| Amount | Ingredient | £ / day | Source | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 151.4 | g | Ultra Fine Scottish Oats | £0.49 | Bulk Powders |
| 1.16 | g | Choline bitartrate | £0.05 | Bulk Powders |
| 4.8 | g | Potassium Gluconate | £0.17 | iHerb |
| 2 | pill | Solgar Omnium | £0.39 | Amazon |
| 84.2 | g | Pure Whey Protein | £0.79 | Bulk Powders |
| 3.9 | g | Sea salt | £0.07 | Amazon |
| 12.6 | g | Potassium gluconate | £0.31 | Amazon |
| 3 | pill | Solgar, EFA, Omega 3-6-9, 120 Softgels | £0.47 | Amazon |
| 95.3 | g | Flaxseed powder | £1.93 | Bulk Powders |
| 0.6 | pill | Solgar Vitamin K (Natural) 100 mcg Tablets | £0.05 | Amazon |
| 118.4 | g | Palatinose | £0.47 | MyProtein |
Amounts for: Total Daily Cost: | £5.20 | Add Ingredients to Amazon Cart | ||
Directions
- Prepare several days worth of the dry mix (i.e. excluding the fish oil gel cap) in advance using the calculator above
- For one meal (1/3 of the daily dose) put a pint of water in a blender with the fruit/flavourings of your choice
- Add 158g of the dry ingredient mix and blitz for 30s
- Stick one fish oil gel cap in your mouth
- Chug chug chug
Objectives
- 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
- Include a fish oil source to get some EPA/DHA into the mix rather than relying on conversion of ALA
- Tailor the recipe to my needs. I want an 1800 calorie/day intake to hit my diet goals and a lot of fibre because my family has a cholesterol issue, and also achiev appropriate nutrition for a lightly active 188cm 38-year old
- Aim for a roughly 50:30:20 carb:fat:protein calorie ratio. Lots of DIY recipes have heavily distorted ratios that will surely put undue stress on our systems
- Replace liquid oil with ground seeds, mostly to simplify mixing up the drink and limit mess, but also because of a general desire to move towards natural sources, increase the range of fibre sources, and hopefully bag a few more phytonutrients
Background I enjoyed Liquid Cake 1.3 (it really is pretty tasty) but wasn't sure about the high protein and sulphur load. Synectar is much more balanced and I could probably stick with it easily enough but I have general suspicion of cheap multivitamins such as the ubiquitous Kirkland ones that many recipes are based on.
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 very 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 fiddle.
Although Kirkland and other cheap multivits meet the RDA target values, the formulations and individual ingredients used don't support sufficient bioavailability to deliver all of those nutrients into the bloodstream at RDA levels.
Nutrition notes
- Omega-6 is a little low. I'm not worried about this though - the 3:6 ratio is good and there are so many omega-6 sources out there I'm sure I'll pick up this much from other meals(/snacks)
- 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 as beta-carotene, for which there is no established upper limit - the body fingers to vitamin A according to its needs and there is insufficient evidence for toxicity associated with too much beta carotene intake
- Fibre intake is set deliberately high to follow National Academy of Sciences 38g/day recommendation. If it leads to flatlulence problems I'll reduce
- Fish Sood v0.1 uses rapeseed oil, which has a good omega 3:6 ratio and is very inexpensive. To simplify formulation Fish Sood v0.2 replaces the oil with flaxseed, which also has a good ratio and presumably numerous helpful phytonutrients but does increase the cost