Soylent Wiki talk:Community Portal

Hello everyone! This is the community portal for the Soylent wiki, where we can just have general discussions about the wiki. Feel free to make topics, ask questions, make suggestions, etc.

TA (talk) 22:57, April 2, 2013 (UTC)

Carbohydrate Sources Suggestions?
Hi everyone!

Does anyone have any good suggestions for carbohydrates/oligosaccharides. I'm currently using maltodextrin as he suggested, but perhaps oligofructose (also known as fructooligosaccharides/FOS) would be good to try out alongside it? (Although it's 1.5 kcal/g vs maltodextrin's 4 kcal/g, so I/you would need to be careful.) However, it's a bit difficult to find FOS at the right scale and price. Any suggestions from fellow followers?

108.254.106.45 04:54, April 5, 2013 (UTC)Sarah M

Hi Sarah.

It seems safe to add a small amount of oligofructose to the mix. Counts as some fiber and promotes the absorption of calcium, but this can also be achieved just adding fiber and calcium. So I don't know if it's worth the effort.

As for the carbohydrates suggestion, all types have the same nutritional value: energy. The difference is the rate at which that they are absorbed. The glycemic index (GI) measures that, the maltodextrin has a very high and unhealthy GI value. However the GI is measured under very unrealistic conditions, and the effective GI depends on the other nutrients that are ingested alongside it.

From Rob's reports (or more exactly the lack thereof) the maltodextrin-based soylent seem to be safe in that regard, but would be good to have more data. Have you experienced any sort of sugar crash while using maltodextrin? By any chance you have access to a glucose meter to check it?

Welcome aboard.

Teseracto (talk) 17:10, April 5, 2013 (UTC)

Hi!

It's moreso that I experience sugar rushes and not the crash. After I drink some I'll get a nice little (and sometimes huge) burst of energy. I'll get hungry again eventually and start zoning out. But as soon as I drink some more, I'll feel full and have more energy. My body's also still adapting to it though, today's day 2 but I'm already noticing quite a good difference in my energy, cravings, and focus. I haven't had a glucose meter to check quantitatively at all though. It seems like matodextrin is pretty safe and I like the way it's treating me right now, tasting, as well as the simplicity of one ingredient carbohydrate-wise so I'll probably end up sticking with that unless you think there would be a better way to go about it. I figure give my body a week to get used to it and then I can start experiementing a little!

And thank you, I'm glad to see other people doing the same thing!

108.254.106.45 17:37, April 5, 2013 (UTC)Sarah M

It's a bit more expensive, but I have been looking at adding isomaltulose to the mix as well as some barley. Anyone trying something similiar?

70.103.9.2 20:22, April 6, 2013 (UTC)Chris

I would suggest something more traditional i.e. well tested. I've heard about Quinoa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa) however not tried. In my region of the world buckwheat porridge looks a good candidate (I don't know if an English word "porridge" is apropriate, I mean a food on the photo in this article  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasha) One can buy it in an already preboiled and crushed form for an instant preparation. So I think it could be powdered as well. Probably quinoa should be also preboiled for use in soylent. Both have pretty low glycemic index, quinoa - 35, buckwheat - 40.

I think it may be not easy to replace existing food and chemical content may be just small fraction of the task. (there are also bacterias in our body, etc.) However good luck!

Multivitamins
I see people here talking about finding sources for all the micronutrients within soylent. I would think that covering these with a multivitamin would be the easiest solution, and in fact I've found one that has (at least) 100% of everything except for Sodium, Chloride, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Biotin and (oddly) Vitamin A. Is there anything inadvisable with crushing up one of these every day and adding it in? I didn't want to put the brand of vitamin here, didn't know if that'd be kosher, but after researching online, I was able to purshase it at the nearest pharmacy.

Also, somewhat related, will we eventually have a specific place to discuss sources and ratios, etc? I've made a spreadsheet (seems we all have) to calculate ratios of supplements to their various elements, and would love to get some confirmation that I'm actually thinking correctly.

HungryJoe (talk) 00:07, April 9, 2013 (UTC)HungryJoe