Soylent (the food substitute)

[apocrypha]

Kale is great.

Soylent is 'food' for people who hate themselves.

[schild]

It's not about the actual texture of kale, or the bitterness (habañero kale chips are great!). It's about the fucking taste of it - in juice you can't mask it and in food if you don't fry it the foul weed fucks up everything.

Soylent is 'food' for people who hate themselves.

So is Kale. Have you met a gluten free or vegan asshole in the 21st century?

[apocrypha]

No, no, see liking or disliking kale is just about taste, and we all have different tastes. Nobody likes shit like Soylent, it's not intended to be liked. It's just for people to punish themselves with to atone for the perceived sin of eating unhealthy food.

[schild]

Or for people who don't take pleasure in eating. Or San Francisco programmers who have forgotten how food works.

Kale, on the other hand, is an awful, overpriced hipster weed that shouldnt even be in grocery stores and wasnt 7 years ago. It took packs of farm to table assholes to turn the reputation of kale into a food people would want to shove into their maw.

[apocrypha]

Wait, overpriced? It's one of the cheapest vegetables there is here. It's like, £1 for a bag the size of a small child. You guys need to start murdering hipsters.

[Paelos]

Wait, overpriced? It's one of the cheapest vegetables there is here. It's like, £1 for a bag the size of a small child. You guys need to start murdering hipsters.

Kale at Walmart is now like $2.38 a pound. It's the absurd marketing of something that shouldn't exist on a table.

[Merusk]

My favorite is folks who juice it then bitch about how much it takes to produce any juice.

It's mostly fiber, folks. It's not a goddamn watermelon.

[Sky]

Why juice things anyway? Adjuncts are important.

Sorry, veering back to Nebuish nutrition elitism. Go ahead and drink those calories, spaceman.

[HaemishM]

I just want to see if cutting out fast food at lunch will make me look and feel better.

Yes. Absolutely and utterly, yes. It doesn't matter what else the fuck you do, cutting out fast food at lunch will absolutely make you look and feel better. The stuff is pure fucking garbage on every level and it is engineered to make you want it and not just want it but want MORE of it. It's a fucking abomination of a food crime. And it is SO SO DELICIOUS. It's also idiotically expensive in the macro sense.

I'm not about to say you should entirely remove it from your diet because it is something that is enjoyable. The less you eat it, though, the less you'll like it when you do eat it. Another way to make yourself feel better? Cut out the goddamn sodas. Those things are even worse.

However, I don't think Solyent is the good replacement. Sure it may be easier, but as has been said about its creator, he's a bit of a fucktard. He's like the epitome of ivory tower geek thinking. It's like the Jetsons' food pellets only with shakes. There are better, more healthy options out there. Fuck's sake, you could probably go buy ready made salads at Whole Foods for about the same price and they will have chicken on top and fiber that your body needs.

Last year, I changed my breakfast routine. It had been mostly frozen waffles during the week and cereal on the weekends. When Whole Foods opened here, I grabbed a bag of quick oats and started making that my normal morning meal (probably 4-5 of the 7 days of the week). Takes about 5 minutes to prepare, pretty filling, plenty of fiber, I control the sugar that goes in it (though I probably put too much in it). I just had my yearly wellness exam and over the past 4-5 years, every time I'd gone to the doctor, my weight had been steadily going up. I gained probably 20 pounds in the last decade (and I'm a guy who weighed almost the same as I did in college for over a decade). This past visit, I'd lost 4 pounds, mostly just on that one change. I haven't gotten my test results back yet, but my cholesterol is likely down as well.

[Merusk]

Why juice things anyway? Adjuncts are important.

Sorry, veering back to Nebuish nutrition elitism. Go ahead and drink those calories, spaceman.

Fad diets are fad and cooking is hard.

4 guys in my Dept. bought juice machines earlier this year, only one lasted more than a day.  He lost over 60#, but apparently didn't realize that was calorie reduction and sticking to healthy foods vs. gorging on the beer, pizza, chili dogs and soda which were his usual diet.

[Signe]

Oatmeal is my breakfast pretty much every day.  I usually throw in some walnuts and cranberries or raisins.  For some reason in the winter I crave oatmeal with a little bit of brown sugar.  

My sister juices every few weeks or so.  It makes her feel good.  She's been doing this for decades.  She is also addicted to bitters so the greens taste nice for her.  I can't bring myself to even look at it let alone taste it.  

[HaemishM]

My wife bought one of those green juices at Whole Foods when the place first opened. It had kale and some other shit in it. She hated it so I tried it (wow this is awful! Try it!). Fuck me, I wanted to shave my tongue with a cheese grater. Kale as a juice is like licking the devil's taint.

[Samwise]

I used to hate kale.  Place near my house recently started serving this warm kale salad that converted me.  I don't know the chemistry involved but warming it slightly (maybe they do something else to it, like steam it for just a bit) makes it not at all feel like eating sandpaper.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I never understood the point of juicing and then removing the pulp versus just making a smoothie of it instead.  I guess it's the same principle but I rather like my morning smoothie during the work week.  Easy to make, I get more veggies and fruit in my diet, I can drink it on the way to work, and I don't mind the pulpy bits.  Anything else either has me eating before I leave for work (so before 6:30 am) or after I get to work (so after 8 am) and eating while in the car is a PITA unless it's fast food.

As Haemish said above though, the less you eat fast food, the less you like it when you have it again.  I still have some items I adore but for the most part, I've cut out fast food like McD, Wendy's, Arby's... and I don't miss it.  Unfortunately, it's not made a speck of difference in the weight, but eh.  I still feel better not eating that stuff regularly. 

[Bzalthek]

So he was tired of how expensive it was to make real food, (aid he paid like 150/mo) so he made soylent (which costs a lil over 255 /mo).  Right.  I remember when he first made the news how cheap it was to make.  Guess that changed fast.

[Malakili]

So he was tired of how expensive it was to make real food, (aid he paid like 150/mo) so he made soylent (which costs a lil over 255 /mo).  Right.  I remember when he first made the news how cheap it was to make.  Guess that changed fast.

Or he just realized he can market it and sell it for more.

[schild]

Baby Spinach is the vastly superior green for smoothies/juicing. You get more bang for your buck, and it's a lot easier to mask the taste with say a banana or an apple.

Kale requires deep-frying and chiles to mask the awful taste.

Kale is "less" a food than Soylent.

[Rasix]

Kale does lend that excellent dirt taste to any smoothie.  It's like mixing your fruit with mud.

[Signe]

I agree.  Spinach is mild and it isn't bitter.  It's probably my favourite leafy green.  Other greens, like kale and collards are lovely sauteed.  If you're making beef, like a roast or something, mix in a bit of the juice or gravy and it's wonderful.  I'm not crazy about kale chips because they just taste like the seasoning you put on it.  I'd rather have one of those little boxes of crispy seaweed snacks.  Yum.

[Goreschach]

Yeah, because if there's one thing you want chips to taste like, it's dead fish.

[schild]

I agree.  Spinach is mild and it isn't bitter.  It's probably my favourite leafy green.  Other greens, like kale and collards are lovely sauteed.  If you're making beef, like a roast or something, mix in a bit of the juice or gravy and it's wonderful.  I'm not crazy about kale chips because they just taste like the seasoning you put on it.  I'd rather have one of those little boxes of crispy seaweed snacks.  Yum.

That's the whole point of kale chips. The seasoning. It makes vegans think they're eating real food.

[Trippy]

I used to hate kale.  Place near my house recently started serving this warm kale salad that converted me.  I don't know the chemistry involved but warming it slightly (maybe they do something else to it, like steam it for just a bit) makes it not at all feel like eating sandpaper.

They probably massage it

[lamaros]

There are heaps of green vegetables that are good for you. If you gouged on one because of fad diets eat another.

And pre made food will always taste worse than if you can make it yourself or it is made fresh for you.

And juices take out most of the value of fruits and vegetables in them.

Its not just what you eat but how you eat it. Overly processed, perserved, and specific diets are crap for you.

There are lots of unhealthy and ignorant skinny vegans. Youre not always wrong when you think what they might suggest is unappetising and unsatisfying.

But looking only at extremes misses the whole point.

[Merusk]

I never understood the point of juicing and then removing the pulp versus just making a smoothie of it instead.  I guess it's the same principle but I rather like my morning smoothie during the work week.  Easy to make, I get more veggies and fruit in my diet, I can drink it on the way to work, and I don't mind the pulpy bits.  Anything else either has me eating before I leave for work (so before 6:30 am) or after I get to work (so after 8 am) and eating while in the car is a PITA unless it's fast food.

This is what I never understood about juicing.  The guy who stuck with it was ALWAYS hungry. I wanted to smack him and say, "Duh, because you've removed all the fiber when you juiced it! You know what fiber is, right? That stuff that fills you up."

Calories don't fill you, if they did then candy bars would make you full and we'd all be glorifying the chocolate god.

On Spinach: I'm saddened that I didn't incorporate it into my diet until very recently. Stuff is delicious!  I blame my mother who only bought the canned garbage when I was a kid. (Hey it's what was there, you all remember that)  Today I realize that's what real spinach tuns into when you keep it around for more than a few days.

Swiss Chard is also pretty good stuff. The menu site we're doing uses it a lot. I was suspicious at first but it wilts nicely and tastes really good, so long as you clean it fully. (Like Spinach...)

[Nevermore]

I love raw spinach but don't really like it cooked.  A texture thing, I guess.  Actually, I'm like that with most vegetables unless they're literally inedible raw.

[Lantyssa]

Ditto.  Lightly steamed is okay for some things, but essentially they still need to be crisp.

Very much a texture thing for me.  I have an unpleasant involuntary reaction to most mushy foods.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Yeah, I'm finding more and more that I don't care for veggies that are too soft, it's just not pleasant to eat them like that because it doesn't give you anything to actually chew.

I used to only ever eat spinach raw in salads and such and only recently put some in a pasta dish I was making... that was good!

[Sky]

One of the local specialties is 'greens'. An Italian style, not southern. Most places cook the shit out of them, but I've developed a nice recipe with spinach, bacon, parm, garlic and cherry pepper that's awesome. I find the key is to keep the veg bright green, almost a blanch kind of treatment in olive oil (or bacon fat). I'm kind of picky about veg texture, broccoli in particular.

Anyway, in honor of our jewish curmudgeon, I had a nice plate of kale salad yesterday. Maybe it's because my palate has been trained for years on escarole (both raw and cooked, as it's the traditional green in utica greens), which being a chicory family member can be pretty bitter at times. But it balances nicely with the acid and fats of the dressing (usually a vinaigrette). And I had it with beet chips.

[Tmon]

If you like kale you can grow it really easily.  All you need is a decent sized planter or pot.  If you have a balcony or porch great otherwise it's fine in a room that gets some sun. It can be fairly decrative so you can plant it in flower beds.

One of my favorite breakfasts is a smoked salmon, spinach, and jalapeño scramble. I hot smoke my own salmon and grow my own peppers and spinach.

[KallDrexx]

I hated brussel sprouts up until about a year ago.  My mom just steamed them and they were tasteless and bland.

Granted, I make it using grease stored from previous cooked bacon, and add honey, but it's quite delicious.

[Morat20]

I hated brussel sprouts up until about a year ago.  My mom just steamed them and they were tasteless and bland.

Granted, I make it using grease stored from previous cooked bacon, and add honey, but it's quite delicious.

My wife started roasting vegetables a few years ago. It's amazing how brussel sprouts suddenly became good. (Brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus and a few others -- generally if we're feeling snackish, since it beats the hell out of eating chips).

I hated spinach until about ten years ago, when it suddenly became delicious. And I found that sauerkraut is also delicious, if it's freshly prepared and not that overly vinegar canned crap.

[Lounge]

Kale is fucking gross...

I've been doing soylent for breakfast and lunch about 3 or 4 days a week.  Keeps me full and more importantly it keeps me from running out for lunch for pizza or a burger or something since I don't care enough to sit down and prep my meals before hand.  If you have the time / desire to do that yourself then go for it, if not this is a decent way to eat healthy.

[lamaros]

No it isnt.

[Goumindong]

I hated brussel sprouts up until about a year ago.  My mom just steamed them and they were tasteless and bland.

Granted, I make it using grease stored from previous cooked bacon, and add honey, but it's quite delicious.

My wife started roasting vegetables a few years ago. It's amazing how brussel sprouts suddenly became good. (Brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus and a few others -- generally if we're feeling snackish, since it beats the hell out of eating chips).

I hated spinach until about ten years ago, when it suddenly became delicious. And I found that sauerkraut is also delicious, if it's freshly prepared and not that overly vinegar canned crap.

I am not sure you know what Sauerkraut is. Sauerkraut is pickled cabbage. So it cannot be "prepared fresh" and all of it is that "overly vinegar canned crap". Though the method does not actually use vinegar the brine from a pickle or kraut jar and vinegar are pretty similar.

[Tebonas]

What I'm sure he means is that you can buy Sauerkraut in raw form which you can stew yourself. Already fermented but otherwise unprepared.