I'm not a medical doctor and what I know comes from blogs, podcasts, twitter, and general audience books so don't take this too seriously.
Coffee seems to be one of the few foods that has significant proven health benefits. But most coffee contains harmful micro organisms. Bulletproof coffee supposedly has far fewer of these toxin producing organisms. MCT oil and butter from grass fed cows supposedly has lots of great stuff in them.
I only consume fats until about 4:00 pm to promote autophagy which is what you body does when it goes into starvation mode. Bulletproof coffee contains only fats, and fats do not inhibit autophagy as carbs and protein do. Autophagy, from what I have read, is fantastically beneficial.
Your argument is reasonable, although I'm skeptical that benefits from autophagy outweigh a likely micronutrient deficiency. Romeo_Stevens suggests intermittent fasting, which would give you the autophagy benefits without losing micronutrients. The obvious failure mode is not having energy to get through the day, although I remember spending a few weeks around finals de facto intermittent fasting and having perfectly reasonable energy levels.
Edit: Sorry, I didn't realize there has been so much discussion on this already! I thought I had just stumbled across some obscure product haha. Anyway, I've been reading through discussions here, on Hacker News, Tim Ferris' blog etc. There's been a lot of talk about whether or not this is truly a "replacement for eating" (or whatever the term is). I think the more interesting question is whether it's a good idea to:
My initial impression is that it is a good idea to use it as a once or twice a day thing.
*The two main problems (digestive issues and headaches) seem to be sufficiently addressed by 1. Adopting it slowly into your diet (over the course of 5 days or so) and 2. Making sure you get enough salt.
Original Post: you could ignore this if you're familiar with Soylent
I've just came across a meal replacement drink called Soylent - http://www.soylent.me/.
It is...
However I really don't have enough information to make any reasonably strong conclusions. Those bullet points above are more vague suspicions than evidence backed knowledge.
So do any of you guys know anything about Soylent or meal replacement drinks/bars/etc.? Are they healthy? Are there things I haven't accounted for?
Also, I'm sorta surprised this isn't more popular. Most people I know hate cooking and cleaning and shopping and spending so much time and money on food. I think most people would be more than happy to have Soylent (or something similar) for a meal or two each day, and then have a big dinner or something. It would save a ton of money and time, and would reduce the amount of fat and sugar in the persons diet. And because you're spending less money on food and consuming less fat and sugar, you could justify eating out or ordering in a splurge meal more often! What do you guys think? Why isn't this more popular? Are people really that afraid of the health effects?
(I'm not being hypocritical. I know that *I've* been asking about the health effects and seem to be worried about them, but I wouldn't think most people would approach this the same way I am. If I lived on an island isolated from other people, was told about Soylent and asked what I think it's popularity is, I would guess it to be very high. I would think people would see that it's pretty nutritious, aren't really any known risks or reason to think there would be risks, and be eager to save time and money by using Soylent).