But food is so delicious :(

February 20, 2013 3:59 PM

How do I stop eating food? Or really, how do I replace food with a single nutritionally-complete thing, a perennial AskMeFi favorite, seems to have been answered.

No guarantee as to whether the product is actually nutritionally-complete and not missing some crucial micro-nutrient that results in your painful excruciating death much later on...

But, of course, you can sign up now to be a test subject, if you wish.

posted by yeoz (140 comments total)

This thinking always assumes that nutrition is a closed field.
posted by TwelveTwo at 4:05 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

Uhm? This is weird satire yes?
posted by Faintdreams at 4:08 PM on February 20 [6 favorites]

Bookmarked for next time I whip up a batch of Confinement Loaf
posted by thelonius at 4:08 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

People have stopped eating food for centuries. You can ask them how they did it, just stop by your local cemetery.
posted by blue_beetle at 4:09 PM on February 20 [9 favorites]

If this isn't satire, then he sure named it poorly; if it is, it sure is deadpan. But, if it's not... the irony of it (assuming it were to pan out, which I think any reasonable skeptic should not be willing to assume) is that it would severely enhance my enjoyment of food, on the balance. Like, it's Saturday afternoon, maybe I could rent a paddle boat at the park, or eat some food! And both would be about as novel. One can hope.
posted by invitapriore at 4:11 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Well there's the folks that do the cross continent bike races that train their bodies to work well on a purely liquid diet. Now I'd suggest NOT trying to imagine the taste of the blended concoctions that folks that ride 20+ hours a day "enjoy" but it's "drink", not "food".
posted by sammyo at 4:14 PM on February 20

I would give this a whirl if it was readily available. I find food very tiresome.
posted by turgid dahlia 2 at 4:20 PM on February 20 [22 favorites]

If it's satire, I'm not exactly sure what it's satirizing. It's no Modest Proposal.
posted by GuyZero at 4:20 PM on February 20

This guy tried to reduce his nutritional needs to eating Monkey Chow, and by Day 4 it was having a psychological effect on him.
posted by briank at 4:21 PM on February 20 [12 favorites]

I find food very tiresome.

This makes me sad.
posted by incessant at 4:21 PM on February 20 [29 favorites]

Sounds delicious. I've found that histidine add a sous cent of aged oak while potassium gluconate creates a bigger, and more tannic, mouthfeel. He says he uses generic whey protein, but I believe that may be a mistake. Terroir is more important than he may think.
posted by Ad hominem at 4:22 PM on February 20 [15 favorites]

An Introduction to Graphviz via R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet” Hip Hopera, on the same blog, is honestly a million times better as far as articles go.
posted by GuyZero at 4:22 PM on February 20 [6 favorites]

This makes me sad.

It's just the whole "Man, what's for dinner tonight? What am I gonna eat for lunch?" Jesus it's boring.
posted by turgid dahlia 2 at 4:25 PM on February 20 [17 favorites]

I find food very tiresome.

This is what my hell looks like.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 4:26 PM on February 20 [4 favorites]

According to the comments, he's only eating about 810 calories a day. For a six foot tall man who goes running daily. This seems no different from any eating disorder (the crowing tone about how miraculous and wonderful it is and all) and a good way to slowly starve yourself to death.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 4:26 PM on February 20 [20 favorites]

If this isn't satire, then he sure named it poorly

In the book, soylent is made from soy and lentils--get it?--rather than people. It's still a dystopia, though.
posted by pullayup at 4:28 PM on February 20 [4 favorites]

I've found that histidine add a sous cent of aged oak

I'm dying to know if that's an autocorrect or a mondegreen for soupçon.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:30 PM on February 20 [22 favorites]

Half autocorrect half stupidity, I tried about 10 spellings and autocorrect didn't like any but that.
posted by Ad hominem at 4:34 PM on February 20 [4 favorites]

I find food as sustenance tiresome.

Food as delicious wondrous bodily experience, food as shared social enjoyment, food as cultural memory or comfort-- I'm down with that.

I just wish I could separate the two, and when I'm just needing sustenance, spend as little time on it as possible.
posted by nat at 4:39 PM on February 20 [27 favorites]

If it's any help, cent sous is five livres in old French money. So, you know, it was still French.
posted by yoink at 4:43 PM on February 20 [4 favorites]

If it's any help, cent sous is five livres in old French money.

The same as in town?
posted by Strange Interlude at 4:44 PM on February 20 [10 favorites]

make it taste like macaroni and cheese and we'll have a deal, futureman.
posted by kerning at 4:45 PM on February 20 [10 favorites]

Hands up if you got to the end of the article and realized that you were reading it in a Chris Traeger voice.
posted by Strange Interlude at 4:47 PM on February 20 [12 favorites]

I find food very tiresome.

Totes. I resent that I have to spend so much time on food-related tasks. Well, unless it has sugar in it.
posted by mrnutty at 4:48 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

How was I supposed to know it had a letter with a squiggle, iPads don't even have that letter. Clearly it has been deprecated. My stupidity is a derail though.
posted by Ad hominem at 4:48 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

.
posted by Burhanistan at 4:49 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

iPads don't even have that letter

Not true, press and hold the C. (In fairness, I discovered it by accident.)
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:50 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

Gingko Biloba(100ug): Consumed since antiquity in China and Japan, has limited evidence of positive effect on working memory and focus.

I thought the new wisdom was that gingko was pontentially pretty bad for you and shouldn't be taken at all.

And from the comments:

You're using olive oil for fat, you're not getting enough essential fatty acids (the ones you CAN't synthesize). You should be using a mixture of flax seed/grapeseed. Ideally a mixture of red palm/flax seed/coconut oil

Remember when saturated vegetable fats like palm and coconut were considered the most evil of all? Probably in the late-90s or so?
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 4:55 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

Not true, press and hold the C.

Clearly I need to adjust my Vitamin B12 intake. It is currently 5ug and the article recommends 6ug.
posted by Ad hominem at 4:56 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

I have to say that I am curious about what this tastes like. I can't imagine wanting to make it my "every day" meal, but if it wasn't horrible and actually was a complete, nutritious meal-in-a-can I can imagine circumstances where I'd be really happy to have it. There are times when you just want something nutritious, low-mess and quick, and that can be surprisingly hard to bring off.
posted by yoink at 4:57 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

The 810 kCal figure is wrong. In the comments he states he's consuming closer to 1300 kCal. Still a low, but his weight is steady.

This is insane, but also cool. The hardest part for me to believe is that it actually tastes good, as he claims. I think he just wanted it to taste good and so it does for him, if that makes any sense. As for the fact that he's not dead, I can accept that. Athletes often eat ridiculous diets full of "chemical" agents, and thrive.

I'm dubious, but I'd try this at least until I get bored of not eating tasty food.
posted by sixohsix at 4:59 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

I'm still not convinced this isn't an elaborate troll. Can any food science types confirm this is even possible? There are enough statements that make my non-knowledgeable brain do a double take ("I almost forgot to mention, when everything going in to your body is diffused in to the bloodstream, you don't poop," for example.)
posted by naju at 5:00 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

I started questioning the veracity of this when he realized he was missing iron at Day 2. Surely the body has enough bioavailable iron to go 2 days without having to eat more, before you notice the effects (plus he figured it out pretty quickly).

Plus, even if he were buying the smallest quantities available of each ingredient, he'd spend way more than "$50 / month" just to get the initial batch whipped up. It might average out to something like that over time, but it's going to be an expensive proposition to start up.

I don't buy that he's been doing this for 30 days solid, already, with no cheating. Something doesn't smell right.
posted by misery loves company at 5:01 PM on February 20 [7 favorites]

Hi, I'm The Whelk, I have history of eating disorders, I have passed out at so many public events cause I refused to eat food cause FOOD IS POSION FAT FATTY CLOG I AM BETTER THAN YOU STUOID FOOD EATERS OH GOD LIGHTHEADED WOOOO *collpase but with a feeling of superiority*


I am not impressed.
posted by The Whelk at 5:03 PM on February 20 [18 favorites]

I don't see how it's impossible to make a 'human chow' that you could live on indefinitely. It certainly works for my cat.

I seem to recall reading that a person could live a full life eating nothing but potatoes and milk and never suffer malnutrition.
posted by mullingitover at 5:04 PM on February 20

I find it remarkable that so many people in the comments apparently take seriously a project with supporting evidence such as "But on day 3 I noticed my heart was racing and my energy level was suddenly dropping. Hemoglobin! I think, my heart is having trouble getting enough oxygen to all my organs. I check my formula and realize iron is completely absent" and "Mathematical notation that used to look obtuse is now beautiful" and "The people around me seem sluggish" and "you don't poop. I only have to remove a few grams of fiber from my system per week" and "I am consuming no toxins or carcinogens".

I read the list of added micronutrients and elementals and there are at least a half dozen that are potentially toxic in a chronic dosing situation with large segments of the population with particular protein transporter and localisation hypofunctions. The entire scheme, taken at face value, is like something created almost entirely from Wikipedia science articles delivered with all the allure of autodidact certainty. The active comments section says so much about the frequency of eating disorders.
posted by meehawl at 5:04 PM on February 20 [24 favorites]

It is currently 5ug and the article recommends 6ug.

Needs a soupçon more "µ." (No iPad shortcuts for that, apparently)

I almost forgot to mention, when everything going in to your body is diffused in to the bloodstream, you don't poop

That seems plausible to me; surely most of what we poop out is the non-"food" part of what we ingest? I would think that your bowel movements would be greatly reduced, at the very least. I wonder if there would be health risks there in the long term?
posted by yoink at 5:05 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Use it or lose it for the intestines? Many fad diets have side effects.
posted by Cranberry at 5:07 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

The 810 kCal figure is wrong. In the comments he states he's consuming closer to 1300 kCal. Still a low, but his weight is steady.

I'm skeptical that he knows the number of calories he's eating at all. It's not clear how he's figured it out:

I miscalculated earlier. My diet is 1/3 the average U.S. caloric intake, which works out to about 1300-1400kcal. I mistakenly divided the recommended value by about 1/3. This is still much less than what you’ve recommended, but I have not experienced any ill effects. I think the idea that not all calories are the same will gain more traction and I believe it is possible to get all required energy for an active lifestyle from fewer than 2000kcal, given they are appropriately chosen. Never know until you test.

Also, his weight isn't steady. He lost 13 pounds in the first month. That's faster weight loss than what doctors generally recommend, and this is for someone trying to "maintain," too.

Also also he's one of those who thinks eating far below normal calories will make him live longer because calorie restriction works in rodents.

This sounds really not any different from any other kind of orthorexia to me.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 5:10 PM on February 20 [8 favorites]

I think this would be safe if you made it so that you had the goop through the day but in the evening you would eat whatever your body craved. Bodies are kind of not stupid, one gets cravings for certain foods. Though if one is not used to listening to one's body ....
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:10 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

I find it remarkable that so many people in the comments apparently take seriously a project with supporting evidence such as "But on day 3 I noticed my heart was racing and my energy level was suddenly dropping. Hemoglobin! I think, my heart is having trouble getting enough oxygen to all my organs. I check my formula and realize iron is completely absent" and "Mathematical notation that used to look obtuse is now beautiful" and "The people around me seem sluggish" and "you don't poop. I only have to remove a few grams of fiber from my system per week" and "I am consuming no toxins or carcinogens".

I'm entirely prepared to believe that this is utterly bogus and not remotely possible, but these things that you cite don't seem to be, in themselves, evidence of that. The fact that he feels bad and then realizes he hasn't included iron isn't impossible, after all, even if the fact that he was feeling bad had nothing to do with his failure to include iron. Similarly, the fact that he makes extravagant and silly claims about the effects of the diet is no indication that he's not actually on that diet. People make extravagant and silly claims about all kinds of diets.

If it's just not possible to do this, though, that's another matter. If, for example, some of the micronutrients he lists just can't be properly absorbed by the body when consumed directly in this kind of slurry, then he'd obviously be fibbing. Is that the case?
posted by yoink at 5:11 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

the guy needs to strap some kind of Overman narrative to his crazy diet so the libertarians grok it.
posted by Bwithh at 5:12 PM on February 20 [5 favorites]

Needs a soupçon more "µ." (No iPad shortcuts for that, apparently)

Copied and pasted from the article, it is it is recommending 6ug.
posted by Ad hominem at 5:12 PM on February 20

Is there a good word for someone who talk about food primarily as fuel and not for taste? Like the opposite of "foodie?" Gourmand/Gourmet doesn't really work for me.
posted by acheekymonkey at 5:12 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

Wat!

No soylent blue joke yet?
posted by symbioid at 5:13 PM on February 20 [7 favorites]

Copied and pasted from the article, it is it is recommending 6ug.

I believe the UG is the standard measurement for components of the cave man diet.
posted by yoink at 5:14 PM on February 20 [9 favorites]

Faintdreams: "Uhm? This is weird satire yes?"

I'm thinking the following quote is the tipoff. Or the guy just likes to be punny.

"I ran 3.14 miles non-stop. This is an irrational improvement. "
posted by symbioid at 5:15 PM on February 20 [22 favorites]

I believe the UG is the standard measurement for components of the cave man diet.

I thought it was a standard unit for boots with fur.
posted by brennen at 5:17 PM on February 20 [4 favorites]

I'm voting fake too, based on this twitter status by the author:

New years resolution: take the Paleo diet to the next level. I'm going to live in a cave and worship the sun.
posted by daniel striped tiger at 5:26 PM on February 20

"I almost forgot to mention, when everything going in to your body is diffused in to the bloodstream, you don't poop,"

Bullshit? I had heard that those on hunger strikes continue to poop, because a third of one's poop is composed of dead gut flora and stuff like that. I'm no expert, myself.
posted by mr. digits at 5:29 PM on February 20 [4 favorites]

Assuming this is real: it seems utterly ridiculous. So needless to say, I just signed up to be a guinea pig. Mefi, if he chooses me, I promise that you will all be on the front lines of getting to watch my mental degradation in REALTIME
posted by Greg Nog at 5:29 PM on February 20 [26 favorites]

The only thing I find more tiresome than dealing with food is people who have to compose themselves at the thought of someone not being absolutely enraptured over every incredible forkful of the stuff.
posted by Legomancer at 5:32 PM on February 20 [12 favorites]

symbioid: ""I ran 3.14 miles non-stop. This is an irrational improvement. ""

This also struck me as a neon sign advertising "hoax."

There's something about the idea of it that's horrible and wonderful at the same time. I almost want to believe that it's real. He seems to be recruiting other volunteers—anyone willing to call his bluff?
posted by adamrice at 5:33 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

Am I the only one who consume nutritional drinks somewhat regularly? They're perfect for breakfast on-the-go.

New years resolution: take the Paleo diet to the next level. I'm going to live in a cave and worship the sun.

To be fair, my resolution was to become a panda. Some of us are dreamers.
posted by fatehunter at 5:34 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

In the book, soylent is made from soy and lentils--get it?--rather than people.

Soylent Green is Monsanto, people !
posted by y2karl at 5:36 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

Let's us eat celery and fiber pills and fish oil and vitamins and a whole ham hock like once a week
It'll be like me in college but with less bourbon and less hunger started fugue states cause you've had like 300 calories in the last four days and convinced you have to run the length of Manhattan or you will die of diabetes.
posted by The Whelk at 5:36 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

Huh. And I just made up a batch of my [YourNameHere] chow tonight for the first time in months. (But I have no illusions that's it's nutritionally complete: I have also made some vindaloo.)

Also:

Q: I have heard that it is possible to live on Guinness and milk alone. Is this true, or even partially true?

A. This is not quite true. Guinness does contain many vitamins and minerals in small quantities, but is lacking vitamin C, as well as calcium and fat. So, to fulfil all of your daily nutritional requirements you would need to drink a glass of orange juice, two glasses of milk, and 47 pints of Guinness.
- NIGEL GOODWIN, University of Nottingham

posted by maudlin at 5:42 PM on February 20 [14 favorites]

I should see if the Mefi Wiki Bachelor Chow FAQ collection needs updating.
posted by zamboni at 5:49 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

It's Yakov's Elixir! (Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle.)
posted by TreeRooster at 5:50 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Ugh. I remember watching The Jetsons when I was a kid and watching George Jetson pop a pill for dinner instead of eating actual food. It terrified me, made me sad, and made me fear the future. Hell if I was going to live in a future in which there were no breakfast cereals or macaroni! I still feel the same way. No food = no fun. I don't care how perfect your pill or drink is. It doesn't taste as good as Count Chocula.
posted by Elly Vortex at 5:53 PM on February 20 [4 favorites]

So, you can deep fry this stuff, right?
posted by pompomtom at 5:53 PM on February 20 [9 favorites]

Assuming this is real: it seems utterly ridiculous. So needless to say, I just signed up to be a guinea pig. Mefi, if he chooses me, I promise that you will all be on the front lines of getting to watch my mental degradation in REALTIME

#IfIHadGlass
posted by sendai sleep master at 5:55 PM on February 20 [11 favorites]

Am I the only one who consume nutritional drinks somewhat regularly? They're perfect for breakfast on-the-go.

No, I have one every morning. If I could get to a 3-5 shakes a day thing and not die of malnutrition or some obscure condition from not having a weird micronutrient, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 5:55 PM on February 20

you don't poop. I only have to remove a few grams of fiber from my system per week

Not entirely implausible. I did the Medifast diet for a couple of months a few years ago (and a DIY version after that, using protein shakes). On a mostly-liquid diet, your amount of poo goes WAY down. The biggest problem for me was craving something to *chew*.

I finally got to where I allowed myself one or two "normal days" on the weekends, and my goodness a plain $1 McDonald's hamburger never tasted so good before in my life.
posted by mrbill at 5:56 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

That seems plausible to me; surely most of what we poop out is the non-"food" part of what we ingest? I would think that your bowel movements would be greatly reduced, at the very least. I wonder if there would be health risks there in the long term?--yoink

Certainly your chances of colon cancer go way up, at the very least. But his diet includes fiber, so this hypothetical diet includes pooping.

Way back in the 70s someone really tried to live on a carefully constructed liquid diet similar to this. He stopped when he started having heart problems.

Vitamins are best taken in food. For example: vitamin E, is that the synthetic or natural alpha tocopherol? (Your body reacts differently to each). Does it include the beta and gamma tocopherols? What about tocotrienols? When scientists discover food-deficiency based diseases, they give the animal various things until that animal doesn't get the disease any more. They narrow it down to one substance, and call it a vitamin, and tell everyone that your body needs this vitamin. But that vitamin gives you a very precise minimum to prevent a very specific health problem. That's very different than eating a generally healthy diet.

Eating food containing vitamins is much better for you than just taking vitamins, because you are getting other things that are good for you that no one yet isolated into a vitamin.
posted by eye of newt at 6:00 PM on February 20 [15 favorites]

Can this be fermented into alcohol? If not we've got a show stopper unless I can add vodka.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:05 PM on February 20 [5 favorites]

We already have something that can pretty much completely replace a varied diet, and it's been around for centuries: the potato.
posted by AdamCSnider at 6:14 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

So, to fulfil all of your daily nutritional requirements you would need to drink a glass of orange juice, two glasses of milk, and 47 pints of Guinness.

Armed with this knowledge I am gonna be healthy as HELL this year.
posted by Spatch at 6:15 PM on February 20 [4 favorites]

So, to fulfil all of your daily nutritional requirements you would need to drink a glass of orange juice, two glasses of milk, and 47 pints of Guinness.

I'm in. Who's with me?
posted by stevis23 at 6:16 PM on February 20 [6 favorites]

Eating food containing vitamins is much better for you than just taking vitamins, because you are getting other things that are good for you that no one yet isolated into a vitamin.
posted by eye of newt at 4:00 AM on February 21 [+] [!]

Eponymous!
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:19 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

I occasionally get tired of food, in the abstract . . . but I almost never get tired of gas station hotdogs.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:19 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

Umm, the no pooping thing. A few years ago I had an unfortunate medication situation where I could only eat very small volumes of food for months. It didn't matter if it was sashimi, buttercream frosting, congee, chili, whiskey, or water - what mattered was the stomach volume. After coming up with a maximal nutrition potion (eggs were involved), it turned out I would only poop every few days. And yes, had almost two extra hours a day from not shopping/cooking/eating/cleaning up. And was howlingly depressed because I'm a huge foodie and I wasn't getting my sensual (or caloric) needs met. However, for the first time in my life I wasn't continuously hungry. It was enough to make me comply with the medication for, as I said, months. And no poop.
posted by Dreidl at 6:20 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

The assumption that food is somehow bad for you is incorrect. What's bad for you is flavor. For maximum health, avoid flavor at all costs!

I know this because I've eaten hospital food, which has no flavor, and hospitals are all about health.
posted by twoleftfeet at 6:24 PM on February 20 [4 favorites]

From the comments:

You should probably be getting AT LEAST 100g of protein a day at your weight and level of activity. Your experiment is ill-conceived and you're missing several essential nutrients, some the functions of which we don't even fully understand yet.

You'd literally be better off blending just this:

150g whey protein,

4 cups frozen blueberries,

2 cups of spinach

1/2 cup almonds

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon flaxseed oil

2000IU Vitamin D

than what you're doing currently.
posted by Sebmojo at 6:26 PM on February 20 [6 favorites]

I actually once worked for a guy who was convinced that humans didn't really need food and could live on just the chemicals required because eating was just too much work and took too much useful time out of his day.

The first couple of weeks he'd pop a handful of pills at prescribed moments and would brew up all sorts of weird potions and drink those. This packed him up something fierce, and he was very uncomfortable for a couple of days, a fact that he felt compelled to inform us of.

He decided to add raw veggies to the diet to give him some roughage. So every day he'd be popping pills, drinking potions, and munching all day long on celery, carrots, broccoli, and anise (no, I don't know why anise). Being in a closed office with him was a truly memorable experience, and would be even more memorable if you lit an open flame, if you get my drift. I don't entirely remember why but I had an actual office and he had a spot in the cube farm and life was pretty grim for the other people in the cube area.

He started to get kinda nutso but I don't know for sure if this was because of the bizarre diet or the other herbal matter he was ingesting. I suspect the diet because I'm pretty sure the "herbs" had been a part of his life for quite some time. Either way the big project ended up about 2 months behind and after I finally squeezed some requirements out of him I ended up on a 2-week coding deathmarch to get things completed. Meanwhile the org lost a huge amount of funding because he wasn't bothering to submit the weekly reports (which were literally 1-paragraph "shit was done" kinds of things).

I finally had enough and moved on to other things.
posted by Runes at 6:50 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

Sounds like Orthorexia nervosa: "people who develop an obsession with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy.[1][2] Orthorexia nervosa is believed to be a mental disorder."
posted by travelwithcats at 6:50 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

I whine on here all the time about how my stomach doesn't work properly. So I have a magic nutrition powder that costs the motherfucking Earth that I am supposed to mix with almond milk and drink when I can't eat. It was recommended to me by a fancy rheumatologist, and according to the box, it was created by top scientists in nutritional research blah blah blah.

Completely different composition than this dude's Prison Loaf. But whatevs, if it makes him happy.
posted by Sidhedevil at 6:59 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

Food anxiety seems to be on the rise in general. Obviously it is important to pay attention to ones' diet. But people who are otherwise winners in the health area, who do not smoke, are not obese, and who exercise, sometimes seem to become really obsessed with purity of their chosen diet in a way that seems a little ridiculous to me. Food is not poison; if you don't have allergies or other conditions such as gluten intolerance, then a little white rice is not going to freaking kill you.
posted by thelonius at 7:08 PM on February 20 [6 favorites]

This guy tried to reduce his nutritional needs to eating Monkey Chow yt , and by Day 4 it was having a psychological effect on him.

In an attempt to increase my protein intake, I decided to try adding a protein powder to my diet in place of one or two snacks a day. I had a similar reaction, culminating in almost full-on panic attacks. Turns out, the proteins aren't in the right proportions to each other and that competition was messing with my neuro-chemicals. Took a while to come down from that.

All you really need is a multivitamin, a banana, an egg, a chicken breast and a handful of Wheat Chex to live pretty well on days when you don't want to think about figuring out what to eat.
posted by gjc at 7:10 PM on February 20 [5 favorites]

Previously, on House.
posted by odinsdream at 7:25 PM on February 20 [14 favorites]

I'm surprised that all these self-proclaimed foodies who loooooove food so much are so aghast at this idea. I love good food too, but what do you do when good food isn't around? You have to eat shitty gross food and get depressed. Often times I have an irrational compulsion to not eat anything when there's nothing tasty enough to be found. If I could just eat a pill or something that would fill me up quickly without being too offensive or too unhealthy I'd be all over it.

My point is that everything doesn't have to be so black-and-white all the time. There's a time for good food and there's a time for having a need to fuel your body.
posted by bleep at 7:27 PM on February 20 [11 favorites]

It just sounded too good to be true from the very beginning, his citing all the benefits and no drawbacks.

I'm surprised no one has just tried mixing all the superfoods together (flaxseed, blueberries, acai, etc etc etc), the great chemicals (omega-3s, lycopene) and tossing in a multivitamin and claiming it will cure everything. Or maybe they have and I just haven't heard about it.
posted by IndigoRain at 7:30 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

My favourite food replacement is Alabama Shakes -- they were on SNL this past weekend, and I've been listening to them so much since that I don't have time to eat.
posted by anothermug at 7:30 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

I love good food too, but what do you do when good food isn't around? You have to eat shitty gross food and get depressed.

Amen. I adore food. I adore cooking. What I absolutely hate is when I must eat and I don't have good stuff nearby or in my budget. When I don't have time to cook and think, eh, I guess I'll go get a burger down the street.

For me, it's not just "shitty gross food". It's wanting something energizing and nourishing, but the best options I have are a pizza lunch combo from Vino's or an overpriced salad from Boulevard. When I think of the money I've spent on food that I find tolerable, it actually kind of pisses me off.

The idea that I could have a portable, nutritionally complete meal for those times when I can't make or buy something good for myself? And save a buttload of money on food? And have more energy? I'm dead certain this is snake oil or a joke, but if someone could actually produce that, I'd be eternally grateful. Let me have two shakes for breakfast and lunch, and then steak au poivre for dinner. I would feel liberated.
posted by middleclasstool at 7:38 PM on February 20 [9 favorites]

Great. Now I'm craving a deep-fried food pill.
posted by sebastienbailard at 7:49 PM on February 20

If I could just eat a pill or something that would fill me up quickly without being too offensive or too unhealthy I'd be all over it.

Seriously, just get a bag of almonds.
posted by odinsdream at 7:50 PM on February 20 [8 favorites]

I love the idea of this. It would great for compulsive and/or emotional eaters who would like to stay away from real food a great deal of the time. To quote John Fogerty, "Lord don't you wish it was true?"
posted by michellenoel at 8:07 PM on February 20

My favourite food replacement is Alabama Shakes

First, I want to apologize for being That Guy, but: their show at Lincoln Hall was completely epic and utterly destroyed their SNL appearance. OMFG. They wrecked the place. Ridiculously great. Papa-Bear-dude? Epic. Made me want to wear a goddamn cap and grow some neckbeard.

...the SNL appearance, by contrast, seems to have involved a lot of heroin. Or possibly morphine. I'm not sure I can tell the difference in another person. Oxy, I suppose, is popular amongst certain classes in the South?

And, um, a remark about food goes here. Possibly insulting the parentage of one or more readers.
posted by aramaic at 8:15 PM on February 20

How wasteful society has been with its women!

W.T.F.?
posted by lollusc at 8:15 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

Must be nice to have the free time and/or spare money to be a "foodie." I'm glad life is working out so great for you guys.

If I could replace 80% of my meals with this, with the associated reduced time in the damned grocery store and reduced spending on food, I would do so in a heartbeat. A casual few searches for some of the ingredients he's listing make me doubt his pricing claim, but even if it's double or triple what he's claiming over the long run, it's a lot less than I spend on not-that-great food.

Oh I dream about being able to afford good food most of the time, and having the time required to prepare it.
posted by Caduceus at 8:31 PM on February 20

like most diets this one is too focused on details---its misses the hierarchy of human dietary needs. i like the idea of "nutritional science" so im posting my own idea of a scientifically sound diet hierarchy: (in order of descending urgency)

1. fluids, without them you kidneys fail in about a week
2. calories, without them you burn fat stores and then your organs, body doesnt store protein
3. protein, about 2g/kg covers your bodies transcription/enzyme/structural needs
4. fat, you need vitamins A,D,E,K but these also can be found in supplements
5. minerals and water soluble vitamins, very much trace levels---dont really need these every day
posted by dongolier at 8:36 PM on February 20 [4 favorites]

I've had a common skin condition called Keratosis Pilaris since birth. That was gone by day 9...I 'get' new concepts in my reading faster than before and can read my textbooks twice as long without mental fatigue. ..rely on my phone less for navigation

I can't take it seriously; it's too hyperbolic, and anything this short-term doesn't prove anything anyway. I think he might be in the more mental-illness department than satire department. It's the kind of wild enthusiasm I have been used to hearing from my raw foodist acquaintances, only a shade more manic.

Typically I would cook eggs for breakfast, eat out for lunch, and cook a quesadilla, pasta, or a burger for dinner.

There is a lot of room for "healthy simple whole foods diet with minimal prep that includes a veggie or two" between here and all liquid. I get that some people don't want to bother a lot about food. But obsessing on not eating or making food into a pill - avoiding the act of eating entirely - seems to me something other than not wanting to bother.

The "what about the wimmin" part is just...well, paleo in more ways than one.

Must be nice to have the free time and/or spare money to be a "foodie."

I can't imagine being able to afford to not cook from scratch (my grocery bill is lower than almost anyone's I compare to, and I'm not a vegetarian). I do it to save money. Nor do I want to pay more for prepared food, as the convenience premium just supports crappier food and I pay quadruple for food out that I can make at home. Let's not make that typical assumption that everyone who loves food has abundant privilege. It takes skill, desire, and knowledge but plenty of people do it because they choose to, not because they are gifted with plenty of free time and spare money. I know I'm not.
posted by Miko at 8:44 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

The assumption that food is somehow bad for you is incorrect. What's bad for you is flavor. For maximum health, avoid flavor at all costs!

If this is true, then why isn't England the healthiest nation on the planet?
posted by webmutant at 8:47 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

For those wishing to try low volume, low calorie, high nutrition eating:
1. Take 80 grams raw dried wheatgrass*(A, C, K, B-base, Iron, Iodine, Selenium, Manganese, Potassium, fiber-base, sweet sweet chlorophyll)
2. Combine with as much inulin as you can handle(I am currently at 15 grams but always looking to push it)
3. Then add soy lecithin for phospholipids
4. And juice, I like a generous amount of acai juice for vitamin E, but any juice will do.

This is a single meal with < 1000 calories and it meets almost all of an adults nutritional needs for the day(not calories).

There are some things missing:
1. Protein is needed, 2 tbps nutritional yeast will get an adult close to protein needs for the day(80 grams dry wheatgrass ~ 20 grams protein) AND add tons of trace minerals / B vitamins)
2. For completeness, take D**, B12, Omega3s + dha***, zinc(better safe...)
3. Active people need more protein, I usually have a soy latte or two...just to be sure
4. If you want to get a little 'ahead' of modern nutritional science, add turmeric, raw garlic, and debateably another source for E

For maximal development of shamanic powers, add schizandra berries, raw stinging nettles, and a cold water reishi extract.

*only buy powdered wheatgrass which lists percents for ALL of the nutrients listed in parens.
**D2 is mushroom source, D3 comes from lanolin
***There are algal sources for those worried about mercury
posted by jalitt at 8:47 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

Must be nice to have the free time and/or spare money to be a "foodie." I'm glad life is working out so great for you guys.

This is just silly. Yes, it is expensive to buy gourmet ingredients, but it is not necessarily expensive to eat good food made of good ingredients. Buy some eggs, a bunch of parsley, a couple of slices of bacon from the meat counter of your grocer, a yellow onion and some boxed pasta: you've got carbonara. Or, buy some mushrooms (any kind) and baby spinach: sautee the mushrooms in garlic and toss the hot, cooked mushrooms with the fresh spinach. Add balsamic vinegar or sesame oil and sesame seeds. Boom. 2 "foodie" dishes that are cheap and easy to prepare. There are a million other examples, especially once you're comfortable enough with cooking techniques to get creative! /end derail
posted by nonmerci at 9:11 PM on February 20 [8 favorites]

Let's us eat celery and fiber pills and fish oil and vitamins and a whole ham hock like once a week

Whelk I made you something! I'm calling it hot ham water. I added some vanadium
posted by en forme de poire at 9:38 PM on February 20 [7 favorites]

I do kind of like the idea of Minimal Human Medium, you know, for growing humans. But then I make soups like this all the time for my microbes. Most of them do not actually smell that appetizing, though there's something a little compelling about YPD in a Marmite-y way.
posted by en forme de poire at 9:42 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Camels milk and dates, no cooking, and if it's freeze dried powdered camel milk, you have extreme portability. It's not fattening.

Now about those nutritional drinks, before I figured out that lactose was not my only problem with cow's milk, (casein and whey mess me up big-time!)
I used to drink Ensure.
It tastes good, it has all the vitamins. I'd eat two normal meals and have Ensure for breakfast. It was ok. I gained weight though, and I'm already overweight, so I had to knock it off.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 9:51 PM on February 20

That glass doesn't contain what I think it does, does it? It doesn't? Whew.
posted by dhartung at 10:21 PM on February 20

I've been noticing talk about 'nutrients' and 'micronutrients' and 'nutritionally complete' lately on the Blue. I don't really pay attention to health, but people seem to imply of you don't get enough of some of these things you can die. Are they all found in your usual steak/meat/potatoes/Asian food/Italian food/no fruits or veggies diet? Or can you like accidentally die even in the First World?

My futurism stops at nutrient loaf and supplements. Food is just way too much fun, and cooking is an expression of the human spirit the way other technology is.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 11:32 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Must be nice to have the free time and/or spare money to be a "foodie." I'm glad life is working out so great for you guys.

This is just silly. Yes, it is expensive to buy gourmet ingredients, but it is not necessarily expensive to eat good food made of good ingredients. Buy some eggs, a bunch of parsley, a couple of slices of bacon from the meat counter of your grocer, a yellow onion and some boxed pasta: you've got carbonara. Or, buy some mushrooms (any kind) and baby spinach: sautee the mushrooms in garlic and toss the hot, cooked mushrooms with the fresh spinach. Add balsamic vinegar or sesame oil and sesame seeds.

Can we just agree that other people's experience might differ a bit from our own?

I mean, I happen to know what carbonara costs to make per serving where I live (Australia), because I made it tonight and I still have the receipt from yesterday's shopping:
Eggs: 12 for $4.49 = 75c for 2
Bacon: $1.80 for 200g = 90c for 100g
onions: 45c each
butter: = $1 for 250g, so about 10c for a tablespoon
the nice boxed pasta was on special at half price at $4 for the type that serves 4, so $1 per serve. You can get cheaper stuff about about 25c a serve, though, but you are straying from anything near "foodie" territory.
Total per serve = $3.10

Now that's reasonable, but I live in an urban area near a big supermarket. It also made serves only large enough because we had a salad with it, so add at least another $2 a serve for that. And I actually also used garlic and white wine and grated Parmesan in my recipe too. And my husband is now making noises about making himself a sandwich because he wasn't quite full, so my "serve" above is probably far too small.

So even at the $3.10 you could get a meat pie for a similar price, and once you add the salad and/or a larger serve, you could probably get a subway sandwich for cheaper. I know eating out is much cheaper in many countries and regions than it is here, so it doesn't surprise me to know that cooking from scratch is not economic for some people in some places.

As for the mushroom and spinach idea, that is way more expensive. I have been using 1-2 cups of spinach a day in lunches, and it is costing me $9 a week at $3 a bunch. (I've realised I'm going to have to start growing it, but not everyone has that luxury.)
3 cups of spinach (which, wilted down doesn't make much volume), plus 300g of mushrooms (likewise), costs about $5 (spinach at $3 a bunch, mushrooms at $10 per kg), and has approximately 90 kcal of energy. At $5 for 90 kcal, you would need to spend about $100 a day to feed yourself. (Admittedly your suggestion to add oil and sesame seeds would help a little).
posted by lollusc at 12:21 AM on February 21 [9 favorites]

Ensure, which is now marketed as a low calorie diet shake, started as (and is still) a complete liquid food for feeding people enterically (i.e. through a tube into the stomach or small intestine.) People can live indefinitely that way. They poop, trust me (I have changed their beds.) They do so infrequently and sometimes quite wetly. They often have gut problems because the lack of bulk reduces gut motility. Most people on completely liquid diets don't have a lot of energy, but the ones I've met are largely very ill.
If you really want to do this (don't), use Ensure or another real food replacement. This guy hasn't even said if he's using food grade chemicals.
posted by gingerest at 1:05 AM on February 21 [5 favorites]

Ha! Signed up as well, though I doubt he'll be sending it out this far. One can hope. Count me among those who like food, but don't like preparing it. I have nothing against a nice restaurant or the occasional home cooked meal, but most nights I just want something quick and something that will give my body what it needs.
posted by snwod at 2:07 AM on February 21

I'm voting fake too, based on this twitter status by the author:

That's pretty obviously a satire of Paleos, which is completely consistent with his project.
posted by Jahaza at 4:43 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]

I just wish I could separate the two, and when I'm just needing sustenance, spend as little time on it as possible.

Someone needs to invent the food equivalent of birth control.
posted by Obscure Reference at 6:12 AM on February 21

Maybe I'm paranoid... The idea of possibly getting a bag of chemicals from a stranger on the internet, and then consuming them, seems like the height of stupidity.
posted by Splunge at 6:42 AM on February 21 [2 favorites]

I started questioning the veracity of this when he realized he was missing iron at Day 2.

Yeah, that was weird for me, too. I'm a regular blood donor, and the last few months I wasn't able to donate because I had the iron levels of a pregnant woman (I'm a 20-something male). My baseline hemoglobin is also considerably lower than the 16.0 he starts with, so there is no way he was suffocating his organs after a day or two.

And certainly people have survived without food for more than a few days.

But hey, now his Soylent has iron, which is great.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 6:47 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]

You'd think he could at least take a more flattering photo of the gurp.

Also: he sounds positively manic. I'm siding with those guessing orthorexia.
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:57 AM on February 21

I was on a liquid diet for two months about ten years ago, thanks to having my jaw wired shut.

The first day I was able to eat soft tuna salad, I cried like a baby in public. In short, it sucked donkey balls.
posted by lumpenprole at 8:07 AM on February 21

Must be nice to have the free time and/or spare money to be a "foodie."

I...don't know what to say to this? I mean, I live in West Bumblefuck, Ohio, and can't swing a dead cat without hitting a farm stand. I spend so much less on food in the warmer months, when the farmers start coming out to play. Even in the winter, though, I manage OK.

Last week, I made a stew. 1 big rutabaga (79 cents), 1 big celery root ($1.50), 4 parsnips ($2), a bag of baby carrots (99 cents), and 2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts ($3.78 - they were on sale at $1.89/pound). It took about 20 minutes to cut it all up and throw it in the crock pot with a cup of chicken stock (I make my own whenever I roast a chicken, this is why Rival gave us the crock pot), some salt, pepper, and dried dill. I turned on the crock pot and commenced to ignore it all day while I worked and tended the household.

8 hours later, when the husband and Elder Monster got home from work, we had a delightful dinner, and there was plenty left for lunches the next day. Family of four, two meals, $9.06, and 20 minutes of actual effort. And it had flavor and texture and gave pleasure as well as sustenance.

Am I supposed to feel bad about this? Am I a snob because I'd rather EAT than even remotely consider Soylent? Well, OK, then.
posted by MissySedai at 8:10 AM on February 21 [4 favorites]

MissySedai, there's also the time it takes to shop, put away the shopping, cleaning up the dishes after, packaging the leftovers. The shopping is part of the weekly trip (probably 1 hour a week, depending), and in a reasonable household a different person does the cleanup than the cooking -- but in our house (three people) it can take an hour or more to prep, cook, and clean for a meal we can eat in 30 minutes.
posted by no relation at 8:43 AM on February 21

> and there was plenty left for lunches the next day.

This is the key. I think people who kvetch about not having any time to cook often do have some time to cook every few days, but are in the "prepare one meal" style of cooking. We like to make a batch of food to last 3-4 days. I certainly don't mind eating the same food a few days in a row, especially if I know what's in it. I think people just are kind of spoiled for variety and cooking a meal seems to be more of a chore than it has to be because of that.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:49 AM on February 21 [2 favorites]

My hemoglobin was 3.5g/dl a month ago and I only realized it when the corners of my mouth started cracking and I had some slight fatigue. And it took months and months to get to that point.

And speaking of hemoglobin and pooping, heavy iron supplementation sucks. I get depressed and angry if I don't poop.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:56 AM on February 21 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: I get depressed and angry if I don't poop.
posted by yoink at 9:32 AM on February 21 [6 favorites]

On further reflection, this is basically a low-rent version of Cytogainer, right? (Or Boost and Ensure but without all of the fructose.) As an adjunct to normal food this could actually be really helpful. I love food and have this thread bookmarked, but if you're really trying to push calories there comes a point where prepping all the food and choking it down becomes tedious (and/or expensive) instead of entertaining.
posted by en forme de poire at 9:35 AM on February 21

MissySedai, there's also the time it takes to shop, put away the shopping, cleaning up the dishes after, packaging the leftovers.

Well, heavens forfend that we don't have replicators and automatically cleaning dishes.

I work upwards of 70 hours a week, and I'm the one who does the grocery shopping and cooking. One wonders what all y'all do for a living that spending a couple hours a week tending to basic household things is so onerous as to be nearly impossible in our modern age? I get feeling tired, believe me, I very much do, but...well, I don't find normal household things so difficult that I'm going to fuss about spending a little time to feed myself something that tastes good.

We like to make a batch of food to last 3-4 days. I certainly don't mind eating the same food a few days in a row, especially if I know what's in it. I think people just are kind of spoiled for variety and cooking a meal seems to be more of a chore than it has to be because of that.

I tend to cook in large batches because 1) I never really know how many people are going to be at my table in a given night (the Girlfriends and the Brothers From Other Mothers are over all the time) and 2) none of us are particularly inclined to go out for lunch on the regular. The husband is on the road most of the day for his job and feels gross if he eats fast food (or Applebee's), so he'd rather have cold leftovers than hot chain food. (Though I did recently find a USB heated lunch box, so that's about to change for him.)

Yesterday, I smoked a 20 pound turkey for supper - they were on sale at Kroger for 69 cents a pound! At the moment, I've got a bagel filled with smoked turkey, muenster cheese, and baby spinach on the plate next to me that I have to keep defending from the Dogmonsters. I made a couple of those for the husband to take out with him today, and he has already called home to inform me that the car smells of smoked turkey and his partner today has threatened to kill him for his sandwiches. The carcass is hanging out in a giant pot on the stove, simmering merrily into stock. I'm only working 8 hours today instead of 12, I have the day off from one client, so I'm going to spend some time fucking around in the kitchen. The stock will be turned into turkey and wild rice soup for the freezer, the rest of the meat will be split between turkey and dumplings tomorrow night and turkey tetrazini for one day next week. I think my deep freeze was the best $200 I ever spent.
posted by MissySedai at 9:47 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]

It is important to remember that at the start of each day we are not all granted the same number of spoons.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:53 AM on February 21 [10 favorites]

I'm skeptical. Something tells me that he's going to be marketing this stuff before the year is out.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:00 AM on February 21

Something tells me that he's going to be marketing this stuff before the year is out.

I had the same thought when I read the "I finally got the recipe PERFECT, more on that later!" bit. A well-intentioned person would just put it in this post and save some of the "I can lift a car! Women can't resist me and men want to be me!" rhetoric for later.
posted by Miko at 10:25 AM on February 21

2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts ($3.78 - they were on sale at $1.89/pound

Good for you, MissySedai, but near cities, boneless skinless chicken breasts are usually over $7/pound. Not everyone has the same access to cheap fresh food.
posted by ignignokt at 11:06 AM on February 21

This plea usually falls on deaf ears but I really hope we can avoid plowing the old ground about food access and preparation. Here's an extensive comment I wrote some time ago about the realities surrounding this issue.

Even though we all agree these are real, I also am certain that it is possible for many more people to cook and eat whole foods cheaply than do. It is silly to tell people who do it that it's impossible for them to be doing it. If you can't do it, there are no doubt good reasons - but there are people who do it who are probably not that different from you in material ways.
posted by Miko at 11:49 AM on February 21

ignignokt: So don't shop at Whole Foods. You have Shaw's in Cambridge, and their new ad is showing fresh split breasts for $1.68 a pound. It takes 1 knife stroke to pull out the bone.

I could choose to shop at Fresh Market or Whole Foods or whatever, and bitch about the expense, but instead I just go to a plain old supermarket. That, plus only buying what's on sale goes a long way towards eating decently. (I will also note that I don't drive, so shopping is a bitch, but it gets done anyway.)

The overall complaint here - and it's perfectly fine! - is "I don't wanna!" It seems a bit disingenuous to try to make it into "I just can't", all other things being equal.
posted by MissySedai at 12:04 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]

[Folks, it would be really terrific if you could not have that argument again about the expenses involved in cooking at home. Any of you could stop this argument, just stop having it.]
posted by jessamyn at 12:12 PM on February 21 [5 favorites]

I eat every single day & cook most days. I like it and I can afford it. What's weird is how often I can't seem to figure it out. Example: I just scored free (center orchestra!) tickets to Parsifal at the Met tonight. It runs 6:00 PM to 11:45 PM, my SO and I both get out of work at 5:00, and it'll take me at least 30 min to get to Lincoln Center by train. I have no idea how to digest that much Wagner without food. I don't want to spend a whole lot of money, I don't want to sneak a sandwich down to row V, and despite the fact that the slow-food anti-establishment hippie within me finds the idea somehow shameful, I'd really appreciate a Jetson's-style dinner pill right about now.
posted by jcrcarter at 1:10 PM on February 21 [2 favorites]

Yeah, that's not organic and farm fresh, though, is it?

The point is that you and I do spend significant effort on food, and it's fine and understandable for others to not want to, and no, they are not lazy.
posted by ignignokt at 1:20 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]

This reminded me of that Radiolab episode called Guts that featured the guy had who had to go without solid food for a couple months, I think, and how much torture it was for him.

No, thanks. I need to chew.
posted by nuala at 1:23 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]

t runs 6:00 PM to 11:45 PM

It's a long time, but there are two intermissions, according to the web. In this sort of situation, I'd have a substatial late afternoon snack - yogurt and a granola bar or something like that, with some fat and protein - and bring a packet of mixed nuts to have with a drink during one intermission, and then go out for late night supper (or heat some soup at home). It sounds awesome.
posted by Miko at 1:30 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty skeptical about this article, too. One thing I'm not seeing is, why did he decide to roll his own instead of just buying any of the dozens of meal replacement powders available? Heck, you can even buy meal replacement shakes and powders in the Weight Loss section of your local grocery or drug store, if you don't want to order online and wait for the shipping.

Even setting aside the fact that i'm pretty sure he just made the whole thing up, it seems like he's just reinvented the wheel.
posted by ErikaB at 3:57 PM on February 21

Charlemagne In Sweatpants: "Or can you like accidentally die even in the First World?"

You can. I eat a minimum of 3-4 bananas per week and recently went to the ER for severe vertigo, and my potassium was so low they were concerned my heart would go into arrhythmia. Normal is 3.5-5.5, mine was 1.8. I am going to be having more blood tests next week to see if they can determine a cause. (In the meantime I've been on potassium supplements and a multivitamin.) The doctor said normally this would only be possible if they were giving me a diuretic, and that they would have expected my magnesium to be low as well, but it was not.
posted by IndigoRain at 11:09 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]

> Can this be fermented into alcohol? If not we've got a show stopper unless I can add vodka

Jamie Hyneman's version has wine in it. Will that do?
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:16 AM on February 22

It would be really terrific if you could not have that argument again about the expenses involved in cooking at home.

"Hello and welcome to MeFi industries. We pride ourselves on having, on multiple occasions, literally over thought plates filled with beans! Our moderators had to literally stop us!"
posted by sendai sleep master at 12:51 PM on February 22 [4 favorites]

Holy shit, IndigoRain! I hope you're actually A-OK, and your body was just being stupid for a minute. Take gentle good care of yourself!
posted by MissySedai at 3:14 PM on February 22 [1 favorite]

I should see if the Mefi Wiki Bachelor Chow FAQ collection needs updating.

Done! We're now up to fifteen. Can anyone find additional instances?
posted by zamboni at 8:53 PM on February 22

Thank you MissySedai, I hope so too!
posted by IndigoRain at 3:04 AM on February 23

This particular food replacement was used by people riding the Race Across America, a 3000 mile bicycle race that's done in a single stage; no required sleep breaks, no drafting allowed. So I'm going to guess that, for a week or so, this is a solved problem without satire.
posted by talldean at 5:17 AM on February 24

Interview on Vice.
posted by fontophilic at 1:09 PM on March 13

Too cool! Just signed up, hope he is still accepting test subjects.
posted by Meatbomb at 9:49 AM on March 14

More press about Rhinehart:

Rob Rhinehart has a crazy plan to let you go without food forever. It just might work.

Who Needs Food When You Have Soylent?
posted by homunculus at 2:05 PM on March 14

I should see if the Mefi Wiki Bachelor Chow FAQ collection needs updating.

...Can anyone find additional instances?

Done!
posted by y2karl at 10:13 AM on March 17

His recent follow-up: Two Months of Soylent.
posted by _Mona_ at 12:46 PM on March 20