I saw Soylent Orange after having invested in Soylent "Green" (1). I didn't look into it too hard because I'd already invested heavily into traditional soylent and (a) didn't want to incur sunk costs, (b) had already spent significant time doing "Green" well and didn't want to look at another approach and (c) I had already put myself at enough of a deficit with "Green" that I couldn't afford to switch again. So, a sunk cost, a trivial inconvenience, and a suboptimal investment; none of these are reasons OP shouldn't go orange instead of green. I'll also note that the cost per calorie is on par.
There are, however, values that make "Green" a good choice. I value mental clarity, and I've gotten that much more with "Green" than on any other diet (2).
If you're into quantified self, putting in each component by itself makes it extremely simple to test the effect of one micro or macronutrient on your body.
(1) No, it doesn't contain humans. But that's what you'd expect me to say even if it did. But it doesn't. Really!
(2) Obviously, having not tested Orange, there's no reason it couldn't yield better mental clarity than Green. Part of my intuition for Green goes something like "it doesn't contain anything that could potentially gum up the works, which is why your thinking feels so clean when you're strictly on Green." By main influence here is Staffan Lindeberg's Food and Western Disease, which spends about equal time talking about how things in food can improve health (like multivitamins) or diminish it (various defensive chemicals from plants, environmental toxins, etc.).
That said, I'd be extremely interested to find if going for a period exclusively on Orange resulted in improved mental clarity, and especially interested in a head to head test.
I will say that if you already own a blender, Soylent Orange has very low startup cost. Other than the marmite, everything involved can be purchased on the scale of a week or less, if you have Whole Foods-type places nearby.
I know I benefited tremendously, but there was a huge effect from just eating enough food, which was not my norm previously, and that probably dwarfed any noticeable effects from the diet specifically.
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).