Mixing

A two-week's supply of soylent is about the right volume to mix in a 20 l / 5 gal bucket. Measure amounts on a digital scale in a very large bread mixing bowl (large enough to hold about 3 kg of flour) and put it into the bucket for mixing.

A spreadsheet calculator for mixing a batch for number of days you want of the mix comes in handy. Just replace the "Days to Mix" number with the number of days you want to mix for your batch size.

The ingredient mixing order:

• Oil Powder Ingredients
  • Measure the oil into a stand mixer bowl first
  • Add the fish oil pill contents
  • Add the Xanthan Gum and Psyllium Husk powder to the oil and thoroughly combine.
  • Add the maltodextrin or sucralose to the oil mixture and blend until a powdery consistency is reached. This is the "powdered" form of the only liquid ingredient
• Dry Ingredients
  • Add the dry ingredients into a 20 l / 5 gal bucket in any order
• Pill Ingredients
  • Blend the pill quantities calculated from the above spreadsheet in a small coffee grinder into a fine powder, but without overheating the contents, and beware of breathing the dust.
  • Weigh the remaining non-pill vitamin components on a digital scale and combine into a bowl

Add the powdered oil, dry, and vitamin ingredients into the 20 l / 5 gal bucket, and you are ready for mixing (see below)

A Mixing Method

The following worked well for mixing a 14 day supply of soylent:

• Add a mixing "fin" made of 2 cm x 2 cm angled aluminum to the inside of a 20 l / 5 gal bucket to stir the contents. Also add a "Gamma Seal" top.
• Add unmixed soylent to the bucket, seal the top tightly. Place in a clothes dryer along with two more buckets to take-up space, and pack with pillows to prevent the buckets from shifting around.
• Run the dryer on tumble mode (NO heat) for at least 30 minutes. Use the time waiting for mixing to clean up the awful mess you made while preparing the soylent.
• Vacuum seal 900 ml of soylent into 1 l glass Mason jars, approximately 400 g per jar, and store jars in a freezer

Notes

• V7 Issues
  • The amount of whey in V7 is producing an off milky flavor. The amount of whey in V6 did not contribute to the flavor in a noticeable way. Need to see if the protein from the oat flour (which is incomplete) was dominating in the balance of protein, over the whey (complete protein) in V6. Balancing the ingredients for all of the essential proteins might be required.
  • Splenda was used in V6. The amount was not enough to give a noticeable amount of sweetness, and was mostly used for the maltodextrin carrier, which powdered the oil ingredients. The lack of Splenda makes V7 taste a bit flat.
  • The Walnuts do not have a noticeable taste at first , but have a great aftertaste a bit later. This is an ingredient to keep for other recipes.
  • The flaxseed meal was put into the blending container by itself. There were a few clumps left over after blending. A better process would be to add the flaxseed meal to the stand-mixer along with flour ingredients and let the flour break-up the clumps.
  • The Xanthan gum was increased in V7. There is a slight slickness to the texture. Should reduce the amount by 25%.
  • The taste of V6 was much better that V7. The oat flour was adding a lot to the flavor. Also, the corn masa flavor was very good. Swapping barley flour out for corn masa would be an improvement, and would also reduce the manganese.

• V6 Issues
  • The digestibility and flavor are very good. Have been very happy with V5 and V6
  • The corn masa adds a nice balance and hides the whey protein flavor, but adds too much niacin.
  • The xanthan gum helped the consistency, but still is a bit low. Also, the xanthan gum needs to be mixed directly into the oil ingredients instead of the dry ingredients to prevent clumping.
  • The omega-3 from flaxseed is almost all of ALA form. Need to add DHA and FDA components, or a lot more ALA, since the conversion in the liver is only about 15% efficient.
  • The sweetness is more than enough. Could eliminate the Splenda

• V6 Changes
  • The Carbohydrate:Protein:Fat ratio has far too much carbohydrate. Will adjust to be 40%:30%:30% for carbs:protein:fat, which for 2000 kcal/day would be : 800:600:600 kcal
  • Reducing the Splenda
  • Increasing Xanthan gum by 1 g / day
  • Adding a fish oil pill to provide enough DHA and FDA Omega-3 PUFAs..

• V5 Issues:
  • The heavier components are settling quickly when mixed. The psyllium husk powder was reduced, and xanthan gum eliminated to reduce bloating. Should increase both to help.
  • Found sources other than Beano to limit bloating from the whole grains. The active ingredient in Beano is alpha-galactosidase enzyme. The alpha-galactosidase enzyme is measured in GALU and one Beano tablet contains 300 GALU. The required amount for V5 is two tablets which is 600 GALU per day. The product "Equate" through online Walmart is $5 / 100 tablets, with each tablet containing 600 GALU. Beano is $12 / 100 tablets, each tablet containing 300 GALU. The Equate products is less than 1/4 the price per GALU.
  • Used corn flour masa to fill in for part of the barley flour in the last batch of V5. The taste was very good. The masa goes well with and helps mask the flavor of the whey. Masa also has very low levels of manganese (0.5 mg Mn / 100 g Masa). Should consider using masa for future variations of the recipe. Some masa producers add Niacin. The added niacin will easily go over the UL for V5. Should select a product which is not fortified with niacin.

• V5 Changes:
  • Adding 5 g of psyllium husk powder to help with settling.
  • Re-adding a small amount of xanthan gum (1 g) to help with settling.

• V4 Issues:
  • Whole grain Oat Flour and Wheat bran contain high levels of Manganese (~ 4 mg / 100 g). Need another source of Carbohydrate which is lower in Manganese.
    • Brown rice flour contains 4 mg of Manganese / 100 g flour.
    • White rice flour contains 1.2 mg of Manganese / 100 g flour.
    • Spelt flour contains 3.0 mg / 100 g
    • Barley flour contains 1.0 mg / 100 g
    • Dark rye flour contains 6.7 mg / 100 g
    • Light rye flour contains 2.0 mg / 100 g
    • Soy flour, full-fat, raw contains 2.3 mg / 100 g
    • Soy flour, low-fat contains 2.3 mg / 100 g
    • Oat flour, partially debranned contains 4.0 mg / 100 g
    • Corn flour, Masa contains 0.5 mg / 100 g
  • The existing supply of oat flour could be mixed with barley flour until the oat flour runs out. Then a switch to soy flour seems to be the way to go. Soy flour also contains higher fat content, and would reduce the amount of canola oil used.
  • Should target using enough barley flour to eliminate the need to add-in corn starch to supplement the carbohydrate requirement.

• V4 Changes:
  • Reducing fiber to just 100% RDI from 280%. The soluble fiber was causing digestion issues. The insoluble wheat bran fiber was also contributing the highest amounts of Manganese which is going beyond the daily upper limit of 11 mg/day in the recipe. Using the UCSF Health recommendations of 22 g/day of insoluble, 8 g/day soluble fiber.
  • The Bob's Red Mill oat flour nutritional information is incomplete. The oat flour is the main ingredient in the recipe. Combining USDA and self.com data along with the BRM data to get a more complete nutritional data set.

• V3 issues:
  • The amount of soluble fiber is still too high, but flavor is better due to the reduction of the Xanthan gum. Should reduce the Psyllium by 50%
  • The thickness may be ok without the extra psyllium husk powder due to the oat flour itself.
  • Malt contains complex sugars which are not digestible by humans, but are fermentable by gut flora, and can cause bloating. The elimination of malt may reduce the bloating issue

• V3 Changes:
  • Reduced the Xanthan gum further to 2 g. Indigestible xanthan gum can cause bloating and gas plus. Xanthan gum also seems to reduce flavors.
  • Reduced Maltodextrin by 50% to 10g. The powdering of the oil is almost achieved with just the maltodextrin contained in the sucralose (Splenda) itself.

• V2 Changes:
  • increased the oat flour and decreased the sugars to lower the GI value
  • decreased the amount of Xanthan Gum. Larger amounts of Xanthan Gum masks flavors and gives an unpleasant slimy/gelatinous texture. Increased the amount of Psyllium Husk Powder to maintain body
  • Added Wheat Bran to meet the minimum RDA Omega-6 level
  • Decreased the Maltodextrin. The previous amount was more than enough to create a powdered oil
  • Swapped out granulated sugar for dried Barley Malt extract. The malt has a lower Glycemic Index of 42 compared to table sugar (sucralose) with a GI of 65. The malt flavor should also go better with the milky flavor of the whey.