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[Pnx]

Vice article, and the guy's blog with a list of ingredients and volunteer information for trying out the stuff yourself.

So basically someone decided to take a very chemical approach to making food. He took various ingredients in raw, or near raw forms, then combined them to make a slurry that some people have compared to vomit, but from the sounds of things looks and tastes more like cake batter. From his experiences he's shared it's apparently much healthier than the diet he was taking before, and is significantly cheaper, if a little bit of a pain to put together. There's also some risk of making mistakes when mixing it up, and concerns about what different people's nutrition requirements might be, but I'm really liking this sound of this stuff.

I'm currently looking into what you'd need to make it yourself, some of it is quite tricky, but a lot of the ingredients are pretty easy to get, if sometimes a little out of the way.

[Xantalos]

I may try this in university.

[Solifuge]

Why does that list of ingredients remind me of Fullmetal Alchemist?

It's roughly a month after those blog entries were posted, but I fired off an email to the guy, and an application for the trial, if he's still taking on guinea pigs. Since I'm uninsured, I'm going to see if I can raise donations for the genetic testing, and before-and-after bloodwork, by offering to do a Vlog of my experiences going foodless for a week.

Hope I can. Otherwise, synthesizing the stuff on my own is going to be a bit tough, especially so for the more obscure stuff.

[Karlito]

The danger of a diet like this is there are probably other nutrients in food that the body requires that we haven't discovered yet, so if you do try a diet like this, eat a meal of real food occasionally so you don't die.

I for one enjoy eating and cooking, so I don't really see the appeal.

[Lectorog]

Beats the Kurzweil approach IMO (though they obviously have different goals).

I'd be all for at least trying this, but I figure I still have a few years of significant growing left, so I'll stick with the inefficient but more pseudonatural fuel for now, just in case.

[GlyphGryph]

I enjoy eating and cooking sometimes. But most of the time I don't want to bother, so I end up eating crap. Would probably be much, much better off with THIS than with another bag of Doritos and a bagel to get me through the day...

[Pnx]

Why does that list of ingredients remind me of Fullmetal Alchemist?

It's roughly a month after those blog entries were posted, but I fired off an email to the guy, and an application for the trial, if he's still taking on guinea pigs. Since I'm uninsured, I'm going to see if I can raise donations for the genetic testing, and before-and-after bloodwork, by offering to do a Vlog of my experiences going foodless for a week.

Hope I can. Otherwise, synthesizing the stuff on my own is going to be a bit tough, especially so for the more obscure stuff.

Well so far it seems to be mostly Maltodextrin for the carbohydrates, which is a common brewing ingredient and food additive that you can get for about half a dollar per 200g if you buy in bulk, and also 65g of olive oil for the fat.

The protein I haven't really looked into, but I'm thinking maybe protein powders that get used by body builders and such...

The vitamin powder might also be a good way to get in some vitamins, but failing that you can pick up supplements in just about any pharmacy that have most of those listed.

[MaximumZero]

I would be so in if I knew what the upfront costs would be. As it sits, I'm going to watch, and jump in if the water's ok.

[Pnx]

Guesstimates say probably under $5 a serving, but some of this stuff has to be bought in bulk, or is at least substantially cheaper in bulk.

I'm also thinking this is probably something you'd have twice day, rather than three times a day. So probably about $10 a day tops? I'm not sure, I think I'd have to do a lot of in depth research to find good sources for a lot of this stuff.

[Owlga]

I'd actually be totally for this. I don't even really like eating honestly. Outside of the occasional steak or burger.

If I could just drink this between a few steaks and burgers every few days for the taste and luxury I totally would.

[MaximumZero]

Guesstimates say probably under $5 a serving, but some of this stuff has to be bought in bulk, or is at least substantially cheaper in bulk.

I'm also thinking this is probably something you'd have twice day, rather than three times a day. So probably about $10 a day tops? I'm not sure, I think I'd have to do a lot of in depth research to find good sources for a lot of this stuff.

Well, I meant upfront as in: How much is getting that one batch from that one guy going to cost me? How much is the testing? (helpfully answered by Solifuge in the happy thread,) and is it going to be time consuming?

[MrWillsauce]

I'll stick with my diet of products synthesized from people plankton.

[Zrk2]

Intruiging. Will be following this. Could it be used in military rations or food aid, since it's apparently fairly cheap?

[Frumple]

Nerguffle. Five bucks a meal isn't fairly cheap. Been getting by for about a buck, buck fifty (with a vitamin supplement included, mind) for... years, now. And we're not talking just ramen or whatever. Grain base, bit of meat, could have vegetables if I were inclined. Seasoning, usually some extra cheese or suchlike.

What would interest me would be cost by weight. If it can get under a dime/oz then it's actually in the fairly cheap range and my inner scrooge is interested. Much more than that and it's getting into the untenable range for anything that's not seasoning or garnish or something.

[Pnx]

So, I've reading up on some comments.
The "recipe" he posted is for a whole day apparently, he consumes it over the course of the day, so it's less than $5 for a whole day, he listed the cost as being about $154 a month, which is about 1/4 what the average American spends on food.

People were also posting all kinds of criticisms of the diet itself, a lot of them conflicting ones, like how the protein and/or carbohydrates wasn't enough, or was too much, or criticisms of the types used (he uses Whey based protein, someone suggested that using a mix of hemp and rice protein might get better results).

Also I found out he apparently only plans to do trials in San Francisco for now, sorry Soli, I don't think this is something you're going to get in on any time soon, but I'd be more than willing to help you work out what you'd need to try something like this yourself.

I'm actually really interested in this sort of thing as a method of testing out various diets. It seems like it has a lot of potential for furthering knowledge of nutrition, because let's be honest here, we have a really poor idea of what actually makes for a good diet.