Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there, which means it's time for stuff you should know. He's the He's the DJ, I'm the rapper. Who's the DJ? Don't you remember? That was the first, first or second d J Jazz Jeff and the Fresh Prince album. Now wouldn't need them. Everybody was totally confused as to who was who, so they actually named their album He's the DJ, I'm the rapper, and like Will Smith is pointing at himself and pointing at Jazz Jeff. And then their newest album is called He's the movie Star. I'm the one who asked you if you want fries with that soda? Poor jay Z Jeff. That's so mean. I'll bet he's a like a successful producer. I bet he is totally successful and probably way more successful than me. And I'm just a jerk. It's a little late now, I know. I thought it would be funny. And I also insulted fast food industry workers too. It's like that that one Simpsons where somebody I think was calling Homer a chicken, and some giant chicken walks over and goes he's insulting the both of us. This show just gave and gave and gave for decades. I think DJ Jazzy Jeff, I'm looking right now. I think he's still uh a DJ record producer and still a DJ called like DJ DJ. Yeah, yeah, I'm just mean. Sorry, Jazzy Jeff. You know who's not mean? You? No, I'm pretty mean? Okay. Um, A kid named well, I don't want to call him a kid. I want to call him a kid because he's younger than me. But he's a dude now. Yeah, his name is Rob Brian Hart. Yeah, not Rob Reiner, No, no, no, no adult Rob Brian Hart. Although he had a movie called When Harry Met Soilent. That's pretty good. That was good. And you know what I'm ashamed to say, I didn't even see that coming. Was so bad. Emily always laughs when I left. She always like, you really cracked yourself up, didn't you. Like, I'll just be walking down the hall laughing at myself and she that's a way to say, Chuck's drunk. Chucks drunk, and you're not as funny as you think you are. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, you really crack yourself up. Sometimes you should say, somebody's got to alright, Soilent, this is not a paid promotion for soiling Let's go ahead and just get that out of the way. No, but it's they're they're it's gonna pay off for him big time. Well, I mean, we're gonna talk a lot about a specific brand, but um, I think it's worthwhile because it is the innuine I think it's a genuine revolutionary product in a lot of ways. And it's not an endorsement. I'm just saying it's really super unique. Yeah, it's not not to endorse or whatever, but it's probably the single greatest thing humans have ever invented. Have you ever had it? Have I? You know? I have not. Actually I wanted to try it today. But you can't just go down to the corner store and get it. No, you can't. You have to order Soilent from their website, soilent dot com or Amazon. Of course, I didn't know you could get it on Amazon. Yeah, they you can get it there. Now, that's good. The prices have come down from so we're working from an article we should say from probably two fourteen in tech industry years, that's like ten years ago. And this is definitely a cornerstone of the tech industry. And what we're talking about is, is well a food replacement UM called soilent or not a food replacement? Well, yeah, originally it was intended to be a food replacement or a meal replacement or no, I guess it was originally intended to be a food replacement where you could just live off of this stuff you didn't need other food. And then now it's intended to be a meal replacement where you would eat other food, but you could say, have this instead for lunch or whatever. Yeah, or you could eat it along with your meal. Sure, Like let's just call it beige food. Yeah, my liquid state, Yeah, pretty much entirely liquid. It's like pancake batters. That what I kept running across the consistency, And I mean, doesn't everyone I want to drink pancake batter. I've been known to take a sip of pancake battery. It sounds really gross. Um, we haven't tried it, and I really wanted to, like I said, for this, but um, we may or may not get Um. Our colleague Jonathan Strickling here. It just depends on if we can find him. Uh, he's been he was being tattooed by NASA the other day. Oh that happened. Huh, not by NASA, but sort of with NASA for NASA, under NASA's supervision. Maybe. I mean he got a tattoo for work via NASA. Yep. Um. So I haven't seen him since then, But if we can get him in here, he did the soilent thing for a while. Uh, and he loves to talk, so he would be good. As a matter of fact, let's just add a thirty minute silent part here, but we can insert what he'll say after we introduced him. But anyway, I did not get to taste it, but it has been likened to everything from pancake batter two um, meta musel or cream of wheat or a tasteless milkshake. Um, although they do have flavors out now, which we'll get to. But um. What the original intent of soilent taste wise was that it was just really just neutral and bland for the purposes of we don't want people to get sick of eating this. Yeah, and probably the best meat. Yeah, right, exactly that if you don't have a taste, you can't really get sick of a taste, right, But I disagree. I'm sure he could totally get sick of this. Sure, but it also is something of a blank slate that people can add their own tastes and flavors to, like maple syrup or fruit or peanut butter or something. Yeah, which I didn't think about. That's a great idea, right, So they specifically wanted to create this product for a number of reasons. And like I said, that guy who I said was nice, he actually is nice. From the Broad a New Yorker profile of him, SAME's Rob Brian Hart And um, he actually he went to tech. He's in Atlanta, boy, Yeah, And he was in San Francisco working at a tech startup out of his house with some of his roommates. And he decided that um, eating was taking up way too much of his time and money, time, money, effort. Um. It was just something he wasn't very interested in. And he also was, um, I think concerned with exactly what he was eating. I think he was just basically living off a ram And he said, which is not the healthiest thing you can possibly eat sure. So he decided to take a little time and research nutrition and how it relates to human physiology. And he had this idea that if you could get rid of the unnecessary parts of food, like food is kind of a clunky, inefficient vehicle for delivering nutrients. If you could get rid of the clunky part and just have the nutrients, you could you could live fairly healthily on just the raw materials of food that we need from food, right, just the nutrients. Yeah, Like I can save money, I can save time, um from going to the grocery store and cooking and cleaning, and I can get everything I really need to have a genuinely healthy diet um right here in this. I mean, I guess i'll call it a drink. I mean it goes down like a drink, right, Yeah, okay, so we'll call it a drink. But it's not to be confused with. I mean, there have been all kinds of meal replacement drinks over the years, uh, from like insurer to slim Fast and muscle milk, Yeah, protein shakes and stuff like that. This is not that this is supposed to give you everything you need in your body for a meal. Yeah, nutritionally. Other meal replacement drinks are meant to be meal replacements, right, Like if you couldn't get enough nutrients from your food because you're recovering from surgery, you need an extra bit. Your doctor may say, like drink and ensure every day whatever. Or like you said, protein chakes like muscle milk. If you're a weightlifter, you need uh hit a protein after you work out, you you will probably drink some sort of protein shake afterwards. Right, So there's very specific um reasons for the meal replacements or supplements that have been invented up to soiling. What's that soiling apart was that it was created intentionally to be a replacement for food, Like this was all you needed. You never needed to eat food again. All you had to do was eat soiling every day, every day, and and ingeniously, and I don't think he intended to even he was just looking for something for himself. He wasn't looking to change the food industry or to start a company. I don't think, not of a food company. But he very ingeniously started a blog against when thirteen called how I Stopped Eating Food, which is super grabby on the internet. Title wise, like someone's going to see that and go, well, what in the world is this all about? And that's what happened. It went viral, it blew up. He detailed on there that he lost weight. He said his intellectual and athletic performance improved. He said he spent a lot less money on groceries, but he put he put athletic and scare quotes. He's like, if you know what I mean, because he did go to tech and he was a software engineer, I meant sex. But yeah, yeah, the other way that joke worked. He said he spent a lot less money on groceries and he only spent about five minutes a day making this stuff. And he described it as a quote sweet succulent, hearty meal in a glass end quote, and people were all over it. He said, like after a week he would see ads for food and it would just be nauseated by him. He any that he came to crave um the soiling, which wasn't called soilent at that time. No, he did call it soilent. Oh, I thought he didn't call it until he like got the Kickstarter. Going from what I saw, I actually saw that blog post, and I believe he calls it Soilent in it. Okay, well whenever he got it, he got it. Spoiler alert by the way, upcoming. There was a movie in nineteen seventy three called Soilent Green, very famous, uh, kind of classic cult classic sci fi movie with Chuck Heston and the big reveal and soil it's about this, uh, this future world, this dystopian society where um, these people are fed these rations and in the end you realize that's it's revealed that people are eating other people. Soilent Green is people people, right, so um. And for that reason, because that was just such a famous ending, Like if that actually spoiled the movie for you, like, let us know, so Chuck can come hit you with a hammer because everybody knows the ending of the twist and Soiling Green. Yeah, I'm just you know, but he he yeah, I know. That was nice of you. See you're not a mean person, You're nice. Um. The he he was lobbied by investors, friends, family, Everybody's like, you gotta change the name of Soilon. But he would explain to him, it's actually not based on the movie. He's based it on the book that was the source for the movie Soiling Green. The book was called Make Room, Make Room, and it was written by a guy named Harry Harrison, and it's it was basically about overpopulation and in the book that people are fed soilent, which is a food made of soy and lentils, And that's what he based it on, was that book, not the the food being made from people, which apparently the makers of the movie used some pretty deep artistic license to totally alter it at the end. Yeah, So it started out nerdy, and it got nerdier because he was like, it's actually a deep cut right exactly from make Room, Make Room exclamation points. But he he um, he did detail in this blog post, and I'm pretty sure he did call it soiling in it, and he thinks very clever. I think it was a really kind of a funny wink to call it that. Sure, but he um. He posted the recipe that he went by in a follow up post and it's still up there. You can go see how to make soilent yourself, And as a matter of fact, a lot of people do. There's this um subculture of d i y soilent enthusiasts, people who are like so into it that they're creating their own blend for themselves from scratch self soil enters, yep, soilent preppers. So he started that Kickstarter got about three million bucks. Uh because people thought it was a cool idea. UM, submitted it to the f D A right, yeah, and that went whatever, but they classified it interesting instead of a dietary supplement. They said, now this is a food like knock yourself out, NERD go get sued. We don't care. And then he got a co packer, Rosa Labs in l A and um, they produce it for him still and people started eating or drinking this stuff up. Yeah, I mean especially other um people who work twenty three hours a day um and didn't want to be bothered with having to eat because they didn't really care about food and or they were like, all I'm eating is mac and cheese, Like what what am I doing? Like? If I'm gonna care that little about food, then I might as well eat something that's healthy that takes even less time to make them mac and cheese and just the whole um. Uh. The mentality behind soil it really like tapped a nerve and that stuff took off like very quickly. Um. They started selling like thirty thousand units of it a month. I guess packets a month by two thousand fourteen, and it was it debuted. The first shipments sold. They're shipped in May of two thousand fourteen, so like within seven months they were selling thirty thousand units a month. Yeah, it went gold right away. Uh, it's like round and round by. We'll take a break here and um I'll see if I go find Strickland and we'll be right back. No, no Strickland yet. Oh yeah, he has not appeared since the New year. You know, he's in Las Vegas right now? Right? Oh was he at c E S. Well, that makes sense. I didn't read my company blog. Uh yeah I did. Actually I did see that on our internal blog, right that we all post our daily goings on and last each other so silent. Uh. Again, we said that the taste isn't the big thing. Um, but they really aim to just say, hey, it's convenient, you're gonna save some money. And if you're you know, like you said, if you're someone who doesn't put so much care into what you're making for yourself, like you could like you said, you could eat nothing but this, but even the owner said, like you could but like, what do you want to food is great? Yeah, And they've walked that back tremendously. I think the more invested. Yeah, the more they've walked that back. So originally it was and he would give interviews and just tell everybody like, yeah, man, you can you can just live off of this indefinitely if you want. Now they say it's not intended to replace every meal, but it can replace any meal. Yeah. I think it's a really good I don't know if they've if they've tapped into the doomsday prepper segment, but like this seems to be the kind of thing that somebody could and should have, like in the trunk of their car or along with their canned goods and roll of masking tape. Yeah, you know, I mean I literally when I read this, I was like, you know, I wouldn't mind having a case of this in my trunk. Be a disaster, Yeah, pick up check that doesn't work, but you never know. I mean, I doubt if I'm ever gonna be like lost in the wilderness, but if i was, it'd be nice to have food for a week. Yeah, you know, for food for a week. I mean, these the sealed packets, unopened apparently last for a year. Al right, so I'd have to on day three sixty four every year, I'd have to drink them and get some new ones. You'd have to drink nine months worth of food on one day if you're a heck of a New Year's Eve. So we are officially on version one point seven. Yeah, that as of about two weeks from this recording ago, they issued one point seven And as of a couple of days ago, they introduced two new flavors um Yeah, and that's soilent two point oh. Oh is that official? Yeah, that's like um as technically a separate product. It's like pre mixed soilent drinks. All they have. They've had those in in the natural flavor since the beginning though, Oh is there right? I thought they just started with powder and then came and added the drink, and then now they added those two flavors to the drink. I think the new flavors are new. They've had the drink for a while. And they also now have a bar, a soilent bar that's unavailable right now. And about why in a little bit, because it's quite interesting. I did not know that um do they have the coffee ist is that. Yeah, that's out. So that's soilent in a bottle with caffeine. Yeah, so that's your morning. Well, I guess whenever you want the calf angeled, I would say morning, but you never know what your schedule is. That that sounds dangerous because I mean, like this is food, right, and people have a tendency to pound coffee. You don't want to pound the stuff like you'll gain weight. I mean, I guess if you're trying to gain weight, sure do it, but like this is this is the stuff is engineered to be just what you need to sustain you or maintain your weight. Or I guess if you wanted to gain weight, you just drink more of it pounded, you know, supposedly lose a little weight if you go like a soiling only for a few weeks. But it's all anecdotal. I don't think they make any claims. No, I don't think so either. So they're on one point seven now and each version supposedly they just you know, they're tweaking the recipe. They're listening to people, which sounds like the right thing to do, Like it sounds like they're really listening to people, and people are saying, oh, it's um, it's too thick, Like I don't like one point six, So they'll say, all right, a little xanthem gum take that out. Uh. They switch the primary source of fatty acids from fish oil to algible oil. But now I think the algae oils out now right, No, no, so the alga oils in. And they actually the reason why they switched out of fishal well two reasons. It made it vegan when they change from fish oil to algible but they also like it it um has far less of an environmental impact algae um farming does, but they even took it a step further, and they're not using oil from farmed algae. They're using oil from bioreactors, which take up even less space and use less energy for algible oil production than farming does. Right, So they're really like trying to narrow the impact environmentally that this stuff has. Yes, And the reason why is it is very much linked to our artificial sweetener episode. Somebody introduced whole algile flower to the market. UM as I think a thickener. I think it also is an emulsifier UM, and it just creates a pleasant mouth feel. I think um. And it's also somewhat nutritious supposedly, but it also can make people violently ill. And so all of soilent one point six had to be suspended, including the bar. That's why the bar is not available any longer. Um because it all contained this whole algile flower. They had to basically stop selling it, and then they tinkered with it, and that's why one point seven came out. Uh, Well, if if you're if you don't know much about soilent and you're literally screaming at your at your car radio right now or wherever you're listening, but what is it really? Then tell them what it's mainly derived from. Oh, it is soy protein. They replaced the brown rice and the oat flour and potato starch, and rice starts with basically just soy soy protein, another a couple other carbohydrates, So it's mainly soy, just a soy based meal, soy algeil oil um, something called um I so malt malte loose. It's a which they synthesize from beats. It's a carbohydrate but also a bit of a sweetener, canola oil. I think they took it. I think they took that out and the reason. Okay, so there is rice starching it. They definitely took the brown rice, the oat flower, and the potato starch out. Because if you go to their website, it's so cool. At the very bottom the bottom navigation, they'll they'll say release notes, and it will bring up PDFs of the notes about what they changed and why. UM for every single version of UM soiling, so it'll say we took this out because we found that this is actually better for the environment, or that this delivers the vitamin that we're trying to get better, or UM for whole algile flower. They said that they removed it to improve customer experience, which means not making you violently. Yeah, it's I mean, like I said, it sounds like they're they're continually striving to get it right. Yeah, but they're also more than that, they're also sharing what they're doing because the whole thing was kind of based out of that open source tech ethos, and so they've kind of maintained that open source thing ever since. They're just very transparent as a company. Yeah, looking at the as of January third, nutritional facts and one bottle fo calories one grams of total fat two grams of saturated fat. And this is for the the regular natural, right, so I keep calling natural? Is that what they call it? Uh? Original? Let's just say non flavored yet original a ridge. How's that? Uh? Cholesterol nocles are all which they've had from the beginning, ugrams of sodium, thirty six grams total carbs, three grams dietary fiber, nine grams of total sugars, nine grams of added sugars, and then uhs of protein, and a whole host of vitamins and minerals. Yeah, and those vitamins and minerals are important. That the essential nutrients UM, which are nutrients like vitamins and minerals that our bodies need but can't make. UM. They apparently went to the n I H and the FDA and several other UM groups and said, you know, what does the human body need to function and thrive? And they that's what they put in there. They have this blend of vitamins and nutrients that they include as part of the recipe for soilent. One of the things that soilents I don't want to I guess criticized for, I guess, but more one of the concerns that people who are skeptical about it have is that it um it doesn't have any non essential nutrients, which are nutrients that your body can make itself, like cholesterol that has zero cholesterol, but your body can make its own cholesterol. And that was a deliberate move on Reinhardt and his his UM co founders parts that they decided that they didn't need non essential nutrients, that it was UM something that our bodies already make and so therefore it was UM redundant basically to add this stuff in, because this is just the basic bear minimum that you need for to to be healthy and thrive. But some people are saying, well, these things are also found in nature in our food, and we take them in and we don't really know enough about nutrition and how it affects the human body to say you don't really need to take in from the outside any non essential nutrients. So people are saying, we're gonna have to see over the course of year is what kind of effects this has on people UM who are just eating soil, and if those people do exist, you know, five ten years from now. Yeah, and especially if that's something that you kind of touted or not you. But he touted to begin with, which is, hey, man, theoretically you could just eat only this. Yeah, but I mean he was like this, this twenty something dude who had a really great idea, and I didn't care about what the investors were saying, and and he cared about people's health. He wasn't doing it to be like a huckster or snake oil sales or anything like that. You know, he was just not watching his p's and ques like somebody who was from a PR department might ask him to. All right, well, let's take another break and I'm gonna We're gonna walk to Las Vegas. Get them. I'm gonna see if Strickland's up for this. Go get that guy, and I'll be right back in about ten days. Hey, and put twenty on black for me. M alright, good news, bad news. I owe you forty dollars man. No wait, no, that's good. Yeah, I thought you were paying me back with interest. Bad news is I couldn't find Strickland in Vegas. Actually, if we can't find Strickland, this is just hot off the presses our buddy Joe ran dazz oh yeah, currently uh of at midnight Fame he drank soil it for a little while, yeah, and asked him. I texted him for a description, and this just came in and he said, uh, it tasted like the devil's chalk. But some reptilian part of me appreciated obtaining sustenance without having to worry about flavor or preparation. Basically, space stationed serial killers should like it, and no one else. That's our that's our Joe, all right. So if you want to buy someone, like I said, you can get on Amazon. Now. I think it's only available in the USA and Canada still though, unless that's changed, I did not see that. But what what you can do is you can buy the pouches of powder and mix it where you can buy the bottles um and you can get subscriptions that cut a little of the price off depending on how much of this you want to drink, and that is up to you, as a human being to decide how much of this kind of nasty stuff. And I've heard our buddy Joe Randazza had some of this too, and I tried to get a quote from him on what he would describe the taste, and he hasn't replied yet, but I've heard some people say like, oh, it's really not that bad, and I've had heard other people say like it's disgusting and you'd really have to choke it down. So I guess there's a spectrum. I I mean, I guess I saw a couple of quotes like that, But for the most part, it seemed like people were surprised by how either neutral or strangely yeah, strange, strangely um alluring the taste was. Yeah, I didn't heard that. There's this. There's a great New Yorker article that profile I mentioned earlier UM called I think it's called the End of Food. It's from two thousand before team when this was like at the peak of its buzz um and Lizzie Wincombe, who wrote the thing, try soiling herself and it's weird. I think she actually says she starts to crave the taste after a while, but then some of her colleagues give these pithy quotes about what it actually tastes like, but they weren't actually trying it, you know what I mean. She she was actually trying to like, subsist on it for a little while. She apparently came to like it interesting I'm curious about its longevity. Like, when something like this comes out, I definitely see the allure of it becoming the rage for a while. But and and I think one of them we'll talk about what a dietitians think. But um, one of the allures of food is is food and sit and making it and sitting with friends and the wonderful taste that you get any experience you get of breaking bread with one another. And this really throws all that out the window. Um, you can't romanticize sitting down with a soilent shake and your friends, even if they all have one on their plate, it's just not the same. And nor do nor do they say it is the same. Um. But it makes me wonder like, once this initial fad wears off, what will it become? You know, it's bizarre. I just realized something. Well, you were saying that that this is the opposite of what we were saying. One of the problems with artificial sweeteners is so instead of exciting the gustatory response of your reward pathway for meeting food, all this does is um create satiation. So you're you're full from it, but you're not enjoying tasting it or eating it or smelling it or looking at it or thinking about it. So it's the exact opposite where artificial sweeteners excite that that um, that gustatory sensor um, but don't fill you up. This does the exact opposite well, And then I wonder what kind of effect that can have on your body, Like it does it dull that and kill that gustatory response, or does it make it so that when you do eat something, it's just like, wow, I can't believe the taste of the strawberry, and I don't know I um I that I've read about this this guy um, his name's Angus Barbieri and he's a Scotsman from nineteen sixty six. I think he was in his early twenties, and he went three hundred and eighty two days without eating a thing. He was under the supervision of some mad scientist doctor who was giving him like vitamin supplements and monitoring him. But he survived just on these vitamin supplements and coffee, tea and water for more than a year. And the reason he did it was he weighed four hundred and fifty six pounds and he was like, I'm tired of it I want to get down to one eighty and he did. Um. But he on the day he he broke that two day fast, he had a boiled egg, I think a piece of buttered toast, and I think some coffee, and he said, I enjoyed the egg very very much. So I would guess that that you if you did eat soiling, if you ate like a whole food, you would find it pretty rewarding, whereas if you ate like a synthetic food like junk food or whatever, you'd probably be like, oh my god, this is terrible, you know, but I'll bet that strawberry would taste pretty good. Well if you ask a dietician. And we didn't do a pole, but um, I think this one. Dr joy Do Boast, spokesman for the Academy of Nutrition and diet Tetics, Um not tnatics. I saw her quotes from this article, but then I saw a lot of other ones, and they have kind of all been in line, which is basically like, yeah, I mean, sure this stuff is okay and you can use it to a certain degree, but we don't. There just aren't studies like no one's gonna come out, No scientists is gonna come out and say yeah, you could live on this stuff for a year, because they just haven't done these peer reviewed studies and these long term risk and benefit analyzes don't exist. So no, no scientists is gonna come out like and put their name behind it in that kind of way, right exactly. But it's like you said, like even if they would, even if they were like, you know what, this is, fine, go ahead and do it forget food, there's something missing, Like there's that communal experience like you were saying, there's that the relaxing act of cooking. Um. Like I I understand feeling like it's your burdened with it sometimes when you're under the gun and you you have to eat, but just getting everything ready and cooking it and then cleaning up afterwards is it can be a total pain. So I understand the sentiment behind it. But I also would never replace food entirely ever. Never. Yeah, well of course not, um, because we're normal people. Um. But the other thing Dr Doubos says, which I think is a very huge point, is that what they've done is, I mean, there aren't a hundred different types of soilent depending on what kind of person you are. They basically said, this is just your basic nutrition for your average person. It's one size fits all and nutrition she said, they're making nutrition on one size fits all approach. The nutrition just doesn't work that way. So depending on your age, your lifestyle, how active you are, what kind of like you know, maladies you have in your life. Um, it's and and again they're not claiming to do that. Like all they're claiming is to do what it is, which is, Hey, we're gonna make this thing. It might be good for some people to use. Sometimes we'll probably keep you alive. I thought, there's so. I also remember I was talking about the non essential nutrients that aren't in there, and people are wondering what effect that might have. There's also another um thing that that's missing that's kind of subtle, but it might have an impact. This Japanese study found that it seems the art or not the art, but the act of chewing has some sort of benefits. So like it has a stress reduction and um, it also probably controls the amount of glucose entering your blood by just kind of unlocking food slowly by chewing it into smaller and smaller pieces. And you don't do that with drinks like soilent. You just get hit with it all at once, so there's a big flood of your of nutrients into your bloodstream. And fortunately with that stuff, it's it's good stuff. But um, like if if they were saying like, the sugar probably has a greater impact on you than the same amount of sugar delivered through solid food because it just hits you faster and so your your levels increased. Quicker about that. Either I'm gonna get some, are you going to? Yeah, I'm gonna get some and just have it on hand. And I mean it beats driving to McDonald's If I don't have any food. Sure, you know you should hide it in the wheel well or your spare tire. Well. I do have a pickup truck, so I have no trunk, That's what I'm saying. Uh, I guess it's underneath. I gave away your hiding place. Now my hiding place is actually behind the rear seat. Oh gotcha. That's a good one. No one will ever find anything there, and there you will find. It's pretty salacious, but you'll find bungee cords and jumper cables in John Strickling. Yes, have you got anything else? No? Unless we insert Strickland, which would go right here. But if not, um, we'll just end it. Well, let's find out right now. Nope, we didn't. Oh well, um, I should probably say chuck. And we probably should have said this fairly early on. We have like no um uh financial interests in soilent whatsoever? We even backing on Kickstarter, No, I got I got no interest other than wanting to taste this, uh this junk. Yeah, all right, if you want to know more about soilent, type that word into the search bar how stuff works dot com. And since I said search bar, it's time for a listener mail. Uh. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if Reinhardt listens to the show. Oh well, if he does, what's up, dude? Yeah, so at the very least we might get a case of this stuff at the office. Oh boy. And UM, I'm gonna call this, well, I'm gonna call this one of what maybe several breastfeeding email replies. Uh. First of all, we did a show, two parter on feeding babies. First part was on breastfeeding, and we were both nervous, and I have to say it went great, and we've been getting great feedback and I'm super proud of these episodes. Yeah, they're good. Based on the feedback we've been getting very supportive, which makes us feel good. Yeah, we were pretty tense alright, So this is one of those Hey guys. Uh. Plus she has a great name. I know you're worried about getting tons of attack emails for doing an episode and breastfeeding, but our promises isn't mean smiley face. I listened to the episode right after I got home from breastfeeding Glass. I'm currently pregnant do on February. Uh so, man, this is gonna come out probably about a month before that. And she does a big scream and anticipation. I took a class through my local hospital on breastfeeding to prepare you. Guys. Uh, you had really great thing to say about breastfeeding, and it pretty much lined up with what the lactation consultant running the class had to say. I'm so glad that you tackled tackle the issue, especially because you are men um even though I know it scared you. The lactation consultant said, the biggest barrier to women breastfeeding is not having a supportive partner, uh, which I don't get that at all. Um. Hopefully with your podcast you read some partners out there who will now be more informed and better able to support the new mother in their lives. I hope so too. I was so glad that you mentioned the war over feeding currently going on as well. Formula is also a great option for feeding babies. No matter what militant moms have to say, just feed your baby. Keep up the great podcasting. And her name is Claire Victory, and boy, she's so close to being named declare Victory. Oh yeah, I hadn't thought about that, and she said ps and never offended. By the way when you say guys, I hope others aren't either. I feel like you've have gotten to the point where guys is gender neutral. Sure we're making that our mission in life, I hope. So. Yeah. Well thanks a lot, Claire, Yeah. Uh, we appreciate a big time. And thanks to everybody who sent us notes of support for that one, because they are very well received by us and clear good luck yeah yeah, best wishes to you, Yes, good luck how it goes well. Uh. If you want to get in touch with us, like Claire Victory did, you can tweet to us. I'm at Josham Clark, and there's also s Y s K podcast where you can find both of us. You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know, and Chuck is at Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot com

Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there, which means it's time for stuff you should know. He's the He's the DJ, I'm the rapper. Who's the DJ? Don't you remember? That was the first, first or second d J Jazz Jeff and the Fresh Prince album. Now wouldn't need them. Everybody was totally confused as to who was who, so they actually named their album He's the DJ, I'm the rapper, and like Will Smith is pointing at himself and pointing at Jazz Jeff. And then their newest album is called He's the movie Star. I'm the one who asked you if you want fries with that soda? Poor jay Z Jeff. That's so mean. I'll bet he's a like a successful producer. I bet he is totally successful and probably way more successful than me. And I'm just a jerk. It's a little late now, I know. I thought it would be funny. And I also insulted fast food industry workers too. It's like that that one Simpsons where somebody I think was calling Homer a chicken, and some giant chicken walks over and goes he's insulting the both of us. This show just gave and gave and gave for decades. I think DJ Jazzy Jeff, I'm looking right now. I think he's still uh a DJ record producer and still a DJ called like DJ DJ. Yeah, yeah, I'm just mean. Sorry, Jazzy Jeff. You know who's not mean? You? No, I'm pretty mean? Okay. Um, A kid named well, I don't want to call him a kid. I want to call him a kid because he's younger than me. But he's a dude now. Yeah, his name is Rob Brian Hart. Yeah, not Rob Reiner, No, no, no, no adult Rob Brian Hart. Although he had a movie called When Harry Met Soilent. That's pretty good. That was good. And you know what I'm ashamed to say, I didn't even see that coming. Was so bad. Emily always laughs when I left. She always like, you really cracked yourself up, didn't you. Like, I'll just be walking down the hall laughing at myself and she that's a way to say, Chuck's drunk. Chucks drunk, and you're not as funny as you think you are. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, you really crack yourself up. Sometimes you should say, somebody's got to alright, Soilent, this is not a paid promotion for soiling Let's go ahead and just get that out of the way. No, but it's they're they're it's gonna pay off for him big time. Well, I mean, we're gonna talk a lot about a specific brand, but um, I think it's worthwhile because it is the innuine I think it's a genuine revolutionary product in a lot of ways. And it's not an endorsement. I'm just saying it's really super unique. Yeah, it's not not to endorse or whatever, but it's probably the single greatest thing humans have ever invented. Have you ever had it? Have I? You know? I have not. Actually I wanted to try it today. But you can't just go down to the corner store and get it. No, you can't. You have to order Soilent from their website, soilent dot com or Amazon. Of course, I didn't know you could get it on Amazon. Yeah, they you can get it there. Now, that's good. The prices have come down from so we're working from an article we should say from probably two fourteen in tech industry years, that's like ten years ago. And this is definitely a cornerstone of the tech industry. And what we're talking about is, is well a food replacement UM called soilent or not a food replacement? Well, yeah, originally it was intended to be a food replacement or a meal replacement or no, I guess it was originally intended to be a food replacement where you could just live off of this stuff you didn't need other food. And then now it's intended to be a meal replacement where you would eat other food, but you could say, have this instead for lunch or whatever. Yeah, or you could eat it along with your meal. Sure, Like let's just call it beige food. Yeah, my liquid state, Yeah, pretty much entirely liquid. It's like pancake batters. That what I kept running across the consistency, And I mean, doesn't everyone I want to drink pancake batter. I've been known to take a sip of pancake battery. It sounds really gross. Um, we haven't tried it, and I really wanted to, like I said, for this, but um, we may or may not get Um. Our colleague Jonathan Strickling here. It just depends on if we can find him. Uh, he's been he was being tattooed by NASA the other day. Oh that happened. Huh, not by NASA, but sort of with NASA for NASA, under NASA's supervision. Maybe. I mean he got a tattoo for work via NASA. Yep. Um. So I haven't seen him since then, But if we can get him in here, he did the soilent thing for a while. Uh, and he loves to talk, so he would be good. As a matter of fact, let's just add a thirty minute silent part here, but we can insert what he'll say after we introduced him. But anyway, I did not get to taste it, but it has been likened to everything from pancake batter two um, meta musel or cream of wheat or a tasteless milkshake. Um, although they do have flavors out now, which we'll get to. But um. What the original intent of soilent taste wise was that it was just really just neutral and bland for the purposes of we don't want people to get sick of eating this. Yeah, and probably the best meat. Yeah, right, exactly that if you don't have a taste, you can't really get sick of a taste, right, But I disagree. I'm sure he could totally get sick of this. Sure, but it also is something of a blank slate that people can add their own tastes and flavors to, like maple syrup or fruit or peanut butter or something. Yeah, which I didn't think about. That's a great idea, right, So they specifically wanted to create this product for a number of reasons. And like I said, that guy who I said was nice, he actually is nice. From the Broad a New Yorker profile of him, SAME's Rob Brian Hart And um, he actually he went to tech. He's in Atlanta, boy, Yeah, And he was in San Francisco working at a tech startup out of his house with some of his roommates. And he decided that um, eating was taking up way too much of his time and money, time, money, effort. Um. It was just something he wasn't very interested in. And he also was, um, I think concerned with exactly what he was eating. I think he was just basically living off a ram And he said, which is not the healthiest thing you can possibly eat sure. So he decided to take a little time and research nutrition and how it relates to human physiology. And he had this idea that if you could get rid of the unnecessary parts of food, like food is kind of a clunky, inefficient vehicle for delivering nutrients. If you could get rid of the clunky part and just have the nutrients, you could you could live fairly healthily on just the raw materials of food that we need from food, right, just the nutrients. Yeah, Like I can save money, I can save time, um from going to the grocery store and cooking and cleaning, and I can get everything I really need to have a genuinely healthy diet um right here in this. I mean, I guess i'll call it a drink. I mean it goes down like a drink, right, Yeah, okay, so we'll call it a drink. But it's not to be confused with. I mean, there have been all kinds of meal replacement drinks over the years, uh, from like insurer to slim Fast and muscle milk, Yeah, protein shakes and stuff like that. This is not that this is supposed to give you everything you need in your body for a meal. Yeah, nutritionally. Other meal replacement drinks are meant to be meal replacements, right, Like if you couldn't get enough nutrients from your food because you're recovering from surgery, you need an extra bit. Your doctor may say, like drink and ensure every day whatever. Or like you said, protein chakes like muscle milk. If you're a weightlifter, you need uh hit a protein after you work out, you you will probably drink some sort of protein shake afterwards. Right, So there's very specific um reasons for the meal replacements or supplements that have been invented up to soiling. What's that soiling apart was that it was created intentionally to be a replacement for food, Like this was all you needed. You never needed to eat food again. All you had to do was eat soiling every day, every day, and and ingeniously, and I don't think he intended to even he was just looking for something for himself. He wasn't looking to change the food industry or to start a company. I don't think, not of a food company. But he very ingeniously started a blog against when thirteen called how I Stopped Eating Food, which is super grabby on the internet. Title wise, like someone's going to see that and go, well, what in the world is this all about? And that's what happened. It went viral, it blew up. He detailed on there that he lost weight. He said his intellectual and athletic performance improved. He said he spent a lot less money on groceries, but he put he put athletic and scare quotes. He's like, if you know what I mean, because he did go to tech and he was a software engineer, I meant sex. But yeah, yeah, the other way that joke worked. He said he spent a lot less money on groceries and he only spent about five minutes a day making this stuff. And he described it as a quote sweet succulent, hearty meal in a glass end quote, and people were all over it. He said, like after a week he would see ads for food and it would just be nauseated by him. He any that he came to crave um the soiling, which wasn't called soilent at that time. No, he did call it soilent. Oh, I thought he didn't call it until he like got the Kickstarter. Going from what I saw, I actually saw that blog post, and I believe he calls it Soilent in it. Okay, well whenever he got it, he got it. Spoiler alert by the way, upcoming. There was a movie in nineteen seventy three called Soilent Green, very famous, uh, kind of classic cult classic sci fi movie with Chuck Heston and the big reveal and soil it's about this, uh, this future world, this dystopian society where um, these people are fed these rations and in the end you realize that's it's revealed that people are eating other people. Soilent Green is people people, right, so um. And for that reason, because that was just such a famous ending, Like if that actually spoiled the movie for you, like, let us know, so Chuck can come hit you with a hammer because everybody knows the ending of the twist and Soiling Green. Yeah, I'm just you know, but he he yeah, I know. That was nice of you. See you're not a mean person, You're nice. Um. The he he was lobbied by investors, friends, family, Everybody's like, you gotta change the name of Soilon. But he would explain to him, it's actually not based on the movie. He's based it on the book that was the source for the movie Soiling Green. The book was called Make Room, Make Room, and it was written by a guy named Harry Harrison, and it's it was basically about overpopulation and in the book that people are fed soilent, which is a food made of soy and lentils, And that's what he based it on, was that book, not the the food being made from people, which apparently the makers of the movie used some pretty deep artistic license to totally alter it at the end. Yeah, So it started out nerdy, and it got nerdier because he was like, it's actually a deep cut right exactly from make Room, Make Room exclamation points. But he he um, he did detail in this blog post, and I'm pretty sure he did call it soiling in it, and he thinks very clever. I think it was a really kind of a funny wink to call it that. Sure, but he um. He posted the recipe that he went by in a follow up post and it's still up there. You can go see how to make soilent yourself, And as a matter of fact, a lot of people do. There's this um subculture of d i y soilent enthusiasts, people who are like so into it that they're creating their own blend for themselves from scratch self soil enters, yep, soilent preppers. So he started that Kickstarter got about three million bucks. Uh because people thought it was a cool idea. UM, submitted it to the f D A right, yeah, and that went whatever, but they classified it interesting instead of a dietary supplement. They said, now this is a food like knock yourself out, NERD go get sued. We don't care. And then he got a co packer, Rosa Labs in l A and um, they produce it for him still and people started eating or drinking this stuff up. Yeah, I mean especially other um people who work twenty three hours a day um and didn't want to be bothered with having to eat because they didn't really care about food and or they were like, all I'm eating is mac and cheese, Like what what am I doing? Like? If I'm gonna care that little about food, then I might as well eat something that's healthy that takes even less time to make them mac and cheese and just the whole um. Uh. The mentality behind soil it really like tapped a nerve and that stuff took off like very quickly. Um. They started selling like thirty thousand units of it a month. I guess packets a month by two thousand fourteen, and it was it debuted. The first shipments sold. They're shipped in May of two thousand fourteen, so like within seven months they were selling thirty thousand units a month. Yeah, it went gold right away. Uh, it's like round and round by. We'll take a break here and um I'll see if I go find Strickland and we'll be right back. No, no Strickland yet. Oh yeah, he has not appeared since the New year. You know, he's in Las Vegas right now? Right? Oh was he at c E S. Well, that makes sense. I didn't read my company blog. Uh yeah I did. Actually I did see that on our internal blog, right that we all post our daily goings on and last each other so silent. Uh. Again, we said that the taste isn't the big thing. Um, but they really aim to just say, hey, it's convenient, you're gonna save some money. And if you're you know, like you said, if you're someone who doesn't put so much care into what you're making for yourself, like you could like you said, you could eat nothing but this, but even the owner said, like you could but like, what do you want to food is great? Yeah, And they've walked that back tremendously. I think the more invested. Yeah, the more they've walked that back. So originally it was and he would give interviews and just tell everybody like, yeah, man, you can you can just live off of this indefinitely if you want. Now they say it's not intended to replace every meal, but it can replace any meal. Yeah. I think it's a really good I don't know if they've if they've tapped into the doomsday prepper segment, but like this seems to be the kind of thing that somebody could and should have, like in the trunk of their car or along with their canned goods and roll of masking tape. Yeah, you know, I mean I literally when I read this, I was like, you know, I wouldn't mind having a case of this in my trunk. Be a disaster, Yeah, pick up check that doesn't work, but you never know. I mean, I doubt if I'm ever gonna be like lost in the wilderness, but if i was, it'd be nice to have food for a week. Yeah, you know, for food for a week. I mean, these the sealed packets, unopened apparently last for a year. Al right, so I'd have to on day three sixty four every year, I'd have to drink them and get some new ones. You'd have to drink nine months worth of food on one day if you're a heck of a New Year's Eve. So we are officially on version one point seven. Yeah, that as of about two weeks from this recording ago, they issued one point seven And as of a couple of days ago, they introduced two new flavors um Yeah, and that's soilent two point oh. Oh is that official? Yeah, that's like um as technically a separate product. It's like pre mixed soilent drinks. All they have. They've had those in in the natural flavor since the beginning though, Oh is there right? I thought they just started with powder and then came and added the drink, and then now they added those two flavors to the drink. I think the new flavors are new. They've had the drink for a while. And they also now have a bar, a soilent bar that's unavailable right now. And about why in a little bit, because it's quite interesting. I did not know that um do they have the coffee ist is that. Yeah, that's out. So that's soilent in a bottle with caffeine. Yeah, so that's your morning. Well, I guess whenever you want the calf angeled, I would say morning, but you never know what your schedule is. That that sounds dangerous because I mean, like this is food, right, and people have a tendency to pound coffee. You don't want to pound the stuff like you'll gain weight. I mean, I guess if you're trying to gain weight, sure do it, but like this is this is the stuff is engineered to be just what you need to sustain you or maintain your weight. Or I guess if you wanted to gain weight, you just drink more of it pounded, you know, supposedly lose a little weight if you go like a soiling only for a few weeks. But it's all anecdotal. I don't think they make any claims. No, I don't think so either. So they're on one point seven now and each version supposedly they just you know, they're tweaking the recipe. They're listening to people, which sounds like the right thing to do, Like it sounds like they're really listening to people, and people are saying, oh, it's um, it's too thick, Like I don't like one point six, So they'll say, all right, a little xanthem gum take that out. Uh. They switch the primary source of fatty acids from fish oil to algible oil. But now I think the algae oils out now right, No, no, so the alga oils in. And they actually the reason why they switched out of fishal well two reasons. It made it vegan when they change from fish oil to algible but they also like it it um has far less of an environmental impact algae um farming does, but they even took it a step further, and they're not using oil from farmed algae. They're using oil from bioreactors, which take up even less space and use less energy for algible oil production than farming does. Right, So they're really like trying to narrow the impact environmentally that this stuff has. Yes, And the reason why is it is very much linked to our artificial sweetener episode. Somebody introduced whole algile flower to the market. UM as I think a thickener. I think it also is an emulsifier UM, and it just creates a pleasant mouth feel. I think um. And it's also somewhat nutritious supposedly, but it also can make people violently ill. And so all of soilent one point six had to be suspended, including the bar. That's why the bar is not available any longer. Um because it all contained this whole algile flower. They had to basically stop selling it, and then they tinkered with it, and that's why one point seven came out. Uh, Well, if if you're if you don't know much about soilent and you're literally screaming at your at your car radio right now or wherever you're listening, but what is it really? Then tell them what it's mainly derived from. Oh, it is soy protein. They replaced the brown rice and the oat flour and potato starch, and rice starts with basically just soy soy protein, another a couple other carbohydrates, So it's mainly soy, just a soy based meal, soy algeil oil um, something called um I so malt malte loose. It's a which they synthesize from beats. It's a carbohydrate but also a bit of a sweetener, canola oil. I think they took it. I think they took that out and the reason. Okay, so there is rice starching it. They definitely took the brown rice, the oat flower, and the potato starch out. Because if you go to their website, it's so cool. At the very bottom the bottom navigation, they'll they'll say release notes, and it will bring up PDFs of the notes about what they changed and why. UM for every single version of UM soiling, so it'll say we took this out because we found that this is actually better for the environment, or that this delivers the vitamin that we're trying to get better, or UM for whole algile flower. They said that they removed it to improve customer experience, which means not making you violently. Yeah, it's I mean, like I said, it sounds like they're they're continually striving to get it right. Yeah, but they're also more than that, they're also sharing what they're doing because the whole thing was kind of based out of that open source tech ethos, and so they've kind of maintained that open source thing ever since. They're just very transparent as a company. Yeah, looking at the as of January third, nutritional facts and one bottle fo calories one grams of total fat two grams of saturated fat. And this is for the the regular natural, right, so I keep calling natural? Is that what they call it? Uh? Original? Let's just say non flavored yet original a ridge. How's that? Uh? Cholesterol nocles are all which they've had from the beginning, ugrams of sodium, thirty six grams total carbs, three grams dietary fiber, nine grams of total sugars, nine grams of added sugars, and then uhs of protein, and a whole host of vitamins and minerals. Yeah, and those vitamins and minerals are important. That the essential nutrients UM, which are nutrients like vitamins and minerals that our bodies need but can't make. UM. They apparently went to the n I H and the FDA and several other UM groups and said, you know, what does the human body need to function and thrive? And they that's what they put in there. They have this blend of vitamins and nutrients that they include as part of the recipe for soilent. One of the things that soilents I don't want to I guess criticized for, I guess, but more one of the concerns that people who are skeptical about it have is that it um it doesn't have any non essential nutrients, which are nutrients that your body can make itself, like cholesterol that has zero cholesterol, but your body can make its own cholesterol. And that was a deliberate move on Reinhardt and his his UM co founders parts that they decided that they didn't need non essential nutrients, that it was UM something that our bodies already make and so therefore it was UM redundant basically to add this stuff in, because this is just the basic bear minimum that you need for to to be healthy and thrive. But some people are saying, well, these things are also found in nature in our food, and we take them in and we don't really know enough about nutrition and how it affects the human body to say you don't really need to take in from the outside any non essential nutrients. So people are saying, we're gonna have to see over the course of year is what kind of effects this has on people UM who are just eating soil, and if those people do exist, you know, five ten years from now. Yeah, and especially if that's something that you kind of touted or not you. But he touted to begin with, which is, hey, man, theoretically you could just eat only this. Yeah, but I mean he was like this, this twenty something dude who had a really great idea, and I didn't care about what the investors were saying, and and he cared about people's health. He wasn't doing it to be like a huckster or snake oil sales or anything like that. You know, he was just not watching his p's and ques like somebody who was from a PR department might ask him to. All right, well, let's take another break and I'm gonna We're gonna walk to Las Vegas. Get them. I'm gonna see if Strickland's up for this. Go get that guy, and I'll be right back in about ten days. Hey, and put twenty on black for me. M alright, good news, bad news. I owe you forty dollars man. No wait, no, that's good. Yeah, I thought you were paying me back with interest. Bad news is I couldn't find Strickland in Vegas. Actually, if we can't find Strickland, this is just hot off the presses our buddy Joe ran dazz oh yeah, currently uh of at midnight Fame he drank soil it for a little while, yeah, and asked him. I texted him for a description, and this just came in and he said, uh, it tasted like the devil's chalk. But some reptilian part of me appreciated obtaining sustenance without having to worry about flavor or preparation. Basically, space stationed serial killers should like it, and no one else. That's our that's our Joe, all right. So if you want to buy someone, like I said, you can get on Amazon. Now. I think it's only available in the USA and Canada still though, unless that's changed, I did not see that. But what what you can do is you can buy the pouches of powder and mix it where you can buy the bottles um and you can get subscriptions that cut a little of the price off depending on how much of this you want to drink, and that is up to you, as a human being to decide how much of this kind of nasty stuff. And I've heard our buddy Joe Randazza had some of this too, and I tried to get a quote from him on what he would describe the taste, and he hasn't replied yet, but I've heard some people say like, oh, it's really not that bad, and I've had heard other people say like it's disgusting and you'd really have to choke it down. So I guess there's a spectrum. I I mean, I guess I saw a couple of quotes like that, But for the most part, it seemed like people were surprised by how either neutral or strangely yeah, strange, strangely um alluring the taste was. Yeah, I didn't heard that. There's this. There's a great New Yorker article that profile I mentioned earlier UM called I think it's called the End of Food. It's from two thousand before team when this was like at the peak of its buzz um and Lizzie Wincombe, who wrote the thing, try soiling herself and it's weird. I think she actually says she starts to crave the taste after a while, but then some of her colleagues give these pithy quotes about what it actually tastes like, but they weren't actually trying it, you know what I mean. She she was actually trying to like, subsist on it for a little while. She apparently came to like it interesting I'm curious about its longevity. Like, when something like this comes out, I definitely see the allure of it becoming the rage for a while. But and and I think one of them we'll talk about what a dietitians think. But um, one of the allures of food is is food and sit and making it and sitting with friends and the wonderful taste that you get any experience you get of breaking bread with one another. And this really throws all that out the window. Um, you can't romanticize sitting down with a soilent shake and your friends, even if they all have one on their plate, it's just not the same. And nor do nor do they say it is the same. Um. But it makes me wonder like, once this initial fad wears off, what will it become? You know, it's bizarre. I just realized something. Well, you were saying that that this is the opposite of what we were saying. One of the problems with artificial sweeteners is so instead of exciting the gustatory response of your reward pathway for meeting food, all this does is um create satiation. So you're you're full from it, but you're not enjoying tasting it or eating it or smelling it or looking at it or thinking about it. So it's the exact opposite where artificial sweeteners excite that that um, that gustatory sensor um, but don't fill you up. This does the exact opposite well, And then I wonder what kind of effect that can have on your body, Like it does it dull that and kill that gustatory response, or does it make it so that when you do eat something, it's just like, wow, I can't believe the taste of the strawberry, and I don't know I um I that I've read about this this guy um, his name's Angus Barbieri and he's a Scotsman from nineteen sixty six. I think he was in his early twenties, and he went three hundred and eighty two days without eating a thing. He was under the supervision of some mad scientist doctor who was giving him like vitamin supplements and monitoring him. But he survived just on these vitamin supplements and coffee, tea and water for more than a year. And the reason he did it was he weighed four hundred and fifty six pounds and he was like, I'm tired of it I want to get down to one eighty and he did. Um. But he on the day he he broke that two day fast, he had a boiled egg, I think a piece of buttered toast, and I think some coffee, and he said, I enjoyed the egg very very much. So I would guess that that you if you did eat soiling, if you ate like a whole food, you would find it pretty rewarding, whereas if you ate like a synthetic food like junk food or whatever, you'd probably be like, oh my god, this is terrible, you know, but I'll bet that strawberry would taste pretty good. Well if you ask a dietician. And we didn't do a pole, but um, I think this one. Dr joy Do Boast, spokesman for the Academy of Nutrition and diet Tetics, Um not tnatics. I saw her quotes from this article, but then I saw a lot of other ones, and they have kind of all been in line, which is basically like, yeah, I mean, sure this stuff is okay and you can use it to a certain degree, but we don't. There just aren't studies like no one's gonna come out, No scientists is gonna come out and say yeah, you could live on this stuff for a year, because they just haven't done these peer reviewed studies and these long term risk and benefit analyzes don't exist. So no, no scientists is gonna come out like and put their name behind it in that kind of way, right exactly. But it's like you said, like even if they would, even if they were like, you know what, this is, fine, go ahead and do it forget food, there's something missing, Like there's that communal experience like you were saying, there's that the relaxing act of cooking. Um. Like I I understand feeling like it's your burdened with it sometimes when you're under the gun and you you have to eat, but just getting everything ready and cooking it and then cleaning up afterwards is it can be a total pain. So I understand the sentiment behind it. But I also would never replace food entirely ever. Never. Yeah, well of course not, um, because we're normal people. Um. But the other thing Dr Doubos says, which I think is a very huge point, is that what they've done is, I mean, there aren't a hundred different types of soilent depending on what kind of person you are. They basically said, this is just your basic nutrition for your average person. It's one size fits all and nutrition she said, they're making nutrition on one size fits all approach. The nutrition just doesn't work that way. So depending on your age, your lifestyle, how active you are, what kind of like you know, maladies you have in your life. Um, it's and and again they're not claiming to do that. Like all they're claiming is to do what it is, which is, Hey, we're gonna make this thing. It might be good for some people to use. Sometimes we'll probably keep you alive. I thought, there's so. I also remember I was talking about the non essential nutrients that aren't in there, and people are wondering what effect that might have. There's also another um thing that that's missing that's kind of subtle, but it might have an impact. This Japanese study found that it seems the art or not the art, but the act of chewing has some sort of benefits. So like it has a stress reduction and um, it also probably controls the amount of glucose entering your blood by just kind of unlocking food slowly by chewing it into smaller and smaller pieces. And you don't do that with drinks like soilent. You just get hit with it all at once, so there's a big flood of your of nutrients into your bloodstream. And fortunately with that stuff, it's it's good stuff. But um, like if if they were saying like, the sugar probably has a greater impact on you than the same amount of sugar delivered through solid food because it just hits you faster and so your your levels increased. Quicker about that. Either I'm gonna get some, are you going to? Yeah, I'm gonna get some and just have it on hand. And I mean it beats driving to McDonald's If I don't have any food. Sure, you know you should hide it in the wheel well or your spare tire. Well. I do have a pickup truck, so I have no trunk, That's what I'm saying. Uh, I guess it's underneath. I gave away your hiding place. Now my hiding place is actually behind the rear seat. Oh gotcha. That's a good one. No one will ever find anything there, and there you will find. It's pretty salacious, but you'll find bungee cords and jumper cables in John Strickling. Yes, have you got anything else? No? Unless we insert Strickland, which would go right here. But if not, um, we'll just end it. Well, let's find out right now. Nope, we didn't. Oh well, um, I should probably say chuck. And we probably should have said this fairly early on. We have like no um uh financial interests in soilent whatsoever? We even backing on Kickstarter, No, I got I got no interest other than wanting to taste this, uh this junk. Yeah, all right, if you want to know more about soilent, type that word into the search bar how stuff works dot com. And since I said search bar, it's time for a listener mail. Uh. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if Reinhardt listens to the show. Oh well, if he does, what's up, dude? Yeah, so at the very least we might get a case of this stuff at the office. Oh boy. And UM, I'm gonna call this, well, I'm gonna call this one of what maybe several breastfeeding email replies. Uh. First of all, we did a show, two parter on feeding babies. First part was on breastfeeding, and we were both nervous, and I have to say it went great, and we've been getting great feedback and I'm super proud of these episodes. Yeah, they're good. Based on the feedback we've been getting very supportive, which makes us feel good. Yeah, we were pretty tense alright, So this is one of those Hey guys. Uh. Plus she has a great name. I know you're worried about getting tons of attack emails for doing an episode and breastfeeding, but our promises isn't mean smiley face. I listened to the episode right after I got home from breastfeeding Glass. I'm currently pregnant do on February. Uh so, man, this is gonna come out probably about a month before that. And she does a big scream and anticipation. I took a class through my local hospital on breastfeeding to prepare you. Guys. Uh, you had really great thing to say about breastfeeding, and it pretty much lined up with what the lactation consultant running the class had to say. I'm so glad that you tackled tackle the issue, especially because you are men um even though I know it scared you. The lactation consultant said, the biggest barrier to women breastfeeding is not having a supportive partner, uh, which I don't get that at all. Um. Hopefully with your podcast you read some partners out there who will now be more informed and better able to support the new mother in their lives. I hope so too. I was so glad that you mentioned the war over feeding currently going on as well. Formula is also a great option for feeding babies. No matter what militant moms have to say, just feed your baby. Keep up the great podcasting. And her name is Claire Victory, and boy, she's so close to being named declare Victory. Oh yeah, I hadn't thought about that, and she said ps and never offended. By the way when you say guys, I hope others aren't either. I feel like you've have gotten to the point where guys is gender neutral. Sure we're making that our mission in life, I hope. So. Yeah. Well thanks a lot, Claire, Yeah. Uh, we appreciate a big time. And thanks to everybody who sent us notes of support for that one, because they are very well received by us and clear good luck yeah yeah, best wishes to you, Yes, good luck how it goes well. Uh. If you want to get in touch with us, like Claire Victory did, you can tweet to us. I'm at Josham Clark, and there's also s Y s K podcast where you can find both of us. You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know, and Chuck is at Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot com