Mixing schmoylent with anything is just useless.

Breakfast: 50g Schmoylent, 50g Soylent, 4g MCT oil.

Ok, seriously, the schmoylent is just terrible. Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of things about it. It fills me up, I feel good when I eat it, but the consistency is just somehow wet sand, no matter what else I do to it. And it tastes artificial and weird.

So Eric and I are trying to finish off the Schmoylent (hey, this stuff isn't free, would like to get my value out of it). This morning my kitchen counter had one portion of soylent and one portion of schmoylent. I decided that the only solution was to mix the two, since I was making breakfast for me and Eric. I can't even tell there is soylent in this. I still have all the grit and all the weird vanilla flavor of the schmoylent as the only thing I notice. *sigh*

2 more bags of Schmoylent to go (out of 7). That's 6 to 8 meals. I can do this. I have help!

Meanwhile, on Tuesday I bit the bullet and started a subscription to Soylent. One of the reasons I didn't go with Soylent in the first place was that it was super back ordered and I didn't want to wait another 5 weeks or so. Soylent isn't backordered anymore. I ordered it on Tuesday, it was on my doorstep on Thursday. Yep. I now have Soylent 1.5, the pitcher and the scoop!

Why did I order more before we finish off the Schmoylent and the Soylent 1.4? Well, because it's less expensive to have a subscription, and Eric dove into it with me. Also, because Eric has decided that Soylent will be a large portion of our burning man food planning. So yeah, I guess I'm gifting Soylent on the playa. My life is weird.  That means we wanted some extra stock pile of it.

Yesterday I ate Schmoylent for breakfast and Soylent for lunch. I didn't snack on anything, I wasn't hungry at any point and at no time did I have any need for a different flavor in my life. Food is great, don't get me wrong. Earlier in the week I had a delicious and terrible for me chicken pesto crepe. But I need to eat more often than I care about food. It was really nice to just have a lunch that took me about 30 seconds to make. Also, the water in our coolers at work is super cold and made for a really good temperature of soylent!

I'm looking forward to my 1.4 vs 1.5 taste test in a week or so. Anyone want in on that?

Soylent - a love haiku

Soylent (or Schmoylent)

You have so improved my life

Thank you sandy drink!

I can't believe it's only been 23 days. I've had about 30 meals of Soylent (or Schmoylent), including breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.

I've eaten it almost every single day I've been at work for the last 3 weeks, mostly for breakfast, sometimes for lunch instead, occasionally for both. I ate it for dinner when I was running late to the theater and didn't have time for anything else. I had it as a late night snack with friends. I've eaten it on the weekend for breakfast and for lunch. I've gotten one friend to order it.

Today I am drinking Schmoylent with MCT oil. It's sludgy and gritty and really awful, but I FEEL good drinking it. I no longer have pangs of desire when I am consuming soylent and watching other people eat anything else. I vastly prefer Soylent 1.4, but I have Schmoylent to use up and I hate wasting things. Also, buying vanilla was a mistake. The oatey/ricey flavor of the real Soylent is just calming and reminiscent of food without being in your face as "flavored nutrient drink!"

Yesterday Eric looked at my Soylent breakfast and actually said "I'm jealous!" So I bought him his very own blender bottle and mixed up his first Soylent breakfast today! I will let him get use to Soylent before I have him start helping me use up the Schmoylent.


I've had a lot of people ask me "Why?" A few reasons. (Most of these answers refer to any of the drinks I've tried)

1. Sugar. Sure, I could do carnation instant breakfast, or chocolate protein shakes. Those are great, and things I've sworn by in the past, but they are LOADED with sugar. If I start my day with something sweet, I consume sugar all day. I am a sugar addict. I don't deny myself sugar all the time, but if i can make it to 2-3pm without eating any, I feel way better.

2. Feeling Full. It's really really easy to make myself uncomfortably full with the Soylent. Now, that may sound like a fault and not a feature... but I am super great at stopping eating when I am full. Same is true with the Soylent. I tend to consume a bottle over about half an hour, so I've got time to stop eating when I'm full. Part of that is because I make myself a full 28oz with a meal's worth of the powder (100-115g). That's just a lot of thick liquid to drink. The chocolate protein shakes I use to drink were 12oz and that was it. I was full for a couple of hours, but then I'd be hungry again. Also, with Soylent, I can dial in how many calories I want. I can have a 100g day, or a 125g day.

3. Powder + Water. Which leads me to my next point. It's SO EASY. I already had a kitchen scale (that almost never got used, it does now!). I bought a blender bottle and some powder. That's it. Ok, the older stuff needed some oil, but I had MCT oil from a previous nutrition experiment that needed using up. And with the new Soylent, I can leave some at work, ready for consuming on days that I need to work through lunch, or have to unexpectedly stay later than restaurants around here are open. Steps to make Soylent: Add some water to the bottle. Add desired amount of powder. Add the rest of the water (I make it thinner now than I did in the early days of this). Shake to mix. Consume.


Truly though, this kind of food means that I eat 3 meals a day, reliably, without stress, and I feel good doing it. I'm actually probably more nutritionally balanced now than I ever have been in my life, and I eat pretty healthy on a regular basis.

I've already converted Eric... who is next?

P.S. I'm really excited Eric is helping me finish off the Schmoylent and the Soylent 1.4.... I can't wait to try Soylent 1.5. Also, we totally live in the future.

Soylent 1.4

Dinner last night: Soylent 1.4
Lunch today: Soylent 1.4


So I made up some of my newly acquired soylent 1.4 for dinner last night and for lunch today, but I didn't have any measuring apprati, so I don't know if I mixed up a proper ration.

That said, my current take on it is that soylent 1.4 takes the cake! It's just non-food. There's almost no sensation consuming it. It tastes like the blandness of a rice cake, it doesn't have much grittiness, and most joyfully, it doesn't require oil. That means I can actually just leave this stuff in my office and have it on hand for the days I need lunch!

I should really get a measuring scoop though.

Also, my Soylent 1.4 arrived at David's house a couple days ago. And apparently Soylent 1.5 was just released.... so, this is probably the only 1.4 I will ever have! I bough a week's worth.

I'm REALLY loving this food. It's so easy! SO EASY!

No Schmoylent today! And I miss it!

Day: who cares
Brunch: An egg, cheese and bacon crepe

I didn't spend the night at my house last night and I didn't have a chance to mix up any Schmoylent in advance, so I don't have any today.

And I'm sad about it!

I actually really like this stuff. Ok, so that one bag had separation issues, and sometimes it's like drinking sand, and there's a weird flavor to it, and sometimes it makes me gassy..... but oh my gosh, it's filling, it's easy, and it solves this problem that I've struggled with my entire life.

Over the weekend I actually made some for lunch when everyone around me was eating food. Making food just sounded like too much of a hassle and I wasn't interested in it.

For real. I am actually sad about my lack of schmoylent. I'm really looking forward to getting my soylent 1.4 because it doesn't require oil! I can just leave a bag or two at work and on days like today, I will have it to mix up whenever I need it!

Also, I finally found a thing I can add to it that gives it a good flavor on days when I want a flavor... peanut butter! Boom! Yesterday's breakfast was 90g of Schmoylent and a heaping spoonful of peanut butter (and some MCT oil). Yes, all the yes! I did that for my lunch over the weekend too.

So, long story short... I'm done with the day tracker, but I will continue the blog for a while because this is my new normal and I have intentions of still messing with how much of this stuff I drink, when I drink it, which version of it I'm drinking, and what I add to it.

If you have any suggestions of ways to improve it or variations to try, let me know! Let the long term experiment begin!

Separation and more sand

Schmoylent: Day 7
Breakfast: 120g serving of Vanilla Schmoylent with MCT oil

Ok, couple of comments on today's concocotion.

I didn't do anything to it. I just made it with powder, oil and water, per the recommendation. I mixed it up this morning (didn't feel like cleaning the blender, dishwased it overnight), with some ice, and let it chill for an hour before I left for work. It was nice and cold and it was nicely thinned out. I'm thinking I might be narrowing in on how much of the powder I need to use to be full all morning. Today was 120g (instead of the 1/3 of a bag serving of 155g) and that kept me totally fine until I had lunch at 1pm. I think 100g might be just about right.

But the separation thing that happened yesterday happened today too. Mouth full of sand for the last 1/4 of the bottle or so. I added more water today and that did not fix things. In fact, it was so bad I just didn't finish breakfast. So at 3pm it's still sitting on my desk, not having been touched since about 11am.

Seriously, check out that separation!

I think I've decided to just chalk this up to a bad bag of Schmoylent. After all, as far as I know, this stuff was made by a guy in his kitchen. This was my 3rd bag and it's behaving badly. Maybe it's just not mixed thoroughly. Maybe it's  out of proportion. I dunno. I can certainly finish it, but I'm hoping I don't see this behavior with other bags of the stuff. Yes, I can get it to blend back into solution, but it doesn't stay that way, it starts separating out again, and it's totally like drinking sand. Bleh.

And because this made me laugh, here's The Onion's take on what I'm doing. Thanks for the link Brenna!

http://www.theonion.com/americanvoices/tech-industry-employees-drinking-liquid-meals-work-50528

Mouth full of sand

Schmoylent: Day 6
Breakfast and Lunch: 1 serving of Vanilla Schmoylent with MCT oil and "iced hazelnut instant coffee"

I dropped my car off for service today, so I'm stuck in my office with no way to get food. That's ok, that's exactly what this Schmoylent thing is all about. I only drank half of a normal portion for breakfast and now I'm having the 2nd half for lunch.

Today I added that instant coffee that I talked about. It made the flavor predictably weird (all additives are doing that), but I was awake until 1am and got up at 7:30, so the extra caffeine is nice.

So here's the thing. Something happened to this mix between breakfast and lunch. I don't know what happened, but it's like all the stuff that makes this sludgy decided to stick together and come out of solution. It's literally like drinking watered down sand. I just took a picture of sand looking stuff covering my tongue after taking a drink. I will spare you.

Maybe it was the coffee. Maybe I didn't add enough oil. Maybe I added too much water. In any case, it was yucky.

But, it's 2pm and I had one smaller portion (140g instead of 155g of the mix) of Schmoylent today and I'm still really full.

Soylent... way better, except in the ways it isn't

Schmoylent: Day 5
Lunch: Soylent 1.0

I decided to mix things up today. First, I ate real food for breakfast. I got a little breakfast burrito on sale at Fresh and Easy yesterday and ate that when I got to work. It wasn't quite filling enough, so I found myself snacking on some trail mix at 10:30am. Time for some Soylent!

Oh yeah, I also made real (initial release) Solyent today. I also decreased the amount of powder (by 10%) and added some extra water, as I had suggested to me. This was the most pleasing thing to drink yet. It wasn't even sludge! The flavor was nice and bland, and it was very much a drink.

It was so good that when a friend was talking to me about ordering himself some Soylent 1.4, I jumped on the bandwagon and ordered another 7 bags. I've currently consumed 2 full bags of Schmoylent (out of 7).

****

Several hours later.

Um, Soylent 1.0 had reports of causing gas. True story! I'm not looking forward to being trapped in my car for the next hour.

Good thing I've only got 1 serving left of this.

Now with real fruit!

Schmoylent: Day 5
Breakfast: Vanilla Schmoylent with MCT oil + a banana

Oh man, my first weekend on Schmoylent was a 3-day holiday weekend. I didn't even think about eating anything powdered over the weekend and that was pretty nice. It was also nice that I went camping with my friends and got fed some amazing campfire dinner by David. Mmm, food I didn't have to plan, shop for, cook or clean up after. I love my friends!

But last night I got my act together and prepared my Schmoylent again. Mixing it up I actually kind of got excited, it's so filling and easy! That was a weird feeling.

Then this morning I did something really strange. I added a very mushy banana* to my blender bottle. That's right, I decided to HAND BLEND a banana into my sludge just by shaking. I took my impromptu shake-weight into the car with me and just went to town at every red light on my way to work. My arms are sore from working out again yesterday (I'll get to that in a second), and I'm now 2 hours post mixing and my arms are still kind of shaky and weak. In the car it sort of seemed like this was going to be a TOTALLY failed experiment and that I was going to end up eating the banana out of the bottle with a fork. However, I broke the banana into about 4 pieces when I put it in the bottle and I managed to pulverize about 2.5 of them. I ate the rest and then had a remotely banana flavored and textured sludge to drink!

I love banana in smoothies. In fact, I refuse to make them at home without banana, and if I order something from a smoothie shop that doesn't have banana, I add it. I think it makes the texture correct and without it, it feels like I'm drinking juice or a slushie, neither of which I want most of the time.

The banana DID improve the texture of the sludge. It was less gritty and it felt much nicer to drink. I think if I had actually blended it using a blender, it would have been even better. The taste, however, not really improved. Apparently there are some artificial sweeteners in the schmoylent and they became extremely apparent to me when I added the natural sweetness of the banana. I might give it one more go in a blender, but mostly this was a failed experiment. I kind of think adding stuff to the Schmoylent is just a bad idea.

Now, I drank half a normal portion of the sludge for breakfast. My lunch plans fell through because of illness and now I'm debating if I should get real food or just try another day of one portion for two meals. But I'm not going to eat out of the vending machine, that's decided anyway. I will go out for food if I'm hungry later I guess. 

*Why did I add a banana? Because the little child demanded a banana this morning so I gave him one. I followed behind him with a second banana to give to the big child, but he already had a banana. Eric didn't want it, so that left me with a mushy and open banana to deal with. This was mostly an exercise in not wasting food.

Since starting this:
Schmoylent meals: 7
Real meals: 12 <-- I didn't eat more than 2 real meals a day over the weekend. 

Oh god, don't add nesquik

Schmoylent: Day 4
Breakfast: Vanilla Schmoylent with MCT oil + strawberry nesquik

I had real lunch and dinner yesterday, first Hawaiian food with Sami for lunch and then PF Changs takeout after meeting Linda for drinks. I didn't have to cook or clean up any of it, it was great! Mmm, real food.


So today I am only having sludge for breakfast. I thought "Hmm, what can I add to it to give it some variety and be a bit more interesting?" I settled on strawberry nesquik.

Don't do that. It is so gross. It's even more artificial tasting, somehow even grittier, and it just smells nauseating.

But, I'm full!

I won't be consuming ANY Schmoylent over the 3 day weekend. I am doing this to be meals only at times that I eat alone, so only for breakfast and lunch on work days. Eric tried it and had the appropriate "eww, that's gross" reaction. I'm just trying to get some nutrition when I might otherwise have eaten nothing or crap.

Back on Tuesday. 

Since starting this:
Schmoylent meals: 6
Real meals: 4

So... much... liquid.

Schmoylent: Day 3
Breakfast: Vanilla Schmoylent with MCT oil

Several things have happened in the last 24 hours.

First, I totally needed a snack yesterday. I ended up eating some cheetos and some dry Kashi GoLean cereal (yeah, I apparently really like foods with no flavor that give no joy when eating them). One serving of Schmoylent is not enough for breakfast and lunch. Maybe a serving and a half would be though.

Next, I had my first Schmoylent snack. I was playing games with friends last night and they were snacking on various things. I  had my Schmoylent in the fridge, mixed up for breakfast this morning, and I thought "Hey, I made a full 1/3 bag for breakfast... maybe I could have a schmoylent snack?" Turns out everyone at the table is following this silly sludge adventure of mine and all thought this was not only a good idea, but wanted to try the stuff too. Also, what? People are actually following this? It seems I am not the only one who finds feeding themselves just way too much effort some of the time.

My favorite comment  from my friend Logan was "Could you just eat the powder and then drink some water instead?"

I have no intention of trying that, but my idea of adding powdered gravy mix was not dismissed out of hand by Zak, who is an awesome chef. I might try that tomorrow.

So back to today. I have had a really small amount of Schmoylent and I've had a latte. It turns out that trying to drink water, my caffeine, and my food is really exhausting. I do not want to consume that much liquid. I am now thinking I might add a starbucks "Via" to the rotation of things I add when I don't think I am going to have time for my normal first thing in the morning coffee (as I didn't today). Because caffeinated Schmoylent is sounding really awesome right about now! I am also wondering what it would taste like if I added some various alcohols. This month might get really weird.

Coffee > Schmoylent for my happiness levels

So it's 11am and I have eaten very little of my breakfast. This is feeling like a normal day. I'm mostly just full on my latte. I also have lunch plans with Sami, so I get to eat real food in an hour or two! YES! Hawaiian food!

I do like food, I just don't like the effort of acquiring food that I am going to eat all by myself. Social eating is wonderful.

Smelling real food is tricky.

Schmoylent: Day 2
Brunch (part 2): Vanilla Schmoylent with MCT oil and added Vanilla flavoring.

Well, I'm eating "lunch" now. It's 11:30am and I'm not exactly hungry, but I encountered something for which I wasn't prepared. One of my coworkers in my hallway had a lunch that smelled delicious.  But today is a busy work day and it's great that I don't actually have to go get sustenance, so I'm downing my sludge again.

It's had another few hours for the grit to soak up water and it's much better. Still silty, but far smoother, especially as the stuff hits my tongue.

It still tastes like, well, crepe batter. And since I added some flavor boost today, it's got a fair punch of flavor. I wish it was some sort of savory flavor. I'm wondering if I could get it to taste a bit like stew or gravy or something. I might actually experiment with some

****************
It's 1pm. I finished my lunch. The flavor of the sludge totally made up for the smell of real food wafting down the hallway.

I'm still kind of hungry. Or I'm bored? I think what I mean to say is, if there was more food around me, I'd eat it. But I'm not really hurting for food.

I will say, this reusable bottle thing is great, but also obnoxious. I know I need to get my butt up and wash the bottle out if I don't want it to be really hard to clean tonight. But at least it's reusable and more environmentally friendly than the frozen meals I use to eat.

Clean me!

Since starting this:
Schmoylent meals: 4
Real meals: 1

Day 2: Half the portion size, comfortably full!

Schmoylent: Day 2
Brunch: Vanilla Schmoylent with MCT oil and added Vanilla flavoring

By the end of the day yesterday I was absurdly bloated. I woke up still bloated. I have a history of doing this if I consume a lot of gluten, but I haven't identified any other foods in particular that cause this problem. Oh well, I'm proceeding forward with this experiment.

Last night I failed to prepare the Schmoylent for today. But running off a suggestion I got yesterday from Marie​, I just mixed up my Schmoylent this morning right when I woke up and threw it in the freezer. It still got a couple of hours of mixed life before I ended up drinking it. I also decided to throw some Penzeys double strength vanilla in the bottle today to have some flavor.

I make my single meal portions in a blender bottle. Super easy! However, the lid on it tends to drip, unless I'm armed with a napkin (or willing to lick it). This stuff is yucky on clothing. I've learned that the hard way.

Blender bottle! It started full, I drank a little more than half. What's left in it will be lunch!

So I started to drink my sludge at work today, instead of in the car on the way in. I waited until I was hungry, about 9:30 (normal for me) and then sat down to do some work and drank about half of what the bag claims is a single meal. I'm totally full now. It was nice to just let myself stop when I was full, unlike yesterday when I got overly full. Obviously, I'll operate this way under normal conditions. I just went to the extreme yesterday for science.

The taste suffered a bit for not sitting overnight. It's even grittier. Mmmm, grit! I am saving the second half of the meal for whenever I start to feel hungry, or possibly bored, since that seems to be a reason I eat. I have no other food in my office, so this is my only option today.

Tonight I get to seat soup!

Since starting this:
Schmoylent meals: 3
Real meals: 1

Soylent Vs Schmoylent Lunch Date!

Schmoylent: Day 1 
Lunch: Soylent 1.0 vs Vanilla Schmoylent with MCT oil taste test!

Left: Breakfast portion. Right: Lunch portion divided by two so as to share with Alex.

Texture: Soylent was much less gritty. Or maybe, still gritty, but finer grit? The texture was preferred. Both were still a little icky.

Taste: Soylent was sort of oaty... kind of like consuming really boring bread? Schmoylent is obviously vanilla flavored, but it was really minor. The longer I went back and forth, the more I couldn't tell the difference between them. Neither were particularly sweet. Neither were offensive.

MCT vs. Coconut Oil (my two preparations today): Uh... neither were bad, neither were great... MCT was much easier to prepare because I had to melt my coconut oil. I'll probably use up my MCT oil for now.

Cold vs Room Temperature (Schmoylent was cold, Soylent was RT): Being cold helps. I was told this, the directions said so, and it's true!

Other factors: I had this taste test in the park with my friend Alex. He provided the Soylent (and gave me some to play with on my own, Thanks Alex!). It was very much against the spirit of what this food is about to sit down and have a meal of it with someone. But once we got past the initial "Wow, this stuff is gritty, oh, being cold is better... ect" silliness, we were totally able to have a normal lunch conversation. It's not really a GOOD social food, but it isn't really a bad one either. Although if Alex had a cheeseburger instead, I would have hated my sludge.

Schmoylent meals: 2
Real meals: 0

It Begins!

Schmoylent: Day 1 
Breakfast: Vanilla Schmoylent with Coconut Oil

Uh... that was gross. I mean, not terrible, it was consumable. But it was kind of like drinking a pancake batter with some fine sand mixed in. It took me 90 minutes to consume it. It was kind of nice to have something to drink on for my first hour at work. But it's almost 10am and I feel like i am going to be full forever. How am I possibly going to manage lunch? If this is as filling as I expect it to be, a mid morning shake will cover breakfast and lunch and THAT would be awesome.

Schmoylent meals: 1
Real meals: 0