[baak]

Did you read his blog? He's claiming it cured his skin disease, gave him mental superpowers, has him in the best shape of his life, it gives him more energy, it tastes great, and costs $150 a month.

Reads like a sleazy wonderpill ad.

[saidajigumi]

I'll observe that virtually all of that can be accounted for by eliminating known problematic elements in the standard american/western diet. Whether it promotes long-term health or doesn't cause other problems is a very different matter.

Despite what else I've written in this thread, I'm not against the idea of healthy, cheap, time efficient nutrition options. But I don't think we know enough yet to nail the "healthy" part, and the human cost of our failures to date has been truly terrible.

[bproctor]

Did you read his blog? That's an extreme exaggeration of what he said.

[baak]

>> "I feel like the six million dollar man. My physique has noticeably improved, my skin is clearer, my teeth whiter, my hair thicker and my dandruff gone. My resting heart rate is lower, I haven't felt the least bit sickly, rare for me this time of year. I've had a common skin condition called Keratosis Pilaris since birth. That was gone by day 9. I used to run less than a mile at the gym, now I can run 7. I have more energy than I know what to do with. On day 4 I caught myself balancing on the curb and jumping on and off the sidewalk when crossing the street like I used to do when I was a kid. People gave me strange looks but I just smiled back. Even my scars look better.

>> My mental performance is also higher. My inbox and to-do list quickly emptied. I 'get' new concepts in my reading faster than before and can read my textbooks twice as long without mental fatigue. I read a book on Number Theory in one sitting, a Differential Geometry book in a weekend, filling up a notebook in the process. Mathematical notation that used to look obtuse is now beautiful. My working memory is noticeably better. I can grasp larger software projects and longer and more complex scientific papers more effectively. My awareness is higher. I find music more enjoyable. I notice beauty and art around me that I never did before. The people around me seem sluggish. There are fewer 'ums' and pauses in my spoken sentences. My reflexes are improved. I walk faster, feel lighter on my feet, spend less time analyzing and performing basic tasks and rely on my phone less for navigation. I sleep better, wake up more refreshed and alert and never feel drowsy during the day. I still drink coffee occasionally, but I no longer need it, which is nice."

Yeah, I'm the one exaggerating.

>> "Consuming only Soylent costs me about $50/month, another order of magnitude improvement, and would be cheaper if I didn't need the energy for running every day. At scale the cost would be even lower.

>>Edit: this was a miscalculation from a mistake in my spreadsheet, at personal scale it actually costs me exactly $154.82/month."

...Again. I'm exaggerating.

His blog is overly sensationalized. It really does read like a sleazy ad. He even gave his experiment a product name 'Soylent'. Sure, I was being funny about it, but I wouldn't call what I said an extreme exaggeration of what I just read.

[criley]

In my personal experience, optimal nutrition creates what I would, in jest, refer to as "superpowers". When I compare my mental and physical state under optimal conditions to under poor conditions, there is a dramatic difference in me.

This, to me, is also why for many athletes, their performance doesn't begin on the field but rather it begins with their food intake.

I don't trust the data he provided because it isn't rigorous, reviewed or even analyzed at all.

But I'm curious, regardless.

[gerad]

Disagree. Many elite athletes are not super scientific about their food choices [1]. Instead they eat what they crave. The human body is pretty good at figuring out what it needs nutritionally.

That being said, there is a lot that is important off of the field (e.g. sleep, stretching, etc). Just nutrition is fairly low on that list.

[1] http://www.active.com/triathlon/ironman/Articles/Nutrition-T...

[cgh]

As much respect as I have for triathletes, they aren't really representative. Food choices are incredibly important for athletes in weight class-limited sports (eg wrestling) or where muscular hypertrophy is important (eg powerlifting). Gymnastics is another one. Believe me when I tell you that coaches have diet absolutely dialed in for many classes of athlete.

[Dylan16807]

Is this actually a disagreement, though? Doing a hyper-specific sport act like that is much less natural than being a triathlete.