Soylent Follow-up #1

I'm trying Vanilla and Chocolate mass builder at the moment. Nutritech is excellent, pharmaceutical grade, and it mixes really well with added lactase enzymes. Chocolate + Olive oil tastes better than Vanilla + Olive oil, but both tastes quite salty, even though it contains no salt or Sodium!
Note that I did not mention Sodium as an ingredient in the previous post, but it is required and obtained from a teaspoon of Himalayan Pink salt, ideally.
If you are South African, you will do really well with Dis-Chem's Spectrum Multivitamin+mineral, but it is still hard to get Potassium Gluconate Powder unless you import.
See the nutritional profile of the Dis-Chem Spectrum Multivitamin here: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/custom/2816181/2

Living on a liquid diet is quite an adjustment, and in my experience you will crave for solid food, so it does take time. This is not for everyone, and I am only doing it as an experiment.
However, actually getting 100% RDA nutrients every day makes a huge difference. I have never felt so composed, focused, calm and powerful as I do now, even from the first day.

I have realized how much my usual diet lacked in the proper array of nutrients. I would partake in solid food when cravings overwhelm, but I would not be dependent on food save for the baseline Soylent consumed each day. Then one has to freedom to omit foods that are less than ideal, like sugars, gluten and excessive red meat.

Care should be taken to optimally digest the whey mix, this is accomplished by making the mixture as thick as possible and allowing for 2 hours to digest before drinking liquids again. You will find that if you drink lots of water directly after consuming the mix, then you are diluting the solution which will result in poorer absorption. Unabsorbed protein will cause gas in the intestines, but if the solution is kept concentrated in the stomach and time is allowed for proper absorption then gas is minimized and absorption maximized.

Soylent Recipe and Nutritional Profile

Rob Rhinehart is experimenting with an essential, optimized food concoction, but a lot of his readers wanted specifics regarding his Soylent ingredients posted here. I think it is yet laborious to measure out vitamin & mineral powders for every mix, much easier just to use compound supplements and multivitamins.

Choose the right multivitamin base and 90% of the work is done, save for those annoying elements bunking class in almost every multivitamin out there, namely Potassium and Phosphorus. As one commenter aptly put, one's brain will catabolize itself without Choline, another tardy player late to the mix.

I live in South Africa, so I added a local mass builder for the protein & carb requirements. I doubled the dosage to 90g/day protein and 120g/day carbs (mainly maltodextrin). I increased the protein/carb ratio, since I saw a couple of commenters defending ketogenic diets, and I don't want to climb the ceilings from too much energy.

To meet the Potassium RDA is more expensive than meeting the entire Vitamin & Mineral RDA profile, but it's easier than eating 8 bananas a day.

Choline is also noticeably absent from 95% of Multivitamins, but apart from the hassle it is relatively inexpensive to supplement. I added only 1/2 the RDA, since Inositol is also present in the supplement. I couldn't find a full Choline supplement from a supplier that offers international shipping, but it is readily available in the US, e.g. Amazon.

I added a full Probiotic panel with all the exotics, but only at a 1/3 of the recommended dosage. Whilst Probiotics are not entirely essential, I thought it would be a good measure at a reasonable price point.

The Calcium supplement also contains 30% Phosphorus RDA, again for reasons of international availability, but a full Phosphorus supplement may be easily found in the US.

At first I had a separate Vitamin K2 supplement, but since Olive oil contains 10% Vitamin K2 RDA per tablespoon, I thought it to be excessive at 4+ tbsp/day of Olive oil.

An apple a day... I am concerned that not chewing and not using my teeth will be bad in the long run, so I advocate chowing down an apple each day. This will also add some good fibers, missing until now, and give the jugular a good workout.

$90.0/month: Anabolic Mass Builder by Nutritech
$6.60/month: Liquid Multi Gels by NOW Foods
$9.39/month: Potassium Gluconate Powder by NOW Foods
$3.40/month: Calcium by Enzymatic Therapy
$1.96/month: Choline & Inositol - 500 Mg by NOW Foods
$4.97/month: Probiotic Defense by NOW Foods
$30.0/month: Extra virgin Olive oil
$10.0/month: Apples

$156.32/month: Total


The nutritional analysis of the above mix can be seen in the pics below.

Vitamin A, E and the B complex is high above the %DV, but values are below the upper tolerable limits, at least according to a cursory search.

Iron may seem deficient at 9 mg, but apparently that level is good if you are male. Phosphorus is also low at 30%. A commenter mentioned Silicon as something that may be lacking in the long run.

For myself I think it would be good to chow on some greens now and then, just to reconnect mastically with nature. Slow munching on a raw spinach leaf might do the trick, in addition to an apple a day.