy that's actually backed up by significant data. Personally, I don't see this happening anytime soon either, at least not until we discover everything there is to know about human digestion (and that includes developing the understanding of the relatively 'new' microbiome as well).