Last week I had a conversation with Wouter van Noort, a tech journalist who writes for the NRC and is very up to date about technological developments and the impact they have on our everyday life or global politics for that matter. We briefly talked about the Future Food Documentary project and what I really liked about the way he wrote the article is the slight critical undertone towards the project in relation to my health.

I get a lot of sceptical looks when I explain my current project. And I think that most of this comes from the fact that it's to far fetched for people. They can't wrap their head around the idea of simply not eating any more.

"So you're just going to drink these protein shakes? Your gonna loose so much weight!"

Friend of mine who likes to stay anonymous.

Substance tolerance

I have a very low tolerance for food substances. I notice immediately when I have too much of something in my system. A classic example is caffeine; if I drink more than 2 cups a day it will turn me into a tsunami of nerve-racking energy. I can't function properly and get subtle anxiety attacks, at some times stacked with hints of paranoia. Jup heavy shit. The last year I have introduced L-theanine (Green tea, Matcha) to replace caffeine as much as possible. But even there I found that I easily tend to peak and turn into a Tasmanian devil. The same goes for drugs and alcohol although alcohol has more of a build up a tolerance. But still, I don't need much of any stimulant substance to get a kick out of it.

Science and personal experience

When I got introduced to Joylent earlier this year I replaced my breakfast for about two weeks with Joylent. I noticed that my substance sensitivity played up again. This time, I noticed more positive effects such as slightly clearer mind, less fatigue and no diner dips. I also had a different type of morning energy than usual. As if all levels of stamina were raised, let's say 10%. That made me curious about the possibility to live on this type of food solely. Online research brought me to Eat Health Lee's blog. The person running this blog goes by the name of Lee Primo and he just finished a 6 months 100% Joylent diet. For those who are more interested in what a 100% diet does to the body, Eat Health Lee is a very resourceful blog in wich lots of information can be found.

Lee Primo also has a Youtube channel where he posts weekly updates in regards to his diet (I think he is on a break atm). His approach is much more focused on the health details such as weight loss and glucose readings. Overall his findings are pretty positive. But keep in mind that this isn't in any ways scientific evidence. It's a personal journal with a conclusion based on personal experience. But I have to say that it gives me some confidence for the coming 11 months to go. It also made me realise that my project does not have to revolve around the numbers and scientific approach so much. It's simply not my field. I'm much better in observing human behaviour and translating these observations into a documentary project.

Eat Health Lee - Week 5 Synopsis The One Year Meal Replacement Experiment 100% Joylent

Hypes and passive aggression

To get back to the newspaper article by Wouter van Noort I can say that I understand the critical undertone. Food is such a hot topic at the moment and there are so many opinions and statements with people from all sorts of levels of expertise claiming there view or practise is the best way to go. Perhaps my project will be perceived as provocative. An alternative taken to the extremes. But let me state that I'm not advocating or promoting this way of food consumption. It's an experiment with the sole purpose of figuring out what kind of social obstacles I will endure along the way.

This quickly put together list of articles from last week shows that there is a lot to talk about but that we are also running in a viscous loop. Things have to change drastically if we want to keep up our current food culture. The last article is a direction I'd like to further investigate.

Americans Speak Out Against Toxic Phthalates in Food
The Dizzying Grandeur of 21st-Century Agriculture
The face of hunger and malnutrition in Venezuela
Are These Insanely Realistic Fake Shrimp the Future of Sustainable Seafood?

There are so many ways to look at this topic that it tends to get very complex if you want to conclude pretty much anything when it comes to food and the way we are dealing with it currently. Hypes and trends come and go and meal replacements such as Joylent can be observed as exactly that; a hype that will fade away the moment a new hype will rise to popularity. Yet I don't believe these meal replacements are a hype. Sure they are gaining more popularity over time but the way I observe them is that they are the first step in a direction of a new way of dealing with food and the concept of giving the body what it needs. These meals are far from perfect but so is our current consumption behaviour. I get passive aggressive reactions towards my project and the 100% diet, yet these people get wasted in the weekend, do drugs on a monthly base, consume diets that stem back to the 60's and have little knowledge to what it is that their body needs in order to function optimal.

The more I dive into this subject the more I realise that food is so deeply rooted in culture, social behaviour, morals and peer pressure that radical changes won't go overnight. Perhaps my documentary project could lead to a more open debate with a focus on what food could become in the near future.

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My conclusion so far is that I think I don't really want to make conclusions. I just want to get to know as much as possible in regards to the future of our food and figure out alternatives to keeping my body going in a healthy and perhaps even sustainable way.  

Unfortunately, the article is in Dutch and I don't have the resources nor the time to translate this article. Hopefully, my project will attract international attention.

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