Current targets

• Would be nice to go lactose-free and even vegan maybe but would mean switching out of whey as protein source. Must investigate non-whey protein sources
• Play with flax vs almond vs coconut vs palatinose to improve texture and nutrient profile
• Obtain complete nutritional tables/certificates of analysis where possible. Micronutrients aren't included in many of the labels for the macro ingredients

Directions

0. Order all of the ingredients! And if you use my Bulk Powders referral code we both get some money back :) RMMNP3
   1. Prepare several days worth of the dry mix (i.e. excluding the Solgar Omnium and the Nuique DHA/EPA cap) in advance using the calculator above. Start with the lowest mass ingredients and work up, mixing as you go, to increase homogeneity
1. For one meal (1/3 of the daily dose) put a about a litre of water in a blender with the fruit/flavourings of your choice. (If you want to make up lower volumes for each meal, use less xanthan gum in your recipe or it will be too thick.)
2. Add 116g of the dry ingredient mix and blitz for 30s
3. OPTIONAL: Leave for a couple of hours/overnight to soak to give the phyttase a chance
4. Stick one DHA/EPA cap and one Omnium in your mouth for the first two meals of the day (so you get 2x Omnium and 2x DHA/EPA tabs each day)
5. Chug chug chug

Flavour ideas

• a banana and a heaped teaspoon of cocoa
• an apple and a heaped teaspoon of cinnamon
• a couple of dashes of soy sauce
• a couple of tomatoes and a handful of basil or parsley
• a heaped teaspoon of any warming spice mixture, e.g. ras el hanout, garam masala, sumac, berbere

Objectives

1. Use high quality mutlivitamins – in this case the widely available and well regarded [(according to this and this anyway)] Solgar Omnium tablets – to increase confidence in nutritional completeness, to deliver a few nutrients that I (as a pharmacologist) believe in, such as N-acetyl cysteine, and to deliver a bunch of phytonutrients for some of which there is a fair degree of support
2. Ensure omega 3 and 6 intake in something like a sensible ratio. Also include some EPA/DHA rather than relying on physiological conversion of ALA
3. Tailor the recipe to my needs. I want a 1400 calorie/day intake to hit my diet goals (and allow me a guilt-free snack/pint here or there), a reasonably high amount of fibre (more than UK recommendations, less than FDA) because my family has a cholesterol issue, and also achieve appropriate nutrition for a light/moderately active 188cm 38-year old
4. Aim for a roughly 30:30:40 carb:fat:protein calorie ratio
5. Favour low GI and complex carbs in general
6. Use ground seeds/nuts as the primary fat source. rather than refined oils, mostly to simplify mixing up the drink and limit mess, but also because of a general desire to move towards unprocessed sources, increase the range of fibre sources, and hopefully bag a few more phytonutrients
7. A vegetarian recipe with minimal gluten (contamination during processing only).

Nutrition notes

• The Solgar Omnium tablets should be taken separately, rather than ground up into the mix, because all of those plant extracts they pack in really affect the flavour. It's not awful but it is pretty vegetal and doesn't lend itself to adding fruit or cocoa or whatever. You could substitute in another multivitamin tablet if you were adamant you wanted one complete dry mix with fewer extra tablets - this would also reduce cost as the Omnium aren't cheap
• You may not be too bothered about the whole 'is my body converting enough ALA to DHA?' thing, in which case leave out the DHA/EPA caps - this will also reduce pill burden and cost
• Solgar Omnium contains 60mg NE (Niacin Equivalents) as nicotinamide which has a much higher daily upper limit (900mg in adults) than when taken as nicotinic acid (35mg)
• Solgar Omnium contains 15,000 IU Vitamin A as beta-carotene, for which there is no established upper limit - the body converts to vitamin A according to its needs - and there is insufficient evidence for an upper limit for beta carotene intake
• Lowering LDL cholesterol is an aim for this recipe (so following general principles laid out in e.g. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2013) so fibre (esp. oat fibre Nutr Rev. 2011 review) intake is set deliberately high but not all the way up to National Academy of Sciences 38g/day recommendation! Will modulate until dietary stress, flatlulence etc are all in hand – will be an evolving target through the releases.

Background

I enjoyed Liquid Cake 1.3 (it really is pretty tasty) but didn't like the very high protein and sulphur loads. Synectar is much more balanced and I could probably stick with it easily enough but I was having a few minor digestive issues with it (maybe because it relies on a lot of oil - 75g/day). Also, I have a general distrust of cheap multivitamins such as the ubiquitous Kirkland ones that many recipes including Liquid Cake and Synectar are based on. Although Kirkland and other cheap multivits meet the RDA target values, the formulations and individual ingredients aren't fully absorbed - this low bioavailability doesn't deliver those nutrients into the bloodstream at RDA levels.

After tapering in Liquid Cake and then Synectar over a fortnight (until I was at 5/6 Synectar vs regular food) I found that I was having trouble with energy levels and having mild headaches. May not have been related to inadequate nutrition – could be a result of the calorie-restricted diet kicking in, not enough sleep, stress... who knows... but whatever – I wanted to have a crack at making my own recipe so got started on Sood v0.1.

Release notes

Sood v0.7 added slightly more lecithin to completely replace choline bitartrate as choline source, simplifying the recipe. Also added xanthan gum to thicken the drink so the almond flour doesn't settle and make the end of the drink grainy.

Sood v0.6 added soy lecithin to emulsify the mix and improve texture. Replaces some of the choline bitartrate as a choline source.

Sood v0.5 replaced brown rice protein with brown rice flour. It has similar fibre and a bit less manganese and iron than oats – would increase carb and protein variety as well as add a few phytonutrients. Replace almond butter with almond flour to simplify mixing, even though it's a bit pricier. Replaced fish oil capsules as the DHA/EPA source with algae, making the recipe entirely vegetarian :)

Sood v0.4 radically rebalanced the carb and fat calorie sources, principally to reduce the dominating coconut and palatinose flavours. Also shifted from an approximately 45:25:30 macro ratio to more like 30:30:40 - I just don't want that much simple carbs in my shake. Achieved this by increasing almond butter (which hadn't impacted flavour as much as I'd worried) and adding a new complex carb source - precooked P.A.N cornflour seems to be a cheap and readily digested source with a reasonable GI so giving that a go. Also took the opportunity to drop fibre from ~38 to somewhere south of 30g/day to see how that felt (38 was a lot).

Sood v0.3 replaced some flaxseed with almond butter to:

1. raise omega-6 into a ~4:1 ratio with omega-3 (per Japanese guidelines – no compelling evidence here but let's go with the great (pre-junk food revolution) CVD profile in that population)
2. decrease fibre load associated with so much flaxseed
3. decrease manganese load associated with so much oats
4. increase variety of carb, protein and fat sources Coconut flour added for most of the same reasons - it has no polyunsaturated fats, so brings down that value and has no effect on omega ratios, but instead is entirely medium chain saturated fatty acids, which may help with weight loss.(J Acad Nutr Diet. 2015 meta-analyses, J Am Coll Nutr. 2015 meta-analyses) Unexpected benefit: coconut and almond are much cheaper than flaxseed so brings cost down almost £1/day!

To simplify formulation Fish Sood v0.2 replaces the oil with flaxseed, which also has a good omega 3:6 ratio and presumably numerous helpful phytonutrients but does increase the cost.

Fish Sood v0.1 uses rapeseed oil, which has a good omega 3:6 ratio and is very inexpensive.