[freshhawk]

> Until Soylent there wasn't a non-medical meal replacement that at least theoretically tried to be everything you need

As far as I understand it that's because the knowledge to make such a thing does not exist and everyone in the field is confident trying to make such a product would fail. They are waiting for the pure research folks to learn more about human nutrition (either a bit more or a hell of a lot more depending on who you ask).

Ensure/Jevity/etc would certainly market their products for non-medical purposes if they could. But they are only used as last resort options during medical interventions precisely because of the results they've seen during those medical interventions.

A bunch of volunteers self experimenting is an interesting way to get around this (the ethics of this level of experimentation on human subjects that is). While the data will be too uncontrolled and biased to judge any positive effects you will probably get some very interesting data when someone gets sick (as long as they at least keep a detailed enough log of their diet).

Considering the ingredient list now includes snake oil like Ginseng and Ginkgo Biloba I don't trust the makers enough to include myself in those tests but I am interested in how it turns out.