Soylent good meal replacement for autistics?

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I've been wanting to try Soylent since I heard about it, but the price and wait are what stop me. Right now shipping is 2-3 months if you're a new customer, and the price for a month's worth is almost 50% more than I usually spend in a month. It would probably more healthy than my current food sources though, it has been very well formulated from what I've read in reviews, blogs, etc.

That is horrible. I'm sorry to hear that. The tragedy of your brother really is an important cautionary warning. After reading your post I went to Boost's website to see if there was any sort of warning that a person couldn't use this as a true replacement for food but only as a supplement. I was looking for something like "Although Boost is nutritious, it should not be used as a replacement for all your meals but rather as a supplement to less-than-adequate food nutrition". They did say "it makes a great supplement" but they didn't say "it's only a supplement, food is still necessary". Reading over their website, I could see how a person could fool themselves into thinking it makes food uneccesary.

Soylent apparently is more nutritious than Boost but worryingly, they really are blatantly saying it makes food uneccesary. Maybe for a month or two in an otherwise healthy person but what about stressors- such as surgery? What about longer than a month or two? All the articles I could find had people subsisting on it for 2 months maximum.

Your brother's tragedy is a needed warning.

The founder has been drinking it for months on end without food, but he is only one person, and he is a young person in good health. I agree that research would be needed to determine whether it is actually safe. I plan on trying it, but under a doctor's supervision (blood tests, etc., which I need anyway). I would think particular care would be needed in someone who was either acutely ill (e.g. surgery) or had a serious chronic illness. Or in the children, the elderly, pregnant women, etc.

Yeah, my brother had a very sedentary life in the months leading up to his surgery, so a supplement drink was probably sufficient to keep him alive, however questionable consuming it alone might have been. The drinks didn't state that an individual shouldn't consume them without other food. And, my brother's medical staff didn't go far enough in explaining to him that he needed many more calories and other nutrients during a recovery period. My brother made a deadly mistake and he was resistent to anyone saying otherwise.

I'm a big fan of protein shakes which have proven themselves over the years so this looks pretty good to me. If this really works then it's a fantastic thing, as this could also form a new type of space-efficient ration for people in need.

Price is kind of high tough, especially for a product that mainly contains carbohydrates which are easily the cheapest nutrient. I believe you can rather easily emulate this entire product by mixing it yourself. Take a high quality whey with added vitamins and minerals ( make sure to get at least 100% daily dose of EAA ), add some extra powdered vitamin and mineral mix until you have roughly 100 - 150% of daily dose of all that you need, add starch, add high fiber rice powder and then add a flavour for taste and have a separate bottle of omega-3 oil to add to the mix ( just like soylent ). Then you have almost the same product for a fraction of the price.

I consumed Soylent and only Soylent for 3 weeks (with the exception of water), so can give a first-hand account.

As you'll be aware from Rob's site, the ingredients are continually being 'tweaked'.

I purchased 1 month's worth, but stopped after 3 weeks. This wasn't to do with adverse effects (I personally had none: I should say - I had none that 'I' noticed - whether there were any adverse effects on my body only a medically qualified professional could confirm) - I had to travel 3 weeks in to the program, and taking Soylent with me was impractical.


My personal advice for any individual considering is to already have the discipline to be in control of their appetite. I'm very aware of what I eat and have strict eating habits i.e. no snacking between meals, no food after a certain time of day, no chocolate etc etc, so the 'food discipline' was already there.

Taking it for weight loss is probably pointless as (aside from medical conditions) you'd be better served losing weight by the 'traditional' methods i.e. eating well with discipline, and exercising.

(The above is my opinion based on my own experiences).


My reasons for trying it were curiosity. I'm one of those individuals who, if there were a pill available that could be taken once a day and give everything required from food, I'd take it.

I was curious on the effect Soylent would have on my body. I personally didn't notice too much of a shift. But I wasn't going from 4 chocolate bars and numerous cans of soda every day to Soylent - I was going from a very strict diet to a very strict diet - which is probably easier.

So, my advice is: don't try it as the easy option for weight loss. If your daily intake primarily consists of McDonalds, Coke, chocolate (insert fattening, nutrient-low food here), you'd be better off addressing this first before trying what would be a 'severe' alteration to diet such as Soylent.

For many people, Soylent will also be priced out of the market.

I'm unsure of the effects it could have on people with existing health conditions: naturally, I'd assume someone would research it first before committing to it.

Cool, thanks so much for the account of your first-hand experience. I eat a pretty strict diet already, as I react to a lot of foods and also have wacky sugar handling (not diabetic though), so I have to be careful of what and when I eat. It's easy to accidentally eat something that I can have a reaction to when I'm not making everything from scratch. Making all my food from scratch is ideal, but difficult and time-consuming, and totally out of the question if I am going through any kind of stress. If I could have a pre-mixed slurry like this full of things I know won't make me sick and won't mess with my blood sugar, my life would be so much easier.

I plan on making my own DIY Soylent (there is a site dedicated to people's DIY recipes) with only ingredients I tolerate well, and with whole food supplements whenever possible. I am also going to have my doctor vet it first.

I've only had a couple of meals of Soylent, thanks to a friend who had quite a bit of the stuff and was willing to help with my curiosity.

If you're curious about the taste and texture, I found it to be rather like a diet shake in texture. The flavor wasn't awful, but would best be described as "paper pulp". Anything you can do to give it a little bit more of an interesting zing would be helpful.

Honestly, if their production capacity would allow for much earlier fulfillment of initial orders, I'd give it a month and see how it goes. I'm really, really awful with nutritional decision making, so simplifying my diet would be helpful.

Hmm, I bet cinnamon, vanilla, mint, or other additions could make a big difference, without changing the nutritional profile. Fruit would add both taste and nutrition, but also sugar unfortunately, although for someone without sugar issues, additional fruit could be a great option. If you played around with spices, I bet you could vary the experience significantly for different meals, if bland flavor was an issue.

Seems like an interesting and appealing concept in a lot of ways, however I don't like the idea of drinking it being like drinking mildly sweet pancake batter...If it came in flavors I'd be more interested like fruit flavors or something obviously using real fruit. I do enjoy actual food so I doubt I'd use something like that to replace it but would be good to help supplement my diet since I know a lot of times I don't get all the nutrients I need or eat enough....sometimes its because food can be hard to get down when stress/anxiety is aggravating my digestive issues.

I've thought about the benefits of subsisting on Soylent, but I enjoy "normal" food too much to consider switching to it. Plus, I don't think I'd like the taste or texture of it, since I can't stand drinking white milk, and I think it would be similar.

I wonder if aspies have evolved to be apex predators... I mean, we're generally solitary, and we have enhanced senses, though we have problems with digesting gluten and casein. Maybe we're supposed to be hunter-gatherers, like early humans, and subsist solely on what we can find in the wild.

Didn't bother clicking to read the nutritional info etc, but I've drank a lot of hemp protein shakes (and other veggie protein shake mixes) over the last couple of years. Sometimes a few a day. I still cook and eat meals daily, though. But yeah, mixing up a meal replacement drink is fine so long as it's all healthy stuff for you & your particular needs.

Had a click over to their site and read the nutritional label and the price. Too high of carbs for my liking, by far, and probably a bit on the expensive side. I think you could drink protein shakes and take vitamins/supplements for less money.

Do you mix your own hemp shake or is there a pre-mix available? I usually make my own when I'm unable to eat. I use hemp, chia, coconut cream/milk, ginger, cinnamon, raw honey. A pre-mix would be handy but I've never seen any around here.

Need my pizza, pig, fish, and cow, to live, and potatoes.

(Pasta too. Chicken also.)

I mix my own and vary the ingredients. Lately I've been using hemp, creatine, glutamine, l-carnatine, turmeric, cinnamon, and sometimes fibre cleanse fibre mix and apple cider vinegar. I also eat other food. I sometimes add chia seeds, a touch of honey, peanut/nut butter, coconut oil, a bit of banana, some mineral rich salt, diatomaceous earth/bentonite clay etc depending on what I need/feel like.