Software engineer Rob Rhinehart thinks he never has to eat a traditional meal ever again. The 24-year-old from Atlanta, GA has developed a strange beige drink named “Soylent,” in reference to the 1973 science fiction film Soylent Green, which he claims contains all the required nutrients to form a healthy diet. In a recent interview with Vice, Rhinehart revealed he thinks the world would be much better off if his concoction was adopted by the masses, resulting in an overall healthier populace.
I read about this guy and his research. It’s truly fascinating and I’d be tempted to try it on myself as supplementation. What do you think?
I think it’s a dreadful idea. It’s not new. People have wrong-headedly been dreaming of a magic replacement for food for a long time. I suppose it might have some application as a therapy for people with food addiction issues. But he says this: “I don’t think we need fruits and veggies, though—we need vitamins and minerals.” And that, IMO, is literally exactly backward. We don’t need vitamins and minerals. We need fruits and vegetables. And we need meat and eggs. These complex, marvelous products of nature have what we need to grow a baby’s body inside our own body, or heal a wound, or fend off illness. And our understanding of what these whole foods have to offer, and how they do what the do for us, is still really quite under-developed. So anyone who imagines that we already know all the things that should be in an ideal food replacement — well, that’s just naive. We are nowhere close to knowing, with any real certainty, what should be in a food replacement.
Remember how the whole baby formula thing worked out? It turned out that it made your babies get fatter faster while simultaneously making them get sick easier and more often? That happened because somebody thought that they could make a fake food(which they could sell) that would be better than a real whole food which is freely produced and hence there is little way to profit from it. Sorry, no.
I’m not surprised that he feels good on this nutty regimen. People always feel better when they cut out processed crap, which indeed he has. But this fake drink is not real food. So when it comes to market, as I’m sure it will, I definitely will not be buying any.
Source: 
Women’s “reward” for working out is almost always related to their physical appearance in advertisements. What about becoming fitter, stronger, faster, or just being healthier? Who cares, so long as you look skinny!
A literal representation of what it means to chase after thin privilege.
And the fact that you need to be able bodied to conform to what they consider to be a “good” body is sick as well. Hey-o stair climb of ableism.
Can’t even.
I could rant all fucking night about this horrible image. But you already know what I would say. God. Throw off the shackles, women everywhere. Stop looking at this garbage. Stop supporting these crap companies and their crap advertising which is designed to destroy all your happiness and contentment. Love yourself. Just eat real food, the kind that doesn’t come in a damn box and that never has any advertisements anyway. Love yourself and just back away from all the bullshit that society is always shoving onto us. It’s just a machine, created by rich people, to sell you more and more stuff, and in the process it will grind you up heartlessly.
Stupid wedding-pressure propaganda can suck it. Your wedding day is NOT your one day to be beautiful, damn it. Every fucking day of every fucking year is your day. And you are already beautiful. And while I’m ranting, kudos to you, Estée Lauder, for choosing yet another sweetly bland white chick with blue eyes to represent “beauty.” That’s not annoying AT ALL.
Balanced Diet
This sort of thing annoys me. Why would cookies be considered good for my soul, and broccoli for my body? Why would the good of the soul be at all separate from the good of the body? Why would eating things that we all agree aren’t really that healthy be considered good for my soul, anyway? What is so good about that?
Don’t get me wrong. I do like cookies! I’m just saying that this graphic illustrates a fairly widespread persistent idea that, upon closer examination, makes absolutely no sense at all.
Eating stuff that is not good for your body is not good for your soul. What does that even mean, anyway? Meditation and relaxation are good for your soul. Love and unconditional acceptance are good for your soul. Maybe prayer is good for your soul. Cookies are just delicious. It’s okay to eat cookies if you want to — you’re the captain of your ship, after all. But don’t lie to yourself! Indulging in bad food is not good for your soul! That’s just ridiculous.
Pink Candy Corn (by newmanlp)
I think this is a good image to illustrate how we should all think about candy. I mean, look at this stuff. It bears no resemblance to real food whatsoever. It looks pretty much like plastic. We only respond to it because we know it’s made of sugar sugar sugar. But we wouldn’t really be that surprised if we stuck one in our pie-hole and it turned out to be plastic, would we? Just look at how fake it is. It is so obviously not food.
I basically have reclassified all candy in my mind. I put it in the same category as coke, meth, heroin, LSD. It’s a substance created in a lab which has powerful effects on our mood, brain chemistry and body chemistry. It can create nearly instant euphoria but the come-down can be even more intense. It is addictive and people can spend their whole lives craving it. If you give in to the craving, it makes you crave even more. It can have very serious negative side-effects, both in the short term and the long term. It can be entertaining/fun, you can use it to numb out the pain of your life, but in the end the side effects will catch up with you hard core.
Listen to Nancy Reagan this Halloween, kids. JUST SAY NO.
I’m not going to lie, this commercial kind of offended me.
WHOA but that is a whole bunch of bullshit. It’s like, multiple layers of bullshit all smashed together.
1. They are marketing their food as being NOT a diet food. As being a sort of normal, more-healthy option to choose when you finally see the light and give up on your insane diet. But in fact, their food is a diet food! It’s specifically created to help you lose weight! On a diet! That’s why it’s called “Healthy Choice.” So this is quite disingenuous. “Your diet is nutty-pants, but our diet is normal.” Uh, bullshit.
2. They are saying that low carb eating is hardcore, makes you hungry all the time, and stigmatizing it as basically being really crazy. Again, wow, bullshit!! Maybe, just maybe, low carb eating is actually a really great way to deal with things like diabetes, epilepsy, not to mention acne. Oh, and fat. Yeah, don’t forget fat. Way to use shaming as part of your marketing techniques. It’s an oldie but goodie. Make people feel as if their choices are crazy, bad, or inappropriate, so they lose their conviction and fall prey to your snake oil.
3. “Don’t diet. Eat Healthy.” Oh, so eating pre-packaged committee-created “food” is what you call healthy? ACK slajkflkdjfad;slfkajdsfk
In short, I have run out of words to describe how bull-shitty this is. Screw you guys. You don’t even post the ingredients of your food on your website. Don’t want me learning about all the seventeen-syllable chemicals you threw in there, huh?
what was your excuse??
Uh, excuse me for being a bit hostile here, but FUCK THAT NOISE RIGHT NOW. I will not be made to feel ashamed or inadequate just because some lady somewhere has managed to become ripped while mothering three small boys. She’s obviously a super-intense person who has put a huge amount of work into her physique, and mazel tov to her on her impressive success. I’m not hating on Maria Kang, whoever the heck she may be. But just because she looks like a fitness model in this pic, that means nothing to me and my life. I am doing things the way I want to, okay? At the pace that works for me, at the level of intensity that works for me, at the level of commitment that works for me. If my results don’t match hers, well, so what? This is my life and my body and I am pretty pleased with it. No one has the right to act as if I am not doing enough. So I say NO THANK you to this annoying bit of shaming fitspo. My excuse is FUCK YOU I DO WHAT I LIKE. That’s my excuse.
DailyGrace gives you some Daily Gradvice for this week’s Sexy Friday.
What the… ? No disrespect to the OP here, but this is just not okay.
1. Women are not crazy.
2. Any attempt to act as if women are crazy is pretty much just sexism on the hoof. That would be because women are not crazy any more than men.
3. If I actually need to back this up with logic, I will simply point out that nearly all serial killers are men. Also, nearly all violent abusers and most pedophiles. Oh yeah, rapists, too. I don’t think those guys are committing crimes because they are having their period, either.
4. Yes, women have periods. However, this is normal and there is nothing insane about it. Women have no reason to act like it’s a disease or a crazy thing, and men have no reason to act like it’s a big deal, either. Yeah, it’s uncomfortable or even very painful for some women. But acting like these women are also crazy is not helping the situation!
5. So in short, fuck this whole line of thought.
No yolk: eating the whole egg as dangerous as smoking? →
Could a sober science student read this for me and tell me if I should stop eating 4 eggs a day? I’m 39.
This is like the crap about coffee and red wine.
(/me eats another dozen eggs in oblivion.)
I’m not a sober science student. However, there were a few things that stood out for me. Let me talk it through.
1. All the subjects in the study already had heart disease. So something in their life was making them sick. Was it the eggs? Hmm, tough to say.
2. It wasn’t really a study in the more scientific sense of involving actual experiments with control subjects, double-blind precautions and so forth. It was a collection of anecdotal information from a bunch of people. And not even collected in real time, in log books or journals. No, they just interviewed them and accepted their answers as having validity or truth. Somewhere, Dr. Greg House is smirking. I don’t want to be nasty, but seriously: collecting a bunch of possibly-partly-true recollections about what people have been eating is not really very scientific. The “fact” that these people claim/admit to eating whole eggs hardly makes it “imperative” to take a hard look at eggs!
3. What else were these sick people eating? Were they eating sugar? Refined flours? Trans fats? Franken-foods? Dairy? Were they getting any exercise? No exercise? Lots of veggies or few veggies? What sorts of medications were they taking? This is what I mean when I say that this collection of “data” is not very scientific. If the study does not control for other dietary/lifestyle factors, it will not ever prove anything meaningful, nor will it be replicable in the scientific community.
4. So all that this study can really say is that some people who experienced narrowing of the arteries and heart disease claim to be eating a lot of eggs. At BEST this would be a correlative relationship. NO causal relationship has been established here. And honestly, since the data are not in fact real data at all, but merely the recollections of humans, I would not even really want to agree that correlation has been established. Since there were no controls and the so-called data have absolutely no guarantee of true validity, I might go so far as to say that no relationship between egg consumption and artery/heart disease has been established at all.
5. It’s really yellow journalism of the worst sort to compare eating eggs to smoking. Smoking has been studied extensively and with real science and it has actually been proven to cause cancer. Something like 400,000 people die from smoking-related illness every year. The science was convincing enough that Big Tobacco actually lost those lawsuits and paid huge money over it. I don’t think Big Egg has anything to worry about just yet!
So… yeah. My final opinion is that this study does not seem to be rigorous enough to prove much of anything, and I certainly will not be altering my diet in the slightest after reading about it.
I’ll do my best to avoid participating in lycanthropy.
LOL clearly I am doomed! You too, queenbliss.
Belviq Bullshit
ZONIA MMA: 1st Diet Pill Approved in 13 yrs … Fitblrs You KNOW What I’m Thinking!
I agree. Diet pills piss me off. It promises a quick fix. It absolves people from taking responsibility for their weight loss. And, eventually, they discover that these “magic pills” hurt people; sometimes even killing people.
The US approves for first diet drug in 13 years. It is called Belviq. It is all over the news. The last pill that was approved was later found to have negative impacts on health. The found that the pilled caused heart valve problems. Belviq, during its drug trial testing, was found to cause…
Right there with these guys. First, the quick fix is bullshit. In trials, Belviq caused a loss of 5% of body weight over about a year. But guess what ALSO caused a loss of 5% of body weight? The placebo in the control group. So right there, it’s plain that Belviq is magical in the same way that Fairy Dust is magical, ie, literally all in your head.
But it was originally rejected by the FDA because in trials with animals, a lot of tumors showed up. What do you wanna bet we haven’t heard the last of this little “side effect?” Would you risk cancer to be thin? (Sadly, I’m sure many people would say yes. But my answer, of course, is FUCK NO.)
And then there are the side effects that the manufacturers are legit copping to. These include depression and migraines. So you’ll be miserable and hardly able to leave your couch, but by GOD you will be a whole 10 lbs lighter, assuming you started out around 200.
Who the hell do these tools think they are, coming out with this crap?
What do all the paleo peeps think about this Beyond Meat stuff?
Beyond Meat is… Twitter!
Beyond Meat, a startup that makes vegan meat analogues, is making products that purportedly taste and feel like real meat (we haven’t yet confirmed this ourselves), have a better nutrition profile (no cholesterol, no saturated fat, but lots of protein), and will eventually be at a lower price point than the industrially-farmed stuff. The company has some surprising backers, especially the Obvious Corporation—a company founded by Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone and former Twitter VP of Product Jason Goldman—and venture capitalist powerhouse Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers. Why is Beyond Meat garnering so much interest?
Biz Stone Explains Why Twitter’s Co-Founders Are Betting Big On A Vegan Meat Startup
Here’s what the Beyond Meat website says is in this product:
Say hello to Beyond Meat™ Veggie Chicken Strips. These delicious plant-based strips have all of the convenience, taste, and tenderness you expect from real chicken—without the bad stuff (no saturated or trans fat, no cholesterol, no gluten, no antibiotics, no GMOs…and no meat). It’s a humane protein upgrade that will fool your taste buds while helping your health and the environment.
Water, Soy Protein Isolate, Pea Protein Isolate, Amaranth, Chicken Flavor (Maltodextrin, Yeast Extract, Natural Flavoring), Soy Fiber, Carrot Fiber, Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil, Dipotassium Phosphate, Titanium Dioxide, White Vinegar
So, they claim it has no GMOs. But it has canola oil, which by its nature is a GMO. In its unmodified state it is toxic. So every time we eat canola oil, it’s a GMO. And then there’s the maltodextrin — typically made from corn. Almost always a GMO nowadays, and also it’s becoming increasingly hard to even find non-GMO corn due to the scary miracle of cross-pollination. (Just another reason why I find it quite easy to shun corn. I don’t appreciate being the subject of a vast, uncontrolled science experiment on the part of Monsanto Corp.) And by the way, maltodextrin is a form of sugar. Why would a protein food even need to have sugar added? How is that supposed to be good for us, exactly? And titanium dioxide may turn out to be a carcinogen. But the jury’s still out on that one. And of course, the protein powders are heavily processed, and now even processed yet another step into this… stuff. Then there’s the yeast extract. I’m pretty sure that is the stuff they put in the foil packet of Ramen Noodles, actually. I’m sure that’s super-good for you.
So, in brief, my opinion is that this product should not be considered real food. It’s merely a food-like substance. I would not eat it no matter how hungry I was.
Also, in my opinion, it’s odd or maybe even emotionally painful to want to eat meat-like things if you are a vegan. I mean, I don’t try to disguise my meatloaf and pretend it’s Tofurkey, do I? No, I eat the meat and I am proud of myself. When I was keeping kosher, I didn’t search out fake bacon or fake shrimp. Whatever you choose to be, you ought to put your whole self in and let go of the rest. Don’t be pining after meat if you think it’s immoral and unhealthy! Let it go! You are a vegan, so eat vegan stuff like kale and coconut and whatnot. (I eat those things myself and I know darn well they are delicious.) Eat vegan stuff that is real food. Please don’t waste your money or your health on this pseudo-food garbage. It’d be a shame if you went to all the trouble of becoming a vegan only to develop atherosclerosis and diabetes from eating fake chicken.
Do I have the nads to wear the too tiny shirt outside today???
HI MOXY!!! I’m so sorry about Fatten. But I’m reblogging this pic to talk about that damn rhino graphic I’ve been seeing around here.
1. Rhinos are perfect the way they are. Nature made them that way to survive intensely harsh conditions including deserts where few other species can thrive. They are badasses, feared by pretty much all other animals. Few predators can touch them. And yeah, they are chunky. You’ll never see a thin rhino, because their bodies are made to be that way: massive and intimidating.
2. Unicorns are NOT REAL.
So this is a picture of a creature which is already perfectly embodying its own body-type, dreaming of transforming itself into something which does not even exist. There’s literally no amount of work that would accomplish this dream. It’s literally impossible. That’s what literally means: actual, in real life. That’s what impossible means: not at all possible. This is literally impossible. (Other examples: it is literally impossible for me to grow a third arm; it is literally impossible for me to win the lottery if I do not buy a ticket; it is literally impossible for me to flap my buttocks and fly away.) It is literally impossible for the rhino to become a unicorn.
So what, exactly, is this graphic saying? At first, you might think it’s saying, “dream big dreams, work hard and achieve them.” But as we have already seen, this dream is (say it with me now) LITERALLY UN-ACHIEVABLE. So what’s the message, then? “You are a rhino, a large, lumpy, wrinkly, fat, big-nosed creature, and no amount of work will turn you into a slender, white, sleek creature.”
Oh, that’s really nice. Thanks for that encouragement.
This message should in no way be construed as having any negative slant towards Moxy, who is awesomeness personified. Literally. Say hi to the Cube Ninja for me.
Daily Dharma: Kabbalah and Hinduism →
Jewish Kabbalah and Hindu Advaita are the same religion, differing only in name and certain practices. The essence is that there is One God beyond comprehension, called Brahman or Ayn Sof; a limited self-extension of Ayn Sof, called Adi Purusha or Adam ha-Kadmoni (both of which mean, “First Man”);…
Dude, I don’t agree with this even a little bit. Judaism and Hinduism are NOTHING like each other. And don’t act like Kabbalah can somehow be separated out from Judaism — it can’t. Ugh! This whole trend of trying to act like Kabbalah should be accessible to every fool on the street is just so ridiculous. Kabbalah is an esoteric, difficult field of study which is only for highly dedicated scholars who put years into it. It’s not for random people to pick up and mess around with. I realize I’m totally spitting in the ocean here… SIGH… probably sound like a complete freak. Whatever. It’s just wrong, y’all.
At Breakfast
• Ditch the Pop-Tart for a slice of high-fiber toast with strawberry jam.
• Gotta have carbs? Split a bagel with a coworker.
• Drink your two cups of joe black. Or order a single espresso instead of your usual latte.
• Swap OJ for the real deal—one fresh orange.
• Trade a side of regular sausage for turkey.
• Top your waffles with Reddi-Whip instead of syrup (or use sugar-free).
• Skip the whip on any Caribou Coffee 16-ounce drink.
• Eat your granola from a 4-ounce mug, not an 8-ounce bowl.
• Lose the Yoplait Thick & Creamy and have a Yoplait Fiber 1.
• Order pancakes, but hold the butter.
• Scramble together 4 egg whites instead of 2 whole eggs.At Lunch
• Leave the Swiss cheese out of your sandwich.
• Slather your bread with mustard rather than mayo and save 80 calories per tablespoon.
• Pass up croutons at the salad bar.
• Use up to 10 pumps of ranch dressing spray instead of pouring 2 tablespoons from a bottle.
• Devour a slice of Pizza Hut cheese pan pizza instead of the meat lover’s variety.
• Take your iced tea unsweetened.
• Reach for a Snapple raspberry white tea instead of a Snapple raspberry iced tea.
• Stuff chicken salad into a whole-wheat pita instead of between slices of multigrain bread.
• Make your burger turkey, not beef.
• Slurp minestrone soup instead of cream of anything.
• Go bunless—shed your hamburger roll.
• Use south-of-the-border savvy: Have a quesadilla made with two 6-inch corn, not flour, tortillas.On Your Snack Break
• Drink sparkling water instead of soda.
• Move your stash of Hershey’s Kisses at least 6 feet away from your desk—you’ll dip in half as often.
• Drain the heavy syrup from your can of fruit cocktail and then rinse the fruit with water before digging in.
• Have 1/2 cup of fresh grapes instead of that little snack box of raisins.
• Lay off the Lay’s Classic potato chips and have a handful of Rold Gold pretzels.
• Munch on a bag of Orville Redenbacher’s Smart Pop Kettle Korn, not Movie Theater Butter.
• Chase down the ice-cream truck for a Good Humor vanilla sandwich, not a King Cone.During Dessert
• Stop eating when you hit the crust. The edges and bottoms of baked goods are especially caloric because they absorb the butter used to grease the pan.
• Fill your bowl with sorbet instead of ice cream—you can have an extra 1/2 cup of the former and still slash calories.
• Next time a cocoa craving hits, ditch the dish of chocolate ice cream (about 3/4 cup) for a Fudgsicle.
• Have sugar-free Jell-O instead of pudding. Better your nighttime treat jiggle than your thighs.
• Go ahead and have that piece of birthday cake—just scrape off the chocolate frosting first.
• Eat 5 meringue cookies instead of 2 chocolate chip ones.
• Pass on the à la mode and savor that brownie au naturel.
• Can the cone. Have your ice cream in a bowl.
• Top your dessert with 1/2 cup of fresh berries instead of 2 tablespoons of chocolate syrup.In the Kitchen
• Substitute nonfat Greek yogurt for a serving of sour cream.
• Use chicken broth (low-sodium is best) instead of oil to sauté meat and veggies.
• Making homemade mac ‘n cheese? Cut 2 tablespoons of butter from the recipe.
• Replace the oil or butter in cakes with Sunsweet Lighter Bake prune-and-apple mixture or any brand of unsweetened applesauce.
• Next time you make meatballs, meatloaf, or burgers, go half-and-half with ground beef and turkey.
• When preparing packaged foods that call for butter or oil, like rice and stuffing, use a broth instead.
• Swap low-fat cottage cheese for whole-milk ricotta when you make lasagna or stuffed shells.At the Drive-Thru
• Pass up a Wendy’s baked potato with sour cream and chives and chow down on value fries instead. Amazing but true.
• Have a McDonald’s cheeseburger instead of a Quarter Pounder with cheese.
• Downsize your drink: Trade a large fountain soda (with ice) for a medium.
• Go for grill marks. Order a flame-broiled chicken sandwich rather than one that’s breaded (and usually fried in oil).
• Treat yourself to an ice-cream cone at McDonald’s instead of Dairy Queen.
• Crunch on one Taco Bell regular taco instead of a Ranchero Chicken Soft Taco. And all the hot sauce you want.
• Slurp a cup of Panera Bread’s low-fat chicken noodle soup instead of the cream of chicken with wild rice.
• Make your daily pick-me-up at Starbucks a skinny vanilla latte, not a regular.When You’re Not Cooking
• Request the lemon chicken with white rice, not fried.
• Skip the crunchy noodles with your bowl of wonton soup.
• Ask for an order of Szechuan Shrimp instead of your usual General Tso’s.
• Choose the pasta with 1/2 cup of marinara instead of 1/2 cup of Alfredo sauce.
• Indulge your inner carnivore with beef stroganoff, not meat lasagna.
• Go with the baked potato (butter only), not the mashed, as your side of choice.
• Dip your dinner roll in marinara sauce instead of olive oil.
• Avoid anything breaded. Flour and bread crumbs not only add calories but also absorb more cooking oil.
OMFG!!!! I can not believe those freakin’ crazy people at Women’s Health Magazine. Pan pizza instead of meat pizza? Stroganoff instead of lasagna? THESE ideas are supposed to help people lose weight? Skip the crust on your cheesecake? Seriously? It’s hilarious, yet also heartbreaking, to think that women out there have actually read this bizarre list of pointless bullshit and thought it might actually help them. “Treat yourself to an ice-cream cone at McDonald’s instead of Dairy Queen.” Like THAT’s gonna budge those last 10 pounds. Oh my God. I don’t even have words that are sufficiently scornful to really say all that needs to be said. Fuck those people. I mean, seriously, fuck them hard forever.
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