Life without food?

[katpower]

http://www.vice.com/read/rob-rhinehart-no-longer-requires-food

 

Aaaaannnddd..... GO!

 

eta Oh bugger, spelled food wrong. Such a complicated word!

[bigm141414]

Ugh, I can't abide such misspellings! Mod powers activate! 

[walt_mink]

50g of protein? I'm pretty sure I'd die if I dropped under 250. 😊

Honestly I like the idea of bachelor chow, but I'm sure I'd get sick of that one thing just like I get sick of the same protein shake every day.

Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 using Board Express

[IcePrincess]

Very interesting. They did do a study once where they did a similar thing with a group of rats from birth. They had two groups, one group was fed completely a supplement like this and that whole group died, but the other group was supplemented with milk and lived. So its possible. 

[notanartmajor]

Sure you can, but why on Earth would you want to?

[Raincloak]

my immediate reaction: only a young male engineer (not a medical professional) would think up stuff like this and test it on himself. 

 

I'm not even sure that laboratory minerals are safe for human consumption.  They might indeed be purer than vitamin tablets, but humans aren't meant to eat metal shavings or whatnot.  They're meant to eat plants that grow in dirt and water with trace minerals in it.

 

You don't hear very many people complaining they have to sleep, or they have to shower.  I mean yeah, some people do, but they're enjoyable, they're not something to gripe about.  Same with eating.  Eating is not a chore if you do it right, it's a pleasure.  Frankly, people ought to spend more time devoted to it, not less. Eating slower is proven to be better for you, and if you ask me, people would eat better if they had to take their time.

 

And frankly, if everyone saw exercise as a daily function like eating, sleeping, and showering, the world would be a healthier and happier place.

 

I'd be curious to see what happens to this guy over the long haul.  But why didn't he just purchase some survival food bricks and use those instead?

[Nomad Jay]

@Raincloak: If he's using laboratory-grade solids purity isn't really an issue as the lab-grade stuff is normally at least 98-99% pure, higher in the case of inorganics because it's easier to refine them.Bio-organics get a bit more tricky because of the extraction and purification methods. I worked in a teaching laboratory at my university and we kept bio-organic chemicals such as crystalized essential amino acids and caffeine in the stock rooms. Some containers were labeled "food-grade" and others were labeled "not for human consumption", based on the contaminants. Assuming Mr Rhinehart uses appropriately-refined ingredients I don't think there's a toxicity issue here.

Personally I couldn't do it. I enjoy the taste of animal flesh too much. Steak. Bacon. Bacon-wrapped steak. But hey if this guy doesn't think it lines up with his priorities and he wants to live this way, more power to him.

[Waldo]

That's pretty amazing stuff.

 

Almost like the junk food diet that professsor did, but meant to be as good for you as science knows how, as opposed to proving one can lose weight only eating junk food.

[This is Seth]

but if I had any money or a girlfriend, I would probably eat out more often.

 

damn women... making us men eat and stuff..

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Don't they already have stuff like this for medical patients with stomach tubes?  There are some people who cannot eat and have liquid nutrition directly put into their stomachs.  Or is the point that this guy did everything artificially?

[Waldo]

 

Don't they already have stuff like this for medical patients with stomach tubes?  There are some people who cannot eat and have liquid nutrition directly put into their stomachs.  Or is the point that this guy did everything artificially?

I think the point is that he is working on a low cost, time saving alternative to food.

There are lots of things like this (your example for medical patients, plus meal replacement shakes and baby formula come to mind), but I think that his angle on it has a lot of value and is unique.

If the price point were right (as in real cheap), I would probably give something like this a try for breakfast, which for me is an exercise in nutrition for necessity moreso than something I enjoy. As little time and as much nutrition as possible is what I want out of breakfast, I've eaten a protein bar for breakfast for a fairly long time now, which is basically a less nutritionally complete candy bar version of what he's doing, but at about $1 each, the price point is pretty good.

I think any fan of sci fi realizes that effient meal/food replacement is a likely avenue for future growth, as it is an obvious solution to feeding the growing world population.

[KingZora]

I agree... I already drink my breakfast in the form of a protein shake/smoothie.  I would never replace lunch and dinner as cooking is something I greatly enjoy, and lunch is my way of relaxing at work, but breakfast is just consuming nutrients for the sake of it improving my bodily functioning.  If that means I can get a nutritionally complete and delicious drink, rather than my current a bunch of nutrients but not all of them drink... I'd be happy to jump on board with it.

[I-Jo]

^^ what they said.

 

I LURV my food.  As in- lunch time and dinner- and between work/work/dance snacks. I love sitting down to a big meal.  But I hate breakfast unless it's sunday at IHOP with my buddy. 

 

I don't have time (okay that's not true- I don't have time because I don't get up early enough) and I hate eating it.   So no- breakfast isn't a priority- like- at all.  I recently finally got my protein- and I'm doing either smoothies- or just flat whey protein and almond milk for breakfast.  

[Cameron]

Dang, I'd be totally on board with this. Food is a hassle I wish I didn't have to deal with. Sure, there are some foods I really like, but it's not worth it being such an expensive pain in the butt. If something like this gave me everything I needed and I could drink it without vomiting, I'd be on board.

[katpower]

I can see the appeal. Sometimes I just don't have the imagination for a meal! Or I can't be arsed putting one together. So a drink that gives me all the stuff I need, without the hassle, would be good.

That being said, I've occasionally flirted with the diet shakes, and could never stick to them because they don't taste that good and don't make me feel like I've had a meal afterwards. I think with food/diets the anticipation and the satisfaction afterwards are big factors in sustainability - if you don't have those, you're more likely to make bad choices.

This dude says this tastes good and fills him up - of course he is a bit biased!

All very interesting though. And with definite applications to feeding the starving.

Also, soylent = lol.

[Kishi]

Hmmm.

 

I guess, for me, the question boils down to whether or not you can tailor the macronutrients to meet a specific plan. So, a strength trainer gets more protein, etc. If you can do that - and I didn't see anything saying that one couldn't - then the only thing left to figure out is how you want to split up the allotment and how to make it taste like bacon.

[KingZora]

Hmmm.

 

I guess, for me, the question boils down to whether or not you can tailor the macronutrients to meet a specific plan. So, a strength trainer gets more protein, etc. If you can do that - and I didn't see anything saying that one couldn't - then the only thing left to figure out is how you want to split up the allotment and how to make it taste like bacon.

 

Step 1: Make bacon straws.

Step 2: Blend bacon grease into drink.

Step 3: Profit.

[Kishi]

Step 1: Make bacon straws.

Step 2: Blend bacon grease into drink.

Step 3: Profit.

 

BRILLIANT! I'm officially on board with this.

[DeeDubb]

I think this would be miserable not necessarily because of the taste, but also because if you liquefy, your body won't send satiation signals to let you know you've eaten enough, so you will constantly be hungry. Some people can count calories and just deal with being hungry all day. I personally can't.

[andygates]

Thread Necro!

 

I while back I tried an all-shakes crash diet (the Velocity Diet, a modified protein-sparing fast: basically 1900 cals of protein, fibre and essentials, with one solid meal per week).  It was pretty effective as crash diets go, but pretty obviously not sustainable.  You do your four weeks and off, back to the land of the leafing.

 

Ignoring everything else about it, I really liked the convenience of living on a bunch of shakes.  Started joking about being the Hydroponic Man.  So it's tempting to give this a try.  This is the Future, after all, and my body isn't a temple, it's a Super-Funtime-Play-Laboratory.

 

There are recipes here: http://diy.soylent.me/ -- including variants for athletes, though it's all very wiki.

[Evicious]

Interesting! Though I truly do enjoy the sight, smell, flavor and texture of most food stuffs, so living entirely off a shake seems like something I would willingly do only occasionally or in the event of strict necessity. I could see this as part of a lunar or planetary colonization program's protocol.

[andygates]

One thing I noticed about that earlier shake regime: I really enjoyed my real-food days and had some really good food.  

 

Right, time for science! A quick trip to the health-food store and I have the basic ingredients for the Hackerschool recipe.  I'm missing the micros, but they can be covered later.  Just mixed up my first mini-batch (using some old vanilla caesin I had lying around) and... it's perfectly palatable.  Oaty sweet vanilla shake: I could live on that, no problem.

 

(the recipe has a bunch of dry ingredients that would keep for weeks mixed.  you add oil and water to mix up, and drink within a few hours. splitting one meal into two snack servings would fit nicely into two regular protein shakers)

[LittleMissSunshine]

My life would be empty and meaningless without food.   I have a hard enough time with my green smoothies!

[Calli]

Darth Wheelchair (my youngest) is part time tube fed. Given the choice between a bottle of goop and a plateful of food, she only ever chooses the goop if she's too ill to summon the energy to swallow. I have to say, I agree with her.

[andygates]

The goop will have bad associations for her, though.  Goop for me is always "yay, mad science!"

 

(Darth Wheelchair? That sounds like some pimpin' wheel disk art )