Preparation

New flavor options and simpler shipping

This entry is part 29 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

Following a discussion on Reddit, I’ve added the option for having cocoa powder mixing in with people chow. I’ve been doing it myself for a while and it mixes better if you mix it all at the same time (though the Hershey Special Dark powder I’m using tends to have a few little tiny clumps that survive the mixing process on occasion). I’m also double bagging the stuff and using thicker bags now.

From left to right: regular, +1 tablespoon of cocoa a day, +3 tablespoons of cocoa a day

From left to right: regular, +1 tablespoon of cocoa a day, +3 tablespoons of cocoa a day

I also just changed the way the shipping calculation works. Before it would have a list of the different shipping options available in a drop down menu. Often people would miss the less expensive but just a speedy options so now it only shows the least expensive option. Should make everybody happier =)

By |2016-10-13T07:28:30-06:00August 5th, 2014|Preparation, Soylent|1 Comment
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Mixing up a meal of DIY soylent (video)

This entry is part 28 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

I’m back doing the “regular” People Chow (as opposed to Low-Cal) and I’m mixing the oil into each meal instead of downing the days worth when I’m getting ready in the morning. I figured it would be a good time to make a video just about mixing up a meal in a blender bottle to highlight how easy it is. It ends up with 4 of these a day for 2000 calories. I have another video that shows how to prepare a week’s worth of the powder in 12 minutes. On a side note, I’m currently using Canola Oil (and some cocoa powder) in my soylent. I was using Extra Virgin Olive Oil but the brand that I had was really, REALLY strong flavored and mixing it in messed up the flavor of everything. At least it’s not soybean oil.

By |2016-10-13T07:28:33-06:00July 30th, 2014|Preparation, Soylent|Comments Off on Mixing up a meal of DIY soylent (video)
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Daily Storage

This entry is part 22 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

So a recent thread on /r/soylent asked what people use to store their daily Soylent. Here is what I do. Storage Containers I’ve been consuming People Chow for over 6 months now and have 4 empty containers from GNC Mega Man Sport. Three of those are from mixing and selling People Chow over the last 3 weeks. Anyhow – The labels come off quite easily, they seal well and I can fill one up with about 7 cups of powder, making for around 7 meals. I leave one at work for lunch and have two at home (my recipe yields three 1 cup meals a day). When I only had the one container I would just take it to and from work every day. I started doing it this way right about the time I started mixing 7 days of powder at a time. For oil you can fill a container with oil and just use a measuring spoon to get the right amount out for each meal. I’ve mentioned it before but for oil I just plug my nose and down the daily oil when I’m getting ready in the morning. It’s not something that hardly anyone could put up with, I’m not recommending it.

Scooping out the powder from a bulk container instead of trying to get 1/3 from my daily bag has made preparing my lunch at work a 20 second job. A co-worker messages me that they’re leaving for lunch and all I have to do is scoop out some stuff into a blender bottle and make a quick stop at the drinking fountain to fill up on water. Yes, those are laundry detergent scoops in the picture. They’re 1/2 cup, fit into the mouth of my blender bottles easily, come to a point (making getting into corners easy), and it’s what was sitting on the counter one day when I needed a measuring scoop. So I washed it and have used it ever since.

By |2016-10-13T07:28:33-06:00July 8th, 2014|Preparation, Soylent|Comments Off on Daily Storage
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My thoughts on (s)oylent

This entry is part 18 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

Over on the Soylent discussion forum, Nicole Goodkind asked for people’s thought on Soylent. I emailed her and decided I might as well put it up here too.

 

Some people on the forum and reddit get uppity if you call the DIY soylent “Soylent” with a capital S and I’m not cool enough to have gotten the real stuff.

I saw the kickstarter campaign back when it first happened and initially thought it was a joke campaign somebody put together with a relabeled energy bar labeled “Soylent” as a play on the movie. I though “dangit – I should have thought of that!.” It was nearly 2 weeks later that I realized that it was an actual thing with a real product that wasn’t a joke. I talked with some friends at work about it and I got pretty excited when I saw the Ars Technica series on it. I wanted to order some but didn’t want to pay $250 for a month and didn’t want to wait.
New Years Day 2014 I finally decided I was going to DIY it, mostly as a way to control calories and lose weight. I researched a bit and arrived on the most popular recipe “People Chow” as the one I would go with. I drove around to vitamin stores in my local area trying to find all the ingredients but being a holiday I was stymied in my efforts. I ordered what I hadn’t been able to buy locally off Amazon and waited a few days for the stuff to arrive.
My family has been supportive, mostly because I’m not drinking soylent 100% of the time. I did that at first and still try to stick to it as much as possible to lose weight; but it’s hard to pass up a really nice dinner that I’ve cooked for the wife and kids. When we have a big get together I don’t even worry about it; why would I eat soylent when there’s bbq chicken or broccoli covered in nacho cheese?
The convenience of mixing up a cup of powder in a blender bottle is the nicest part (see my post at http://www.people-chow.com/tile-is-done-its-soylent-timetm/ or my post at http://discourse.soylent.me/t/soylent-at-delicate-arch/12948 ). For counting calories it’s ideal – I put in my exercise, add “Low Cal People Chow” for breakfast, lunch and (usually) dinner and I’m done. I recently changed my method for measuring the ingredients and now I’m doing a week’s worth of meals in 15 minutes. I feel better than I did before I started and my blood work was rather good last check (http://discourse.soylent.me/t/2-months-lab-results-most-looks-good-except-vitamin-d/11820) except for a vitamin D deficiency that’s easily fixed with a supplement. I’m planning on continuing on DIY soylent for quite a while (years or longer). Back in March I bought a bunch of bulk ingredients and computed that I had spent $500 so far on the endeavor but had enough ingredients to last me until early June (yep, still true – it’ll be time to reorder some stuff in about 2 weeks) and $100 a month for food is a pretty good figure.
Recently I’ve been investigating Keytogenic DIY soylent. I first heard of the concept when my son was having seizures and going on a keytogenic diet was one of the proposed treatments. Trying to manage that kind of diet (little to no carbs, all fats and protein – think Atkins-ish) sounded like a nightmare and we were able to control his seizures with medication that he’s since grown out of. But with soylent, the prospect of doing a major and radical diet change like that is more about picking a recipe, modifying it a bit for my requirements and buying the new ingredients I don’t have already. It’s a complete paradigm shift in the way *I* look at food. This is, however, one area the current official Soylent falls short: the customizability. You’re on a sodium restricted diet? Soy Allergy? Vegan? Wheat intolerant? I’ve seen recipes for all of them. Rob and the rest of the Rosa Labs crew has, however, talked about the possibility of different formulations in the future.
I don’t know if Soylent (or soylent) is THE future but I suspect it has enough traction that it’s going to be a food option for the future. I’d love to get my widower father-in-law on Soylent since he doesn’t cook much more than Mac and Cheese since his wife passed and rarely eats veggies. He’s a perfect case for it – I’m just not sure if he could handle the taste of the official (I’m certain he wouldn’t handle mixing up the DIY). One of my work buddies likes the idea of using Soylent for a shelf stable emergency food – sounds like a perfect application. I highly doubt “muggle” food is going anywhere but Soylent is great option for easy, convenient, unremarkable meals.
By |2016-10-13T07:28:33-06:00June 18th, 2014|Preparation, Soylent|Comments Off on My thoughts on (s)oylent
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Mixing up soylent ingredients for 7 days at a time

This entry is part 16 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

Update: There’s a new version here, now with 100% less math errors!

In 4 days I’ll have been doing DIY soylent (specifically People Chow) for 6 months. Time to share some tips! One major change in how I mix up and prepare my soylent started when I bought a 50lb bag of masa and needed to store it somehow. I ended up using the large Utz Cheese Puff bottles. One day when I had just emptied one of the bottles I wondered if I could use it as a mixing container. Up until that point I was mixing the ingredients for each day individually (first in quart mason jars, then gallon zip-loc bags, then rubbermaid containers and back to the bags) and often I would get a blender bottle that was rather bitter (too much of calcium or potassium that time) or too sweet (to much Mega Man) and I also was mixing the stevia into each bottle when I added water as a tiny amount (grain of rice sized was enough for the bottle) which was another hassle. Initially I tried mixing 3 days of dry ingredients at a time in the cheese puff bottle and that worked extremely well. So I moved up to 5 and then 7, then 10… which didn’t work. Although the math is easier when you multiply by 10 there isn’t enough space in the big bottle to shake up the powder. So I’ve standardized on 7 along with 1/4 teaspoon of stevia for the seven days. The stevia is the real mark of how well the mixing works since it’s pretty evenly distributing the 1/4 teaspoon through the entire mixture and each meal tastes the same.

Here’s the video of how I do it:

As noted in the video I also use an old Mega Man canister to keep my daily powder in. There’s a 1/2 cup scoop in it and I just put two scoops into a blender bottle and shake it up. No more shaking 1/4 of a bag into the bottle. It’s easy food made even easier.

By |2016-10-13T07:28:37-06:00June 10th, 2014|Soylent, Preparation|7 Comments
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