NOTE: This is a pretty outdated recipe. That's not to say there's anything wrong with it; I've just made some changes in more recent iterations which I think make it much better. Check out https://www.completefoods.co/diy/recipes/auston-fuel or https://www.completefoods.co/diy/recipes/milk-oats-2 .

Old Description: This is a highly modified version of max's Bachelor Chow (v1) recipe. I'll describe each of the major changes below.

First (and probably most notable since it's in the title) is the removal of the masa as a large carb source. This was done mainly because of largely conflicting information concerning the exact dietary contents of the ingredient. Some sources listed large amounts of minerals that other sources didn't include at all. While I trust that max has done his research and has accurate information listed, it just made me uncomfortable thinking that if I bought a different brand, I might not really know what's in it. The replacement in this recipe is waxy maize starch. This is pretty convenient because most brands have nothing but straight up carbs, so we don't have to worry about it overdoing the manganese or anything. Waxy maize starch has a glycemic index of about 60, which is relatively high compared to oats or masa, but lower than white bread and much lower than maltodextrin. If you were to chug half a day's worth of this Soylent, you would probably get a minor burst of energy after a little while, but I think for most people this is slow enough to work well in a meal. It is definitely more expensive than the masa, but I appreciate the simple nutritional content and glycemic index diversity.

I specified that the soybean oil is Zoye's low saturated fat version, which has pretty different nutritional content than the USDA database specifies. This is actually the soybean oil max linked to in the original bachelor chow. If you want to use a different soybean oil, make sure to adjust it appropriately.

I went ahead and swapped out the potassium chloride for potassium gluconate, so the chloride is below the UL, but cost is increased.

Iron content was still a little low, so I tried to find a supplement to throw in. The Wellesse supplement is more expensive than other supplements, but it has an advantage in that it is liquid, not a pill. It's hard to find good iron supplements that aren't pills, and I'm not going to go crushing up pills for this. This supplement is berry flavored, and I don't know how that will turn out, but I can imagine a vanilla berry soylent tasting okay.

To replace the masa's fiber, I'm throwing in acacia powder. It's more expensive than psyllium husks, but psyllium has a lot of phytic acid, and supposedly has bad taste and consistency. I'm hoping acacia is better there. As for phytic acid, I'm aware the oats will add quite a bit. I'll try soaking and hope that helps out.

Finally, I reduced some of the soybean oil in exchange for fish oil to try to approach the 2:1 ratio of omega 6 and 3 fatty acids. I considered flaxseed oil, but most plant-based oil sources have their omega 3's as ALA, while fish oils tend to be EPA and DHA. Humans have a very limited ability to produce EPA and DHA from ALA, but I think relying solely on ALA would probably result in deficiencies of the others. Fish oil, while more expensive, ensures good amounts of the more complex omega 3's.

That's pretty much all of the ingredient changes. Everything has an Amazon link for easy purchasing (but shop around if you want to try for a lower price). Everything is powder or liquid to make mixing easy. Niacin is still high, but niacin shouldn't cause any troubles other than skin flushing, and this shouldn't even be enough to make that a problem. I have not tried this myself yet, though I plan on ordering a month's worth shortly. I also realize I'm a little inconsistent between g and ml for liquids. Let me know if there's some consensus on which is easier to use. I'm leaning towards ml.

Quick note about the prices: Products sold through Amazon but shipped by other companies often have some of the cost moved over to the shipping cost ($7 shipping on a small $9 product?). As far as I know, most of the recipes on this site list the deceptively lower costs, lowering the overall cost per day of the recipe (I'm not saying they have malicious intent; they're using the numbers Amazon shows them). For this recipe, I've tried to figure out how much the products really cost, excluding the actual shipping cost. Hopefully, the numbers I've listed are close to the actual cost, and if they're off in either direction, I hope they're an overestimate. Just keep that in mind when you look at the cost here. Amazon prices are up to date as of Sept 29, 2013.

Nov 5 update: Just changed soybean oil to be in ml, as that's how I've been measuring it out in practice.

Nov 26 update: I adjusted the WMS content to be more reflective of my current lifestyle. I'm not exercising enough to justify 2300 calories per day. It cuts the cost of the most expensive ingredient by almost 1/3, too.

Jan 9 update: Removed MSM and adjusted sulfur content of protein based on recent discussion at http://discourse.soylent.me/t/sulfur-in-cysteine-and-methionine/10626 .