Current targets

• Consider replacing whey extract with whey lysate to reduce lactose
• Replace fish oil caps with algal DHA/EPA to make the mix vegetarian
• Replace almond butter with almond flour to simplify mixing
• Play with flax vs almond vs coconut (vs P.A.N. vs palatinose) until my gut seems happy and I like the flavour and texture
• Once brown rice protein exhausted, buy brown rice flour – similar fibre and a bit less manganese and iron than oats – would increase carb and protein variety as well as add phytonutrients
• Obtain complete nutritional tables/certificates of analysis where possible. Micronutrients aren't included in many of the labels for the macro ingredients.

Directions

1. Order all of the ingredients! And if you use my Bulk Powders referral code we both get some money back :) RMMNP3
2. Prepare several days worth of the dry mix (i.e. excluding the Solgar Omnium and the fish oil gel cap) in advance using the calculator above. Start with the lowest mass ingredients and work up, mixing as you go, to increase homogeneity
3. For one meal (1/3 of the daily dose) put a pint of water in a blender with the fruit/flavourings of your choice
4. Add 114g of the dry ingredient mix and blitz for 30s
5. OPTIONAL: Leave for a couple of hours/overnight to soak to give the phyttase a chance
6. Stick one fish oil gel cap and one Omnium in your mouth for the first two meals of the day and just a fish oil cap for the third meal (so you get 3x fish oil and 2x Omnium each day)
7. 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. Include a fish oil source to get some EPA/DHA into the mix 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, a reasonable amount of fibre (more than UK recommendations, less than FDA) because my family has a cholesterol issue, and also achieve appropriate nutrition for a lightly active 188cm 38-year old
4. Aim for a roughly 30:30:40 carb:fat:protein calorie ratio. Lots of DIY recipes have heavily distorted ratios that will surely put undue stress on our systems.
5. Favour low GI and complex carbs in general
6. 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
7. Work towards a vegetarian, gluten-free, lactose-free recipe

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 dry mix and no 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 gel caps - this will also reduce costs
• 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 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 these are based on. 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.

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 have a crack at making my own recipe so got started on the above.

Release notes

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 something more like 30g/day for [ahem] alimentary reasons.

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.