Soylent Update

I thought it was about time for an update on my Soylent experiment. I’ve been on about 90% Soylent for about a month and a half now. I ate food for a week and a half while my mom was visiting, and then for a week while I was out of town on a work meetup. Otherwise, I’ve mostly just been eating Soylent, except for the ocassional weekend pizza.

In this time, Soylent has gone through three different versions. Here’s how they’ve worked for me:

Version 1.0

The original. This was the version I was on for my first week.

The good:

• Completely filling;
• Made me feel really great — high energy, just felt really good; and
• I don’t have to shop, cook, eat, or wash dishes.

The bad:

• OMG gas. Peeled the paint off the walls.

Version 1.1

For this version, they halved the sweetener, which I really appreciated. It tasted less sweet and more neutral. They also added enzymes to help with the gas issues, but that didn’t make any difference to most people, and it made the formula a lot thinner and people complained of blood sugar spiking.

The good:

• Less sweet;
• I guess the texture was a bit smoother; and
• I don’t have to shop, cook, eat, or wash dishes.

The bad:

• Not filling at all. I got hungry pretty much right after having a glass; and
• Didn’t make any difference to me at all, as far as gas goes.

Version 1.2

Because of the limited improvement in digestive issues and the satiety problems, they removed the enzymes for this version. They also replaced the fish and canola oil blend with a canola and algae oil blend, making Soylent 100% vegan.

The good:

• Back to filling, although I still do not feel as satiated as I did with 1.0;
• As with 1.0, I feel really great just in general;
• I suppose it’s nice that it’s vegan. Morally speaking, we should all probably be vegan; and
• I don’t have to shop, cook, eat, or wash dishes.

The bad:

• Gas;
• I have some bloating on this version that I didn’t with any previous; and
• This version sometimes makes me feel a little bit nauseous after a serving. There are reports on the forums of a lot of people getting a “bad” batch of 1.2 — I think it’s more that this formula just causes a bit of nausea in people, but I have no idea why because they don’t seem to have changed much from 1.0 just in the basic formula.

Version 1.3 will be arriving soon, but the only real change with it is just that they made the packaging more efficient.

I have found that as far as the digestive issues go, I am fine if I have Soylent for breakfast, and then it becomes a little uncomfortable if I have it for lunch, but it’s not actually until I also have it for dinner that I really have a problem. I’ve tried various OTC aids as suggested in the Soylent forums (Beano, probiotics, kombucha, peppermint, activated charcoal, drinking very slowly, standing on your head for 1 hour after drinking and reciting the tenets of the Noble Eightfold Path), but so far, nothing really makes a substantial difference.

Until they fix the gas issues, I’m going to probably start having it for breakfast and dinner and eat a sandwich or something for lunch, and see if that helps. Not to mention, since I’ve been running more regularly, a pitcher of Soylent per day doesn’t seem to be quite enough to keep me from going to sleep hungry (although it should be).

If eating solid food once a day doesn’t fix these problems, I might need to throw in the towel until they fix the formula.

Everyone will tell you that specific food cravings mean you’re missing some essential nutrient: for me, I previously always craved rare, bloody red meat (no matter how many beans and lentils I ate, and even though I always took a high iron multivitamin). But on Soylent, I don’t get any food cravings at all, ever, which is really pretty amazing. Now, I will still absolutely eat an entire cake in one sitting should one just happen to appear before me, but not because I’m hungry for it.

I have been on the 28 bags per month subscription, but between the travel and ocassionally eating other food, I am not getting through my subscription nearly as fast as they’re shipping it. So I’ve paused it to finish up my stock, and then I might try the 14 bags/month subscription instead. I’m not sure that will be quite enough, though, and I wish they offered something in between that and 28.

I’ll update on this again in another month.