this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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I once drank soylent before going partying, and I didn't have to use the bathroom at all.

That was really good because taking off my outfit to use the bathroom sucks.

Building upon that, if I just kept drinking soylent, I could party non-stop without bathroom breaks.

So how many days can my digestive system, and body, handle being on a soylent only diet?

Will my guts atrophy?

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I read up on it for a while a few years back, but I never tried it cause I like chewing and variety.

It's important if you are talking about soylent as in the brand, soylent as in a soy and lentil based beverage, or soylent as a generic term for meal replacement beverages.

Some of these meal replacements are designed to just replace 1 meal a day, or 2 meals a day, etc, so you could develop a deficiency after a little bit. There's a DIY community to share recipes along with "nutritional completeness".

https://www.completefoods.co/

Everyone has different dietary needs, so even if a shake technically has all the nutrients you need, it might not have enough of everything unless you eat way more calories worth than you need. Humans are pretty adaptable, though.

[–] lockedcasket@lemm.ee 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I did it for quite some time. I think close to 1.5 years. I bought a metric ton of it during Covid and I never ever got sick of drinking it. To me it’s like drinking water and my brain just adapted to it. I did get tired of people asking me if I was tired of drinking Soylent. That was legitimately nonstop.

[–] alcibiades@lemm.ee 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

No shit people were asking if you were tired of drinking soylent. To the average person it sounds damn near psychopathic if you get all your nutritional needs from a drink. Lock in bro

[–] Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wait soylent is real? It's it green?

[–] doomsdayrs@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] doomsdayrs@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

nope, mostly soy

[–] Greg@lemmy.ca 21 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Is this in preparation for Lemmy's 3 day no poop challenge in July?

[–] TheColonel@reddthat.com 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I’m sorry, the fuckin what?

[–] dditty@lemm.ee 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Its a reference to a legendary post from the early days of the fediverse

https://lemmy.ca/post/865320

[–] Greg@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And the original I need to survive for 3 days without pooping post only exists on the Internet Archive now

[–] dditty@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago

Yeah I saw that when I tried looking for it when I commented a few minutes ago - so sad!! 😭

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 2 points 1 day ago

I thought you had to eat beans

[–] Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 33 points 2 days ago

Big Soylent fan here, firstly, Soylent isn't designed as a 100% meal replacement, or at least it isn't approved as such.

That being said, the inventor claimed in an interview that he had gone for a month on pure Soylent, and there have been many people who make similar claims.

Stay hydrated, Soylent does make you poop, it's just delayed because of the high fiber. Trust me, try it for a few days straight, you're colon will get cleaned out lol.

Make sure you drink lots of water, that goes for any diet, (lots of people are mildly dehydrated without realizing it.)

[–] Dran_Arcana@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I did ~1.5 years of only Soylent, then transitioned into 2/3 meals per day being Soylent, which I've done for the last ~6-7yrs.

I'm the healthiest I've ever been, but it does require discipline, exercise and attention like anything else. Calories are calories and if you consume more than you burn, you'll poop a lot and gain weight. If you drink at a significant deficit (my 1.5years was at 1200kcal/day) you will poop once or twice a week and it will take a few months of your body getting used to it for it to be more than liquid.

As others have said though, it's a deceptively dehydrating liquid. You absolutely still need to drink water, and your water intake will largely dictate how much you pee.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Why? Was this a weight loss thing?

[–] Dran_Arcana@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Dran_Arcana@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

There's nothing magic about Soylent for weight loss. It's a simple equation of calories in and calories out. The advantages that Soylent offered me was convenience for counting said calories, convenience for meal prep, and being reasonably certain my body was getting a decent distribution of micronutrients

[–] alcibiades@lemm.ee 10 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Is this shi real 😭 isnt soylent a made up food from a dystopian movie? How do so many people in this thread have experience with soylent

[–] BackwardsUntoDawn@lemm.ee 13 points 2 days ago

it's a real meal replacement product named after the movie, it was a big trend in the tech crowd like 10 years ago. it's supposed to be a blend of all the nutrients you need in drink/powder form, people would try living off of it.

[–] fouloleron@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'll just leave this here for you guys.

[–] Gronk@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago

Absolutely loved that novel (novella?). The descriptive language really captures a lot of the theme, from the shipyard chained together into a shanty town to the description of Sols oven being modified to different energy sources as societies resources dwindled

Would absolutely recommend it, especially if you enjoyed soylent green

[–] bradboimler@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I enjoy the taste of food but getting all your nutritional needs met with a drink is extremely compelling to me. I did it for months if not years.

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm in the same boat as you. I researched it a bit. Yes, Soylent Green is a movie. It is a meal replacement product made up of human remains. The movie takes place in 2022. The real Soylent is not human remains (or is it? 🀣).

I had no idea meal replacements were so popular.

[–] Cort@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Honestly it's not even that popular, at least not relative to slim-fast in the 90s

[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I believe i found it

Looks like someone saw the movie and got mad because β€œthat’s not how capitalism would do it” and then proceeded to sell overpriced astronaut food.

It admittedly does look decent and reasonably healthy on paper.

[–] MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 2 days ago

At least one company made a soylent, it's just not soylent green. Not sure if it contains soy or lentils.

[–] Greg@lemmy.ca 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What’s your usual diet like?

[–] Shadow@lemmy.ca 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Pretty long. I went about a year on mostly soylent. The newer formulations are a lot easier on the digestive system.

You still need to consume water and you're still going to poop, just not as much.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I did about two years on Soylent no overt issues. It made eating simple, and I didn't gain any weight, but didn't lose any weight either. Guts will not atrophy

Agreed on the pooping reduction.

I wouldn't recommend Soylent to anyone now, not because it is bad (it's better then the Standard American Diet), but because I've found better ways to manage food and health (and even less pooping heh)

[–] lucg@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well don't leave us hanging

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

ohh, after the pandemic kicked off I stopped doing Soylent (on which i developed high blood pressure, heh), and started a ketogenic protocol. Since then I've moved over to a zero carbohydrate protocol (carnivore).

Carnivore is a super-clean version of keto, very easy to follow, hard to make mistakes on, I've seen great results. I poop about once every two days - and its never urgent, I never fart. If your trying to minimize pooping you can't do much better.

I moderate !carnivore@lemm.ee and !ketogenic@dubvee.org.

Here are my biomarkers after 6 months of carnivore: https://hackertalks.com/post/6749910

[–] Mantzy81@aussie.zone 5 points 2 days ago

Just don't have the green one. Tastes too much like bacon.

[–] MisterNeon@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

You still need to use the bathroom eventually even with Soylent. Honestly I found after a couple weeks only doing Soylent wrecked my guts.

Honestly Huel is a lot easier on the tummy, give that a try for a few days and see how well you adjust.

[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca -3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If you take a multivitamin, I don’t see why you couldn’t live off of it indefinitely. It does probably have enough vitamins for you anyway. Is that really a life worth living?

[–] communism@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Multivitamins don't have much, if anything, by way of caloric value.

[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yes, that’s what the Soylent is for.

[–] lucg@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The definition of soylent is that it contains all nutrients you need. What's the multivitamin pill for?

I think the definition is a food product made from a combination of soy and lentils. Some variations are "nutritionally complete" others are not.

[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

In case you need more vitamins than are in Soylent. Soylent is a real world product, and it’s not right for everyone.

If you’re going to do a drastic diet change like this, you really should consult a doctor first, not Lemmy. (Talking to OP here.)