He calls it Soylent.

[PizDoff]

This Man Thinks He Never Has to Eat Again

By Monica Heisey




You know what's a complete waste of time, money, and effort? Eating. I mean, wouldn't you rather just ingest a tasteless form of sustenance for the rest of your life and never have to go through that tedious rigmarole of opening and eating a premade sandwich or feasting on a pile of fried delicacies ever again? Rob Rhinehart—a 24-year-old software engineer from Atlanta and, presumably, an impossibly busy man—thinks so.

Rob found himself resenting the inordinate amount time it takes to fry an egg in the morning and decided something had to be done. Simplifying food as "nutrients required by the body to function" (which sounds totally bulimic, I know, but I promise it's not), Rob has come up with an odorless beige cocktail that he's named Soylent.

I wasn't sure if he was trolling at first because that's the name of a wafer made out of human flesh and fed to the masses in the seminal 1973 sci-fi film Soylent Green, but then I read the extensive post on Rob's blog about how he came to make the stuff, and I started to believe he was serious. Soylent contains all the nutritive components of a balanced diet but just a third of the calories and none of the toxins or cancer-causing stuff you'd usually find in your lunch of processed foods. Despite the fact that it looks a bit like vomit, Soylent supposedly has the potential to change the entire world's relationship with food, so I spoke to Rob to find out how.

VICE: Hi, Rob. Why did you decide to boycott eating?
Rob Rhinehart: It was a combination of things. I was home for Christmas and saw an elderly family friend get admitted to the hospital after losing an unhealthy amount of weight. He was losing strength in one of his arms and found it very difficult to cook. I started wondering why something as simple and important as food was still so inefficient, given how streamlined and optimized other modern things are. I also had an incentive to live as cheaply as possible, and I yearned for the productivity benefit of being healthy. I'd been reading a lot of books on biology, and I started to think that it's probably all the same to our cells whether it gets nutrients from a powder or a carrot.

What was the next step?
Hacking the body is high risk, high reward. I read a textbook on physiological chemistry and took to the internet to see if I could find every known essential nutrient. My kitchen soon looked like a chemistry lab, and I had every unknown substance in a glass in front of me. I was a little worried it was going to kill me, but decided it was for science and quickly downed the whole thing. To my surprise, it was quite tasty, and I felt very energetic. For 30 days, I avoided food entirely, and I monitored the contents of my blood and my physical performance. Mental performance is harder to quantify, but I feel much sharper.

So what’s in Soylent, exactly?
Everything the body needs—that we know of, anyway—vitamins, minerals, and macronutrients like essential amino acids, carbohydrates, and fat. For the fat, I just use olive oil and add fish oil. The carbs are an oligosaccharide, which is like sugar, but the molecules are longer, meaning it takes longer to metabolize and gives you a steady flow of energy for a longer period of time rather than a sugar rush from something like fructose or table sugar. I also add some nonessentials like antioxidants and probiotics and lately have been experimenting with nootropics.

Full interview - http://www.vice.com/read/rob-rhineha...-requires-food



I'd supplement with this, would you?

[vaquero de las nalgas]

Call me crazy, but wouldn't that make your digestive tract atrophy after a few months?

[Diesel_tke]

I can definately understand where he is coming from. A lot of the reason people in my family are big is beacuse eating is a past-time. We do it because it is fun, and a social past-time. Food is eaten because it is so good, not really because it is good for you. I've been trying to change this up, but it's been tough for me.

I would like being able to scrap the whole eating thing and go for a liquid diet like that, but I've heard that it was bad for your body to eat only liquids. But I never read anything definitive about it.

[whatever123]

Reminds me of T-Nation velocity diet except that it's done for a limited period not for life

http://velocity.t-nation.com/free_on...et-program-3-0

[submessenger]

I love the idea - I'm not a food nut, I find food to be a necessary evil, rather than an enjoyable social exercise. I will seriously consider doing a test for this guy.

[elipson]

Ya. Because having zero fibre is a great idea for a diet.

Also, meal replacements already exist, with flavours.

Shitty idea.

[submessenger]

Ya. Because having zero fibre is a great idea for a diet.

Also, meal replacements already exist, with flavours.

Shitty idea.

I think you're missing the point - this isn't a meal replacement, it's a diet replacement.

Fiber is important for maintaining colo-rectal health, which assumes that you are consuming a bunch of **** (hehe) that your body can't or won't use.

I would be interested to learn about anal atrophy as a possible result of consuming an extremely efficient diet, but dude sounds like he's doing just fine.

(edit: recipe includes fiber: http://robrhinehart.com/?p=424)

[Permalost]

Isn't the post-stomach food-mixture pretty much a slurry already? If so, I'm not so sure about the digestive system atrophy issues.

[doc8404]

I'd be interested to know the long term effects on flora in the GI tract. I see potential for disease and ulcers without those.

[submessenger]

Isn't the post-stomach food-mixture pretty much a slurry already? If so, I'm not so sure about the digestive system atrophy issues.

Yeah, but I think there's a significant amount of digestion that occurs in the colon, including water (re)absorption, making the slurry more like the solid #2 healthy humans should have. Dude says he still poops, it's just much less frequent.