Comment by hamsternipples | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hamsternipples | Hacker News Reader

when I was younger and lived in the USA, I had a diet of virtually only mcdonalds (and burritos). I survived.

this has got to be, at least slightly more nutritious. LOL, what's the big deal? I'm also like 100% sure this is better than what the starving africans are eating.

why doesn't he just provide some constructive improvements instead of a graphically enhanced rant, with the assumption that the entire world eats a balanced nutritional diet?

oh yea, the various arguments against the man (and other fallacies), are nice touches too... seriously, who cares dude? if he's such a super experienced nutritionist, why doesn't he make his own soylent v2.0?

disclaimer: never tried soylent, nor care to try it, but soylent did inspire me to make my own version of easily reproduced "food". it's still in experimentation, but ironically this article was informative. it's given me a few new ideas to improve my own blend (which uses almond butter instead of soy as a base). thanks!

McDonald's food contains a larger variety of foods and nutrients than Soylent. For example, a Big Mac has all of the following:

Beef, Salt, Black Pepper, Bleached Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Canola Oil, Soybean Oil, Pickles, Egg Yolks, Onion Powder, Mustard Seed, Vegetable Protein, Turmeric, Lettuce, Onions

It's also loaded with HFCS and a laundry list of preservatives and additives. I'm not saying it's the healthiest food, but given a choice between the two, I'd choose the one that at least has a few real food components.

And before you mention Supersize Me and the effects it had on his health, remember that it was an n=1 study and The Fathead Movie did the same experiment and his health improved.

I would never mention that awful film. I only mentioned mcdonalds, because I grew up on "fast-food" and not healthy balanced diet food... actually I didn't know anything about nutrition until the soylent thing came out, and I decided I wanted to make my own version, so I started researching.

I have my own criticisms of soylent but that's not my point. (I don't think soy to be the best form of protein. I'm experimenting with a combination of almonds and chicken breast right now) so if, and when I become as well knowledgeable as that guy, and perfect my recipe I may post it for others to see -- but I don't know enough yet. I think he could have been more constructive though. I think maybe that actually soylent (or any other one-size-fits-all solution) is not universally good for everyone. maybe we should all be experimenting and trying to create a variety of different recipes.

I love the "it's sure healthier than eating a pile of rocks mixed in with cow shit" argument.

Yes, and hitting yourself across the face with rebar sure is healthier than driving it straight into your eye socket.

well, I didn't mean it like that.

IMO, the author of the article went way out of his way to try and prove soylent to be something... I'm not sure what he was trying to prove actually -- it seemed like he was generally kinda being negative. what bothered me is that he's spending so much energy to try and belittle something which is cheaper and probably healthier to eat than most fast food.

why didn't he just give constructive criticism?

EDIT: what I would like to see is some sort of concerted effort to try and make a cheap, inexpensive food, which isn't perishable. that's all. I'm sorry for being negative myself. I think such a product could go a long way for improvement of all humanity

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