soylent

Link above will take you to a forum discussion of Soylent. Fellow is experimenting with a shake mix that gives one everything they need nutritionally.

It's made of people!!!

Cool, but how many calories per ounce?!

He'll I'd try it! Would love something like this for the majority of my meals. Not something I'd replace all food with, but would be nice for the majority of my day to day non restaurant meals.

My dad lived feeding Ensure thru a GI tube into his stomach for several yrs, he could not eat.

You can live on prepared food substitutes.

But if youve seen pics of someone that has been on them for ~10+ yrs, you would come to the conclusion that something isnt totally right, or the person would look healthier.

You can have all the macro-nutrients we know of

You will be missing micro nutrients supplied by a varied diet almost assuredly.

I think this guy makes a pretty good case for having covered both macro & micro nutrients. It was interesting to me to find out that there aren't really THAT many of either category. It's just that so few are found in the same places, we have to eat many different foods. Anyway, if he's still doing this and is healthy one year from now, I'd be tempted to try it.

I don't think micro nutrients are well understood

What they are, how many, what difference it makes if you get them or not,...

Seems like the "max blender" known as The Silver Bullet could whip up a combo of fresh fruits snd veggies into a balanced meal.

The other really important point is that often our bodies ignore or are unable to process many vitamins if they occur on their own (as in supplement capsules) versus when then appear in particular combinations in real food. This very often will "unlock" the body's ability to digest and absorb the nutrients. We have evolved to eat food, not nutrients.


All this said, you can go a long time without any food at all, and almost indefinitely with extremely minimal food (lemon juice fasting etc) so I wouldn't worry about it while hiking very much at all. There is no particular reason to maintain a "normal" diet while hiking for a few days, even nutritionally, except psychological hurdles (diabetes and other health issues excepted). I find that if I keep active, even my energy levels remain high while fasting. When I allow myself to stop, then I crash... but that's exactly what you want when you stop for the night anyway.

Edited by dasbin on 04/06/2013 14:56:48 MDT.

"diabetes and other health issues excepted"

Can't speak for other health issues but a diabetic can eat nothing for days just as a person without diabetes can. Only trouble I run into in those situations is that I still need a bit of short-acting insulin from time to time and then might end up with low blood sugar. In that cases a bit of sugar will do. But given a bit of experience and experimenting I'm pretty sure I could avoid that too.

Why someone would "eat" something like Soylent without need is a bit beyond me though.