No offense but we've heard the exact same thing about every successful idea.
And what's more:
People look at the human GI totally wrong anyway. They think, what can I put in to get the best results? When in reality, the human GI evolved to support an extremely broad range of inputs as it's most significant factor.
With humans all over the earth eating an extremely disparate diet pre-civilization (and even post), the most significant factor of the human GI was it's ability to handle the wide variety of chemically diverse inputs and provide a consistent, reliable output.
So why do you approach this, which is nothing more than a new input, and claim that the output is going to be different? Dangerous? Impossible?
Seems to me like you're indignant with a touch of ego: "How dare he pretend to do my job. It's an insult to me that he is doing this!" That's the feeling I get from you reading this post.
I certainly don't want to rain on some new visionary's parade, but I spend a lot of time tracking folks who I consider to be the real visionaries in this field. As in we are currently in the midst of the greatest revolution in human health of our lives, and this guy is running in the wrong direction. We're seeing astonishing results with dietary remediation of a vast array of conditions that were previously considered unrelated. And this isn't just "remedial eating", it's discovering that our current ways of eating are killing us but that diet can likewise help heal us. It's a Khunian revolution out of "the pill and the scalpel" mindset and into a deeper understanding of root causes of wide classes of disease and general unhealthiness in 21st century society. I must certainly be writing in an aggressive posture, for which I'll apologize. I'll have to account my overenthusiasm to the long-term health and well-being of literally everyone I've ever met being at stake.
Current research is showing that we are only just beginning to gain understanding of the complexity and health of the GI. An analogy is that our GI and GI microbiota are essentially a recently discovered vital organ. One which the industrialized western diet (now well exported globally) has been systematically destroying. Diet has direct and immense impact on GI health, which in turn impacts such matters as: chronic systemic inflammation, autoimmunity, hyperinsulinism, neurotransmitter production (a vast amount of which happens .. in the gut!), hunger signalling, and more.
I don't have time to put the references in here that this deserves, but I'll leave you all with this to whet appetites, as it were.
Dr. Terry Wahls, "Minding Your Mitochondria":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc
Watch that, so my bluntness to follow makes sense. I see this guy's protocol as nothing but poisonous in the long run. He's off and created yet another processed food product that must be assumed to fail to meet the needs of the human body. Current research hammers home the idea that we don't yet have a complete and constructive model of nutrition, so why in the heck should I believe a nonspecialist that claims otherwise? Extraordinary claims, extraordinary proof, or GTFO.
I mean look at the warnings on what is basically the next step, TPN http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/nutritional_disorde... . He is basically drinking almost exactly this. Look at all those scary scary warnings. Some of them are IV dependent, but things like "Metabolic bone disease, or bone demineralization (osteoporosis or osteomalacia), develops in some patients given TPN for > 3 mo. The mechanism is unknown. Advanced disease can cause severe periarticular, lower-extremity, and back pain. Temporarily or permanently stopping TPN is the only known treatment." and such are probably some odd nutrient problems.
Any nutritionist will tell you that there just isn't a great long term complete meal replacement. If this guy has one that is great, but he has done nothing to prove it yet. I mean he isn't even completely replacing meals, and has only been doing it for 6 weeks. Which is shorter than some people have done entirely cabbage based diets. Heck he could have subsisted on beer for this long. ( http://blogs.menshealth.com/health-headlines/the-beer-diet/2... )
It is sort of like some blog post claiming to have solved scaling and not actually had any real workload. I mean sure it doesn't look completely broken at a glance, but it hasn't been shown to even work yet. Come back in a year or two when you've dealt with some load (or merely a couple years of drinking the same thing in this case).
- Carl Sagan
Sure, he could be on to something. But we also need an enormous amount of skepticism when evaluating it, just as we do when evaluating any large claim. What pings my radar is that we're still trying to understand how our body processes "whole food" as opposed to vitamins in supplement form.
From my perspective, both sides of this argument have supporting examples, and neither takes a clear lead. I would say that hackers who throw together disruptive successes tend to be innovating on market capture, not underlying technology, otherwise they wouldn't have quite as much success without proper education. (Either that, or the hacker is working in Information Tech, where they do have insider knowledge.) That said, market-capture should equate to commercial success, so it does matter. I just don't think it's directly correlated to the innovation you're suggesting.
As for the ability of the natural genius to emerge without formal training, of course that's possible-- and increasingly likely thanks to the Web-- but it's still rare enough that I'm skeptical of the claim.
While we can agree that innovation should not be stifled, the idea that we can determine the processes by which the body utilizes nutrients and their interdependent effects, after a few months of research, is utterly hubristic.
I often make the claim that the human body (other animals are close too) exhibits one of the highest levels of complexity out of all the known systems in the universe, far exceeding the complexity of man mad systems. I challenge anyone to put forward a counter-example...
I've been researching nutrition for 5 years and read hundreds of papers on PubMed and, involved with QS (quantified self) and life extension movements, track my bloodwork in Google Spreadsheets etc.
You may be wondering, why would someone invest such an extraordinary amount of time (1000+ man hours) an energy in this topic? Well I used to think very differently about my health. As a young strong-willed software developer, I arrogantly assumed like many before I knew it all in my teenage years. My mental model of the body, was not dissimilar to your current views on GI (the body will just handle whatever you throw at it). As a result after 10 years of eating badly I ended up with a chronic disease (Psoriatic Arthritis).
Being a teenager I knew better and ate anything I wanted, which specifically was an extreme diet consisting entirely of pasta, milk and coke. Because that's what my body "wanted". Now I'm in my 30's and undoing the damage, but I've learned that this system really is complicated, more so than a rocket or microprocessor. You're right in the sense that the body can tolerate it for a while, but it's not designed to cope with abuse over a period of many years. Eventually you will pay the price.
Even now though, I wouldn't consider myself an "expert", although some of my peers might. But I have learned enough know when someone is out of their depth. This guy is well intentioned but that does not mean he's justified in making such grandiose claims.
For example he says "Vitamin D" and "Vitamin K", without acknowledging various forms exist.
For example he says he takes "Vitamin D(400IU):"
What exactly is 'Vitamin D'? Cholecalciferol (D3) [1] is quite different from Ergocalciferol (D2)[2]
D3 levels are particularly important when talking about overall health.
Or take "Vitamin K" for example, are we talking about the philoquinone (K1) [3] or the menaquinone (K2) [4] group?
Even if then, if one is talking Vitamin K2, there are various menaquinones forms so is he suggesting Mk4, mk7 or some other form? [5].
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholecalciferol
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergocalciferol
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylloquinone
Reads like a sleazy wonderpill ad.
This actually is a hard problem and the science well short of consensus. The surface area of the problem seems to grow every year as scientists publish new research. That seems like a good indication that the odds of this (relatively) uninformed approach being a great one is low.
No offence but we've heard the exact same thing from every amateur that "learned programming" by toying with Wordpress or Jquery copypasta.
Just because someone can survive on something doesn't mean they're getting good nutrition. Humans have adapted to eat many types of food, but that doesn't mean everyone was equally as healthy, disease-resistant, etc.
We also heard the exact same thing about every kook, and his idea of a "perpetual motion engine", "cold fusion in my backyard" etc idea.
And that has happened far too many more times than the "successful idea" thing -- so much, that "the idea being shot down by critics" && "it being successful" case is like statistical noise.
Which is also true about your startup example. Most startups DO fail. A staggering majority of them actually.
With that said, the question becomes what's the goal. Is it to cover the bases while keeping room left over for desert? Is it to find something better than the average western diet? Because, while perfection is going to depend on your DNA and activity levels finding a good baseline substitute for breakfast and lunch is vary possible.
PS: Now if you read what was written then this is sounding a lot like a 'fad' food with wondrous super powers. But, there are fairly good substitutes out there that cover most bases.
That doesn't mean that there isn't something you can put in to get the best results for yourself.
