"Recipes"

Have you really been asked these questions?

No.

What are your credentials?

I have none.

Do these "recipes" actually satisfy every nutritional recommendation?

No.

I ignore two nutrients: sodium and vitamin D. Ignoring sodium makes sense since you're probably getting enough of it from the other stuff you're eating. If not, just add salt to the "recipes".

Ignoring vitamin D is harder to justify. The truth is it is extremely difficult to get vitamin D from food alone and quite easy in most places to get several times what you need from the sun. Nevertheless, I'm considering revising this since vitamin D promotes longevity.

Do these "recipes" satisfy the DRIs for everyone?

I targeted the nutritional needs of 19-30 year-old males since that's my demographic. DRIs are generally larger for males than for non-pregnant females, so I expect these "recipes" would work well for the vast majority of the non-infant non-pregnant population.

Why does every "recipe" contain soybean oil and milk?

Soybean oil is the best source of polyunsaturated fats I've found. These fats are great at promoting longevity and are recommended by the US government. The fact that cooking with oil makes the food taste much better is a happy side-effect.

Regarding milk: I don't eat eggs or most meat, so milk is one of my best and cheapest sources of B12. Milk is also a great source of lots of nutrients since it's literally all infants eat. Finally, milk is the least bad animal product to eat by far.

How did maximizing for nutrition yield recepies that weren't completely horrible?

It didn't. I had to make judgment calls. The optimal meal would've consisted mostly of broccoli.

This is too hard/messy. Why not just drink Soylent et al?

Price is one reason. These meals are far cheaper than Soylant or Huel. For instant, Soylant powder costs nearly $20 for 1500 calories whereas the ingredients for these "recipes" cost around $5.

Variety, social acceptableness, and taste are all other good reasons.

Finally, the difficulty in preparing real meals can be reduced by doing things in bulk. The obvious way to do this is to take turns preparing with other people: with 7 people, each person can cook dinner once per week.

The other way to do things in bulk is to do the non-heat-related steps once a week. This mostly means cutting the vegetables and putting them in sealed containers in the fridge. Then, making these recipes later takes less effort and makes less mess.

Are you vegan? vegetarian? pescatarian?

Kind of? I don't eat any land animals. I don't eat octopus, calamari, or most fish. I do eat catfish, skate, shrimp, clams, and oysters. I consume dairy and eggs, but avoid egg-heavy food like omelets.

Why?

The above dietary restrictions are based on my complex, nuanced, and likely wrong understanding of animal ethics.

I basically adopt a utilitarian outlook and assume the moral weight of an animal is (very) roughly proportional to the number of synapses in its brain.

Various Protein Sources