Is Soylent the Food For People? 30 Days In

I have officially lived with a diet consisting of mostly Soylent for 30 days. Actually, I’m a little late in getting this to SeedSing, so it is actually 32 days now. I do not have much to add from my previous observations, so this will start as more of a recap.

I started out with the following goals and expectations of my use of the product:

• Increased consciousness of nutritional value of food intake

• Increased feelings of wellness related to dietary consumption both physically and mentally

• Less hungry between meal times, therefore less snacking

In the first few days I noted that the taste was neutral, but not displeasing. I said that I felt different due mostly to the change in diet and that I was disinterested in snacking for the most part.

In the days that followed I noticed an increase in energy. I also noticed a reduction in weight due to my attention to calories. I had stated that I felt a greater sense of physical and mental wellness. I had also mentioned experiencing cravings of some of the less healthy foods that I usually eat when I am around others who are eating them.

Upon my subsequent review I noticed that I did not have as much of a dependence on coffee. I could use it for the pure joy of drinking coffee rather than force myself to make coffee to give me energy. I was still noticing a strong craving for solid food around others eating it. I pointed out the increased enjoyment I had with eating food when I did eat it. I sensed richer flavors and textures than I was before. As far as my digestive system goes, gas was less prevalent which might be welcome to those around me.

What now?

Now that I have done this experiment for 30 days, what am I going to do? If I put these observations into a list of pros and cons I am not really seeing much on the cons side. One might argue that the cravings for solid food could be a con. Maybe. But remember that what I am trying to gain will come with that no matter how I do it. Also, when I think about how I feel after giving into those cravings, the cravings themselves and my ability to look at them and consciously analyze why they are there (mostly because I want to taste something rather than actual hunger) the experience looks a lot more like a pro to me.

When looking at my experiences versus the goals and expectations that I set forth I think that they are more than satisfied. There is certainly an increased consciousness of the nutritional value of what goes into my body. Mentally I feel that I am sharper and more focused. Physically, rather than feeling drag as I had been, I feel energized to the point where coffee is a drink I enjoy instead of depend on. The less hunger between meal times is absolutely awesome. I rarely find myself distracted by hunger and that focus feeds into my mental wellness as well. I have also been losing weight and feeling lighter and more energetic as a result since I have been tracking calories. I plan to continue to track calories either way, but I also want to track nutrition since, as I have mentioned before, a person can still be quite unhealthy while tracking calories.

As I said, this writing comes 32 days into my Soylent usage. Guess what? I am still drinking Soylent for over half of my calories.  I am enjoying it. I like the simplicity of doing it for two of my three meals, but I still have the experience (now with increased enjoyment) of cooking and/or eating meals once a day. I like the increase awareness of nutrition. I like the increased overall mental focus. I am sold.

Kirk Aug

Kirk is interested, and sometimes weary, of what the future holds. Like drones. Follow Kirk on instagram @kirkaug and twitter @kirkaug.

Is Soylent the Food For People? Fifteen Days Later

As of today, I have been using Soylent as a big part of my diet for 15 days. That is half of the month that I had originally planned to test this diet with. You can read my first two accounts here and here. In the second week and a day of having a least half of my calories come from Soylent here are some of my observations:

Not only have I noticed that I have more energy when I wake up in the morning, but I have less desire for coffee lately as well. I have always had to force myself to stop drinking coffee when I notice it gets to unhealthy levels. The past few days I have been forcing myself to make some coffee when I can sense the oncoming headache from caffeine withdrawal. I like to drink some coffee when I want to drink some coffee, but I could use less dependence on coffee. Therefore I consider this a welcome change.

I have really been noticing a strong urge to want to eat solid food when I'm planning on having Soylent. Particularly when I am around family that is eating or snacking. At first I was only noticing it when I wanted to eat junk food, but I have also started noticing it with something like carrots. I snacked on a lot of junk, but also on a lot of carrots. Still, these cravings are never really hunger. It is part desire for the taste and part unhealthy eating habits that I have learned over the years. While experiencing this does cause me a small amount of suffering, I can usually move my mind on to something else pretty easily.

On the other hand, when I do eat, the food has a richer flavor. I really enjoy it more than I had before. I can taste and actually take time to notice the individual ingredients and their subtle flavors in my food. By the time I eat a meal for the day, I am really looking forward to it. So I am going to make sure I take the time to enjoy it. I still eat way faster than I need to, but I also spend much more time appreciating the deliciousness of what I am eating.

I have noticed a change in my digestive system. Not that I think it was a huge issue (although you would have to ask my family for their opinion) I have had less gas issues coming from either end. I have read some reports that defecation levels of some Soylent users are reduced. If that is true of me, the change has been minimal.

Overall, I feel much better than I have in awhile. I feel more mentally focused. Physically, I feel less dragging from poor nutrition. I have certainly lost weight, but again I think this has more to do with tracking my calories than with using Soylent. I have lost a lot of weight by tracking calories before. The difference this time is that I am getting much more balanced nutrition. So instead of getting an “oh shit I am about to black out” feeling when I stand up after sitting for awhile, I simply stand up and feel the same as when I was sitting.

So there you have it. If you ever wanted to know what it would be like to have Soylent as a major part of your diet for half of a month, these are my impressions. I plan to update with any further observations in another week or so and a final conclusion at the 30 day mark where I will look back and weigh out whether I feel this experience has been beneficial enough to continue. Thanks for reading and feel free to ask any questions in the comments.

Kirk Aug

Kirk sometimes wishes that Soylent followed it's pop culture roots and was made in chip form. Follow Kirk on instagram @kirkaug and twitter @kirkaug.

Is Soylent the Food For People? One Week Later.

It has been a week with Soylent now. I have been recording my thoughts related to diet daily since I first wrote about my Soylent experiment a few days in. Those thoughts are what follow.

DAY 4

Today I got up bright and early and had plenty of energy to actually stay awake and complete tasks before the rest of the house woke up. I have been having trouble with that lately. Is Soylent helping me get more energy? The jury is still out on that.

I do find myself more aware of what I am eating. I am going for 50% or about 1000 of my calories coming from Soylent. I am also changing my diet. I do not think that the ingestion of Soylent is causing more awareness. Rather, it probably has more to do with the change from habitual diet to something non-habitual. I’m not just using muscle memory right now, so that probably makes me more aware.

I have not really been snacking. I had a lunch today prepared by my partner from HelloFresh (a fresh food and recipe shipping service). I have a meal like this three times a week and they are all pretty nutritionally complete. HelloFresh or not, I am having a meal each day that has anywhere from 400 to 1200 calories.

DAY 5

I had two servings of Soylent during the day and I started feeling pretty hungry before it was time to start making supper. I ended up snacking on some baby carrots and hummus, but I am starting to think that three servings of Soylent per day is going to need to be the standard to keep me satisfied until supper time. I wake up pretty early and, with my partner's work schedule the way it is, I sometimes eat supper pretty late. Not that I think snacking on baby carrots and hummus is such a bad thing.

I was thinking about an article I read about how we get more out of eating than just nutrition. The article focused on the chewing part of eating and reasons that may be an essential part of our diet that we do not typically think about. Besides my desire to prepare and eat some meals with my family, this is another big part of why I would probably not attempt to go on a 100% Soylent diet. I thought about how someone who wanted to go all Soylent might deal with this. Chewing gum might be an option, but it is pretty soft. I guess someone could chew on a harder object like leather or a stick. In that case though, one might suffer the ability to socialize in our culture.

DAY 6

This morning I made bacon and hard boiled eggs and sat down and watched my family eat them. It seems a little strange, but not as much as I expected. Maybe it has already become a little familiar to me since I often prepare meat for them to eat. I have been enjoying a vegetarian diet for about a year already and as the person in the house who accepts the responsibility of preparing much of the food, I try to fill everyone's dietary desires to the extent that I am able. Maybe that is part of why it does not seem so strange to sit with people eating and not eat that myself.

Bacon does not do this, but I am starting to feel cravings when certain foods are being eaten around me. It is only those foods I am trying to get away from eating anyway though. The junk with little or no nutritional value. If I want to get away from that, there is going to be some of this no matter what change I make to my diet.

DAY 7

This evening I went to the movies and had some popcorn. I can usually go through the whole bag of popcorn without thinking much about it. Tonight however, I stopped eating and put it down after about a quarter of the bag. I picked it up a little later and had a bit more, but I did not even finish half of it. I am mentioning this to mark the fact that I have noticed that I am aware of feeling full before it reaches levels of discomfort. I welcome this change.

I am still getting up early without crawling back into bed or falling asleep on the couch during my morning meditation. I feel like I have a lot of healthy energy after my rest. Sometimes I nap a little in the middle of the day, but my urge to do that has decreased as well.

A couple of friends have mentioned doing something similar to what I am to lose weight. Any time you keep track of calories the way I am right now and if you are consuming a lower amount than you were otherwise, you will lose weight.

I lost over 100 pounds a few years back simply by paying attention to calories. The dangerous thing about that is that simply counting calories can still be very unhealthy. Many days while doing that before I ate low calorie foods so that I could eat more throughout the day. This means a lot of vegetables many times. But it also meant a lot of popcorn (sans butter) sometimes. There were also more days than I probably care to remember when my entire day's calories was donuts or some other high calorie pastry.

I have been losing a little weight since my calorie intake had been higher than I prefer. I did not get on the scale recently enough before I started to have an exact figure, but I can see it going down and I can feel it.

To conclude the first week, I feel an increased sense of satisfaction with my wellness both mentally and physically, I am definitely feeling and increased awareness of nutritional value of food intake, and feel much less like snacking between meals.

Kirk Aug

Kirk is interested in all things new and exciting, like drones. Follow his Soylent journey here on SeedSing and twitter @kirkaug.

Is Soylent the Food for People?

It looks like milk, taste like milk, but this is no milk

Last November, I wrote about a food product called Soylent. I wondered if replacing my diet with the a product that represents the nutritional needs of an average adult would be a satisfying way increase my nutritional balance in a simplified way. At the time I did not heavily consider trying it.

For whatever reason, my desire to try Soylent has changed. I have been using it for 3 days. I think that this is as good a place as any to keep track of my experience with it. Before I go over my initial impressions, I’d like to cover some of my hopes and for the product and expectations in using it.

Goals

I have not been a very healthy eater lately. This is not something that is easily quantifiable, but I can say for certain that I do not feel a sense of wellness in relation to much of what I put in my body. I eat fast and when I find something tasty, I can easily eat more than the need for satisfying my hunger requires. This leaves me feeling miserable for some time after eating.

I do think that on average I eat at least one meal a day where this is not the case. A meal where I am conscious enough of my tendency to eat fast to either choose something with fewer calories or just slow down and wait for my body’s natural response. I also think that on average I eat one meal a day that is nutritionally balanced. At least much more so than other meals of the day.

I originally wrote about Soylent as not just a meal replacement, but a diet replacement. The idea was that it could be a human equivalent to dog food. I currently have no plans to use it that way.

As stated, I feel that for one meal a day on average I can already combat my habitual unhealthy tendencies. Also, I like to make and eat some meals with my family. Therefore, I will continue to enjoy up to a meal of non-Soylent food each day. So as part of this trial of the product, I will consume 50% or more of my calories using Soylent for at least a month.

Another thing that I am hoping to see is an increased consciousness of what I am putting into my body. I think a big part of my lack of feeling of wellness related to my diet has to do with snacking. I would like to feel less like snacking between meals.

Here is my short list of goals or hopes that I am looking for in the next month to determine if I would like to continue to use this product in this way. This list may not be all inclusive, there may be things I add to it as I continue my journey:

• Increased consciousness of nutritional value of food intake

• Increased feelings of wellness related to dietary consumption both physically and mentally

• Less hungry between meal (or Soylent consumption) times, therefore less snacking

Initial Impressions

When I took the first drink of Soylent, I thought the taste was just as neutral as it has been described. I have seen flavoring recipes for Soylent and I think that is why it aims for a neutral flavor. It is made to be adapted to the taste of anyone.

I personally am okay with drinking Soylent as is. I would describe it as a similar taste to milk after eating a non-sweet cereal such as Chex. In fact I would say it is exactly the taste of milk left after eating a bowl of Chex. I would normally drink that milk. Some people would not.

So far I have been drinking Soylent in replacement of the first two meals of the day. Depending on the calories expected in the meal that I eat, I have either been drinking 2 or 3 of the 400 kCal ready to drink Soylent servings. Each of these is representative of 20% of the average adult daily nutritional needs according the FDA guidelines.

I can definitely say that I feel different in the first two parts of the day. I cannot say that it is increased wellness due to the nutritional simplicity provided by Soylent. My body is adapting to a change in diet, and certainly the changed feeling has a lot to do with that. I am not prepared to evaluate whether this change feels good or bad, so for now I will stick with ‘different’.

I have not been feeling much like snacking. I have been noticing an increased awareness of the difference between a desired to eat because I am actually hungry and simply feeling ‘snacky’ for lack of a better term. I notice that I feel full for a good deal of time, say four hours or more, after drinking the Soylent.

So those are my initial impressions. I intend to keep this space of the internet updated with my continuing thoughts on my trial of Soylent. Thanks for reading and I hope you continue to follow along. Share your thoughts below.

Kirk Aug

Kirk helps grow the Idea Farm around here at SeedSing. He is th eone who gets to try all the new innovative food stuff of tomorrow that the rest of us fear. Next up, lab grown meat?. Follow Kirk on twitter @kirkaug

The SeedSing (half) Year in Idea Farming

We have a few ideas

Part of SeedSing's mission is to highlight the ideas and technology that will create a better future. We call this collection of essay's The Idea Farm. Contributors seek out and discuss these innovations on the pages of the website. What began as a few book reviews posted in the Politics/Society portion of SeedSing has grown into its own community. Join us as we highlight the (half) year in Idea Farming.

Kirk Aug started his posting career on SeedSing by taking a look at the unintentional benefits brought to us through piracy. He stayed in the world of computers and customization with a look at a future without an installed dedicated operating system on our computers. The use of one's electronic devices may one day allow us to communicate with anyone around the world. The pirates of yesterday have become the innovators of tomorrow.

How we conduct our day to day lives through technology is rapidly changing. Your car will soon not need your participation to get from point A to point B. The Microsoft Band and Android Wear watches started occupying space on our wrists long before Apple's offering. Even as we speak, unmanned drones are slowly filling our skies, confusing many of library patrons. The productivity of one's office is rapidly changing. Guest contributor Matthew Young highlighted many new technologies beneficial to the business world.  While there does not seem to be a lot of use for 3-D printing in the home, the technology is radically transforming the world of manufacturing. The technology innovations of today will be parts of our normal lives in the future.

The Idea Farm was not only about looking at future tech. Tina S asked us why we celebrate stupidity in our society. RD wanted to know if it is time we give up on the poisonous ideas of capitalism. Kirk wanted to give a proper name to the communicator he carries around to make calls and search the internet. The future is full of questions and uncertainty. Once we have worked our way through these questions, it is best to relax and mediate.

The Idea Farm was very interested in the food of the future. One of our most popular posts came from Kirk and asked us all what is real food. The rise of lab created nutrition may create a safe and guilt free hamburger. If the idea of eating something that looks and taste to natural turns you off, one could always take a sip of some Soylent. The farms of tomorrow are being cultivated in the lab.

The world we are creating is exciting and unknown. Electronics have moved away from the desktop and inhabited every aspect of our world. Hunger and global climate change can be reversed with some of the innovations surrounding nutrition. We have a lot to be hopeful for, and a lot to be anxious about. When the drones fill you with dread, go home and have a nice meditation session. It will all be ok.

RD Kulik (and the SeedSing contributors)

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing. Come join the conversation of tomorrow by writing for SeedSing today.

Soylent: The pet food for people?

Since we are not Soylent, sales have been challenging.

Being a house pet must really be nice, ya know? You never have to think about what to eat. It is just the same thing for every meal. You can rest assured that as long as you eat that one thing and only that one thing, you will get a balanced nutritional serving.

Us humans on the other hand have it tough. Options. Nothing but piles and piles of options. Always either fighting off an urge to eat more leftover Halloween candy or worrying about whether another bowl of pasta might make three too many. If only there were an option to fill my cupboards with a single product that would satisfy all of my nutritional needs and make it so that I do not have to put any more effort into my nutrition than to consume said product every so often.

Enter Soylent. “Soylent is a meal replacement beverage, advertised as a "staple meal", available in both liquid and powdered forms. Its creators state that Soylent meets all nutritional requirements for an average adult.” (via Wikipedia)

When I first heard about Soylent the first thing that came to my mind was, “is it made of people?” This as I had only been subjected to the 1973 film Soylent Green and not the earlier term reference in a 1966 science fiction novel Make Room! Make Room! which featured a product called Soylent made of soya and lentils. Soylent’s name apparently comes from the novel, but I am still suspicious.

Soylent has gone through several revisions since it was released as a product for consumers to utilize. The first versions came as a powder which needed to be mixed. The powder was shipped in bags that contain 3+ servings. They are available in various quantities and there is even a monthly subscription option for those who want to put this diet of nutritional ease on autopilot.

Now in revision 2.0 there is a ready to drink bottle. You can subscribe to get 144 bottles a month for only $348. It apparently does not spoil, even unrefrigerated, for a year. What is claimed to be in it, if you are one of those who believe the claims that it is not people, is soy protein, algal oil, isomaltulose, vitamins, and minerals. Each 400 calorie serving contains 33% carbohydrates, 47% lipids, and 20% protein. The product is vegan and the bottle is recyclable.

Reports on the taste of the substance are highly variable. Some find it surprising, some find it disgusting, others have more of a neutral stance on the taste.

So I suppose I need not envy my dogs’ tightly simplified diet any longer. I too can have the option of no options. I am not sure if I really want to try this or not though. After all, my dogs are always begging for table scraps. What about you. Would you try a diet of Soylent for the benefit of making your dietary needs super simple? Let me know what you think.

Kirk Aug

Kirk cultivates the Idea Farm here at SeedSing. He is curious why they did not name Soylent Bachelor Chow. Follow Kirk on twitter @kirkaug.