Ingredients

Old flavors, new flavors, dead flavors.

This entry is part 127 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

My wife just reminded me that I need to post something about the state of the flavors of Keto Chow. The ones I can get have diminished significantly in the last while:

  • Piña Colada: discontinued
  • Smooth Banana: discontinued
  • Butter Cream Toffee: discontinued
  • Cinnamon Bun: discontinued
  • Mint Chocolate: not certain, most of my suppliers have removed it from their sites, and it’s getting harder and harder to source. Might not be long for this world =(

We still have some stock of a few of the discontinued ones (mostly samples and days) but we’ll be watching the stock levels closely. The ones I can still get easily:

  • Rich Chocolate
  • Vanilla
  • Strawberry
  • Snickerdoodle
  • Chocolate Fudge
  • Cookies and Cream

So I guess it’s good timing that I’m getting closer to having my own flavors for Keto Chow. Speaking of that: today I received the first 5 samples of the protein + flavoring that I’ll be using in Keto Chow 2.0. I’d be mixing it up right now but we made 12 meals worth last night and don’t have any clean blender bottles available (not to mention I need to drink down the supply in my fridge). Closer and closer every day!

By |2016-05-27T12:09:27-06:00May 5th, 2016|Ingredients, Ketogenic, Keto Chow, Site or Store Stuff|2 Comments
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Coconut flour shortage = price jump for Ketofood

This entry is part 21 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

Last night I blew through most of a 25lb bag of coconut flour mixing up Ketofood. I went to order more and, as predicted, the large 25lb bags appear to be out of stock everywhere. I’m not sure if they just stopped making it or if the little notice at the bottom of their product page is relevant

As we transition to our new packaging you may receive either original or new packaging depending on the inventory status of the item(s) you ordered. Thanks for your patience!

Hopefully they’re just switching packaging and in a short time I’ll be able to get the big bags again. Until then I’m stuck ordering 3, 4 or 5 lb bags at around 2x the cost. I raised the price of Ketofood and plan to lower it back down if I can source coconut flour close to the old price. Somebody remind me, OK?

 

Update: Nutivia replied to my tweet about the stock status: “We hope to have it back in stock by mid-January. Thank you for your patience.” So there you go.

By |2014-12-19T13:41:08-07:00December 19th, 2014|Soylent, Ingredients|4 Comments
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Change in recipe – adding Xanthan Gum

Beginning today, all of the mixed People Chow I’m sending out will have 4g of Xanthan Gum per week. I’ve been testing it in my own batches and there’s a marked improvement in the texture of the final product. I was going to wait on this for a bit longer but on Monday I shipped out a batch that included some samples. It was past midnight (technically Tuesday then) and I didn’t want to mix up an additional batch… so I made the samples from my own batch I had just mixed up that night. If I want to keep the samples accurate then I need to have the final product be the same thing. I’ve updated the recipes on diy.soylent.me as well to reflect the change:

By |2014-09-25T08:05:51-06:00September 25th, 2014|Soylent, Ingredients|2 Comments
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Going to try a new supplier

This entry is part 26 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

I’m out of Whey Protein and won’t be getting it until Wednesday because Amazon took 2 days to actually ship my order. Same thing happened a few weeks ago with my Potassium Citrate and my Calcium/Magnesium/D3 powder. So I’m going to give supplementwarehouse.com a try and see if they can do better. We’ll see. Their price on Cal/Mag/D3 is better but shipping almost takes away that advantage.

Update: So my supplementwarehouse.com order just shipped, so let’s talk about processing time. I ordered on July 14 and it shipped 2 days later on July 16.

When I ordered the same Whey Protein from Amazon it took 2 business days to process and ship as well, the Calcium/Magnesium/D3 took 4 business days to process and ship from Amazon though. So far supplementwarehouse is doing somewhat better (in addition to costing less).

Update again: Well, it had NOW whey protein isolate in it, was a fair price and came quickly. I’ll likely order from there again.

By |2014-07-22T15:31:52-06:00July 14th, 2014|Soylent, Ingredients|Comments Off on Going to try a new supplier
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“The gig is up” – increasing costs, but still cheap(ish)

This entry is part 23 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

So I just placed another order for 5 kg of Hard Rhino whey protein isolate. Some months ago, I switched from NOW wpi to the Hard Rhino and did a review of it; in that review I talked about how they had raised their prices on the bulk packages, looks like they did it again.

If you are just getting in to doing your own DIY soylent, Hard Rhino can be a good source because it sells packages all the way down to 500 g for $15. With the new pricing, the bulk saving have gotten smaller.

prices May 2014
brand pound kg price per KG per lb per 55g serving
NOW 10.00 4.55 115.31 25.37 11.53 1.395
NOW 5.00 2.27 64.99 28.60 13.00 1.573
hard rhino 1.10 0.50 14.99 29.98 13.63 1.649
hard rhino 2.20 1.00 27.99 27.99 12.72 1.539
hard rhino 11.00 5.00 104.99 21.00 9.54 1.155
hard rhino 22.00 10.00 199.99 20.00 9.09 1.100
prices July 2014
brand pound kg price per KG per lb per 55g serving
NOW 10.00 4.55 119.82 26.36 11.98 1.450
NOW 5.00 2.27 71.02 31.25 14.20 1.719
hard rhino 1.10 0.50 14.99 29.98 13.63 1.649
hard rhino 2.20 1.00 27.99 27.99 12.72 1.539
hard rhino 11.00 5.00 135.99 27.20 12.36 1.496
hard rhino 22.00 10.00 265.99 26.60 12.09 1.463

With the price changes, it’s now less expensive to buy the 10 pound box of  NOW wpi. Right as I started to write this paragraph I realized that, called Hard Rhino, and cancelled my order so I could order the NOW wpi from Amazon. Anyhow, as it stands the NOW whey protein isolate is currently the least expensive if you buy it in the 10 pound box.

Another cost increase is GNC Mega Man Sport. Ever since I started doing DIY you could get 50% off a second container if you bought 2 at the same time. Add a GNC Gold Card discount and you could get it for much less than the official $50 a container ($67.48 for two). Well the 50% off on the second container has ended. Your only option for a discount now is getting the Gold Card. Why do I stick with GNC? well to start with: it’s fun to have bright yellow pee from all the B vitamins! Seriously though there are a lot of things in the GNC that have been hinted at helping your body but don’t have a RDA. It’s also conveniently powdered and isn’t terribly expensive. Other people use vitamin pills from Kirkland to great effect, I just haven’t wanted to get into balancing out all the micro nutrients. I tried it once about 4 months ago but just came back to MaxK’s original recipe.

The end result is the cost of people chow has gone up some. It’s still cheaper than going to McDonalds every day (and far better for you) but cost increases suck. I still have some stuff I bought at the lower prices but (probably tomorrow) I’m going to raise the prices I charge people for a week of People Chow.

By |2016-10-13T07:28:33-06:00July 9th, 2014|Soylent, Ingredients|2 Comments
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Old masa and diminishing tortilla flavor

This entry is part 21 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

I’ve been running through ingredients rather quickly lately since I started shipping out people chow to people.

Hence why I have 6 bottles of calcium/magnesium/D3 on hand right now

Hence why I have 6 bottles of calcium/magnesium/D3 on hand right now

I discovered something surprising: the strength of the “tortilla” taste appears to be directly related to the age of the Masa Harina (corn flour) that is used in People Chow. I had previously purchased a 50 pound bag of Maseca Masa off Amazon at an incredible price and had it stored in airtight containers in a cool, dry place. Right about the same time I bought the 50 lb. bag I had also purchased several bags of Great Value (walmart) Masa that I forgot about whilst I was using up the Maseca. I finally finished off the Maseca and started using the Great Value right abotu the same time I started shipping out people chow. I kept the Great Value for my own use and bought new Maseca (since that’s what was in the recipe) to send out.

I hadn’t really noticed but the strong tortilla or tamale flavor of the masa had been diminishing as I worked through the 50 lb bag and was essentially gone when I was consuming the smaller bags. It wasn’t until I was emptying the last of the Great Value that I noticed the “best before” date on the bag. November 2013. Wait, what? I wasn’t worried about getting sick from it but sheesh, that stuff was past expiration when I bought it! (that’s a PSA in and of its self, apparently).

The next time I mixed up a batch with the new Maseca (oddly enough it was week after I shot my “how to mix up a week of dry ingredients in 12 minutes” video) and took a drink with fresh masa in it I was very surprised. Took me a second meal of the new stuff to realize what the difference was. I personally really like the tortilla/tamale taste and I was amazed I hadn’t noticed it was gone until it came back, because there was a huge difference.

I guess the moral of the story is: if you like the tortilla/tamale taste: buy the freshest masa you can get. If you think the corn taste is the worst thing about people chow look for masa that’s nearing it’s expiration date instead (or buy some and hoard it for a few months?), though I can’t say what that will do to the nutrient profile – maybe nothing?

By |2016-10-13T07:28:33-06:00July 1st, 2014|Soylent, Ingredients|Comments Off on Old masa and diminishing tortilla flavor
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Mixing Vitamin K supplement into my batches

This entry is part 20 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

For the past few months I’ve been using olive oil in my DIY soylent “People Chow” because it’s supposed to be better for you than soybean oil and humans have been consuming it for a couple thousand (recorded) years. One thing that Soybean oil has that Olive oil doesn’t is vitamin K. Vitamin K does the exact opposite of rat poison (among other things) in that it helps blood that’s leaking out of you skin coagulate and form wheaties. You can get vitamin K from green veggies and in particular from parsley.

Some people are wary of Soybean oil because of the phytoestrogen factor (does it mimic estrogen?) but everything I’ve read says that isn’t something you need to be concerned about. QuidNYC has a great write up in the notes of his Super Food recipe about oxidative stress in Canola and Soybean oil. And then there is the issue with vitamin K in soybean oil being destroyed by UV light. It’s not likely a container of oil is going to go out into the sun. But People on anti-coagulants like Warfarin need to watch their vitamin K intake. This site has a handy tip:

For those of you passionate for your soybean, canola and vegetable oils – there is good news. Exposure of oils to sunlight or fluorescent light destroys approximately 85% of the vitamin K. You must expose them to sunlight or fluorescent light for at least 48 hours.

Last time I bought oil at the grocery store it was on a shelf exposed to florescent light for probably a lot longer than 48 hours. So if you don’t want to bleed out you’ve got 2 choices:

  1. Get your oil from a bottle that wasn’t ever taken out of the original box or the container is opaque like metal
  2. Use a different oil and use a vitamin K supplement

I opted for number 2. To that end I found two vitamin K2 supplements. One is MK-4 and the other is MK-7. There is a lot of discussion as to which is better for you though most agree that the K2 variants are better than K1. So because I have two different supplements I’ve been taking one caplet on even days of the month and the other on odd days of the month. After my recent video on mixing 7 days at a time someone suggested I should just mix it in with the powder.

I have been hesitant to add it to the powder mix because the MK-4 supplement is made partly with alfalfa and I didn’t want it to affect the taste. Well, I tried it this morning.

MK4 caplet

MK4 caplet

When I mixed up my morning soylent I emptied a caplet into the powder. I wanted it to be a bit of an extreme test with 3x more than there would normally be – an entire days worth in one blender bottle so it could be the “worst case scenario.”

That be Alfalfa

That be Alfalfa

After mixing it all up and letting it sit in my backpack on the way to work, like always, I can’t taste any difference. So I’m going to call this one confirmed.

confirmed

The end result being: from here on out I’m going to be adding the powder out of 3 and 4 of the caplets to each week batch and mixing it all in. That will be one less step for my own consumption and for the people buying mixed people chow from me.

By |2016-10-13T07:28:33-06:00June 20th, 2014|Ingredients, Soylent|1 Comment
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Mixing your Own Calcium Magnesium and D3: good idea or not?

This entry is part 17 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

TLDNR: probably not, unless you like buying 9 months worth at a time.

So I ordered some stuff from bulksupplements.com through amazon (choline and potassium citrate) and was looking at some of the other stuff they sell. Among others, they have pure calcium citrate, magnesium citrate and vitamin D3. The one ingredient I go through faster than any other is the NOW foods Calcium & Magnesium – 8 oz. – the price on it tends to fluctuate a lot. I bought it last week for $12.27 including shipping, now it’s $10.17 including shipping and I think at one point I got it for $6, I started wondering if I could mix my own equivalent for less.

It’s Spreadsheet Time!

So I ran the numbers. The first thing to be aware of is this handy note from bulksupplements about the D3: “This supplement contains around one hundred thousand IU per gram and has no fillers of any kind present in it.” So 1g has 100,000 IU in it? holy crap! Check out the rest of the warnings on this page. Based on that, I’m thinking it’s prolly not worth doing the D3. Not when I can get caplets of whatever dose I want from Wal-mart for $0.06 a dose.

Let’s ignore the D3 then and talk about the calcium and magnesium. Based off the labels, I’d need 2.66g of Magnesium citrate and 1.92g of Calcium Citrate to get the 400&400mg of actual Magnesium and Calcium that’s in the NOW which has 50 doses per bottle. If I buy 500g bags of both and make 500 doses it’s going to cost me $9.69 in bulk ingredients. If it get all nuts and buy the 1KG bags, each group of 50 doses will cost me $7.43 (both figures assume free shipping). It would result in using 3.54g of Magnesium Citrate and 2.54g of Calcium Citrate daily to equal the 6g of NOW that’s in People Chow 3.0.1.

End result: yes buying the bulk powders and mixing your own *would* save you money. But you’ll need to buy it in 1kg bags (which would last 282 days for the magnesium and 393 days for the calcium) in order for it to be cost effective. You also would need to either get a scale that can measure 2.438mg of D3 for a day or use a capsule supplement.

More fun facts: getting the 1kg each of the bulk powders would cost you $63.92. To get 282 days worth of NOW Cal/Mag/D3 would be 8 bottles, and at today’s rate of $10.17 that’s $81.36

By |2014-07-22T15:42:43-06:00June 16th, 2014|Soylent, Ingredients|Comments Off on Mixing your Own Calcium Magnesium and D3: good idea or not?
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Hard Rhino WPI Review

This entry is part 14 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

So last week I had just ordered another 5 pound bottle of NOW foods Whey Protein Isolate. I started looking at the wildly variable price of the Choline bitartrate and was searching around for some that cost less when I found some by a company called Hard Rhino. It was less but wasn’t free shipping, they do a fixed shipping cost for all orders on Amazon. So I started looking at the other stuff they sold and discovered they had Whey Protein Isolate for crazy low prices. I found their web site and found larger sizes available and free shipping on orders over $100. The original prices turned out to be an error and they raised them, though they are still less than NOW and the additional smaller sizes give people who just want to try people-chow/soylent an opportunity to not spend as much money. I cancelled my 5lb NOW order and ordered 10 kg of Hard Rhino.  (more…)

By |2016-10-13T07:28:37-06:00February 28th, 2014|Ingredients, Soylent|1 Comment
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