Re:The drab stupidity of Soylent
by mcv on Tuesday August 13, 2013 @11:07AM
(#6206157)
This is my only real worry about Soylent. Most of the argument people make against it make little sense (including this article). The only thing I can imagine being a problem is the fact that our digestive tract is made to extract nutrients from stuff and poop out the remains.
If we only get the nutrients without the crap to poop out, much of our digestive tract has little to do. And physiology tends to revolve around "use it or lose it". Astronauts living weightless for a significant time lose muscle and bone mass because they don't need it. If you eat nothing but Soylent for a year, will you still be able to handle normal food?
That's really the only significant problem I can think of with the Soylent approach to eating. And it could be a serious one, though I suspect it's easy to mitigate by mixing the occasional real meal into the mix.
If we only get the nutrients without the crap to poop out, much of our digestive tract has little to do. And physiology tends to revolve around "use it or lose it". Astronauts living weightless for a significant time lose muscle and bone mass because they don't need it. If you eat nothing but Soylent for a year, will you still be able to handle normal food?
That's really the only significant problem I can think of with the Soylent approach to eating. And it could be a serious one, though I suspect it's easy to mitigate by mixing the occasional real meal into the mix.