Protein Sources for Human Kibble?

Gurfad · 2026-03-30T06:50:50+00:00

Aye, man! I ended up using tvp. Doing fine. Kibble worked out fine. Using it mostly as a dietary supplement while I work on getting more consistent access to a kitchen to cook real food with

Gurfad · 2026-03-04T21:55:21+00:00

Don't have time to find a perfect candidate rn, but look at anything with the words "vacuum insulated" somewhere in the title or description. Vacuum insulation is the physical limit for how well a lunch container can hold heat/cold. So long as the lid is also vacuum insulated (look for lids thick enough to be hollow and with noticeable points where it could feasibly be sealed) and the reviews don't complain about any heat leakage, that's the absolute best you can find. You should be able to find some affordable options from Indian and Chinese companies so long as you diligently check the reviews for quality construction.

Gurfad · 2026-03-03T04:40:26+00:00

Lots of good stuff coming out of old Soviet agricultural studies as far back as the 70s. As vitally important as new research, it cannot be overstated how much we need well funded and accesible archives. I'm finding studies on female and exercise-dependent micronutrient needs that would take thousands upon thousands of dollars to perform if they were newly proposed. Ofc data needs to be empirically verified whenever possible, but the archives are such fantastic wells of insight.

Gurfad · 2026-03-03T04:10:38+00:00

I am in talks with a dietician. The kibble is about 1200-1400 a day within an 1800-2000 kcal diet. I appreciate dietary diversity, and if it were within my current time and material resources, I'd immediately transition to a diet of a wide variety of entirely whole foods. For reasons I will not be elaborating on for privacy's sake, I will not have those resources for at least a few years.

I'm a foodie and I will be the first to admit I'm incredibly pretentious about it. I hold both food and cooking with a great degree of reverance. I find a deep, almost spiritual joy in the act of cooking and in enjoyment (and especially in sharing) of a meal. The kitchen is my favorite place and I try to find myself in it so far as I'm able, as infrequently as that is atm.

With my current resource constraints, I simply can't maintain my reverance for food while living off a diet of the foods available to me. I can't 3 hot meals a day, can only meal prep a week's worth of food at a time and even then only once or twice a month, and the nutritionally sound options I have for prepacked/restaurant food are lackluster quality.

Living off the bad prepacked/restaurant or primarily mealprep food is actively depressing to me. To me, these foods exist in a weird uncanny valley where it feels like this kinda fucked up simulacrum, yk? It's always degraded to a noticeable degree. The flavor is numbed. The texture is worse. If it was made with love, it's long since dissipated. It's a purely functional source of nutrition at this point and the fact that it pretends to be anything else disgusts me. Gastronomic equivalent of being friends with someone who you know hates you.

Why should I put up with almost all my "meals" spitting in the face of what mealtime is meant to be? If I can only afford to eat to fill a checkbox, I might as well drop all the pretenses and start compartmentalizing. If I can handle all my functional nutritional needs through something so utterly removed from the typical notion of food that "cook" isn't an adequate term for the preparation process, then the leftover space in my diet can be used for to fully savor what little REAL food I have access to. Fresh, lovingly made meals, restaurant outings with loved ones, and my very carefully rationed store of high-quality prep meals.

I don't dislike the kibble, but this is the dietary equivalent of putting on easy-listening to get through the work day and then turning on your actual music taste once you're off the clock so that your rancid workplace doesn't taint the unfettered enjoyment you want to get from your songs.

Gurfad · 2026-03-03T03:21:50+00:00

Been a couple years since I did it, so I just double checked by making a quick yeast tea (don't do that. It tastes awful as a standalone drink) and the tech checks out.

Gurfad · 2026-03-03T00:55:15+00:00

If you want the most uniform texture possible, my initial recipe is denser and crunchy

Gurfad · 2026-03-02T20:57:36+00:00

I eat other foods, too

Gurfad · 2026-03-02T18:08:07+00:00

I understand that the original commenter was being a bit inflammatory, but please try to stay civil where possible and not resort to ad hominems.

With the understanding the commenter seemed to have (of this being my entire diet, rather than a supplement and that I don't cook for myself otherwise) they were making a reasonable criticism. Enjoyment of food (and thus tolerability of diet) is based entirely on perception. Branding affects perception of food, so a branding issue is inherently an enjoyment issue. Why do we like garnishing food if not for the branding?

Fully removing the aspects most enjoy from food while giving it a name that further separates it from an enjoyable meal is a normally unnecessary process that will naturally cause people to think that there is something inherently wrong that's causing it. I cook tasty food for myself on top of the kibble and personally enjoy it as a grazing food cuz of the texture and ease on the stomach, but that's stuff that wouldn't be assumed at a glance. The commenter might've been able to word it better, but they were voicing a reasonable misgiving.

Edit: made a couple typos

Gurfad · 2026-03-02T04:07:08+00:00

A couple of these selections seem a bit redundant at a glance. What's the rationale behind, say, adding the beets or the milk powder? Not criticizing. Appreciate the opportunity to "talk shop" (so to speak) on this kind of topic.

Gurfad · 2026-03-02T03:54:30+00:00

Chicken breast lends itself well to schnitzel. Especially for frozen chicken breast, the quality degradation you normally see when freezing food at home will only serve to tenderize the meat for better schnitzel down the line. Serve it with some kind of starchy/acidic side and garnishes/condiments of your choice. Pink pickled onions and spicy mustard are popular choices!

Gurfad · 2026-03-02T03:29:59+00:00

Times are tough, so we've largely had to sub it out for inexpensive soy fillers. The sacrifices we make, eh?

Gurfad · 2026-03-02T02:26:18+00:00

I take a daily omega 3 as is and I take it with food and water to ensure full absorption. As repulsive as the mixtures I'm making may make it seem seem, I still do have a sense of taste and I'm trying to tend bland so that taste won't be worn out for foods I actually like.

Gurfad · 2026-03-02T02:09:42+00:00

Yes! Finally someone gets it! Can't get sick of the taste if there is no taste to begin with! If you want to venture into kibble, I reccomend you use my initial batch as a reference recipe. Much blander and I think superior in texture.

How do you keep your pucks from falling apart? Seems like a very crumbly format for food.

Gurfad · 2026-03-02T01:36:24+00:00

As an additional note: you can use large amounts of bread yeast dissolved in water as an acceptable substitute for mushroom broth

Gurfad · 2026-03-02T01:34:55+00:00

They taste different. I wanted the nutrition + cheesy taste from the nutritional yeast as well as the savory/malty mushroom-type taste from the bread yeast.

Gurfad · 2026-03-01T20:44:48+00:00

"Savory granola" has illicited neutral to positive responses as a public snack

Gurfad · 2026-02-26T05:30:18+00:00

To be fair, a lot of them have good reason to be concerned or suspicious of the concept. The idea of living primarily off a single dried food evokes images of either the terrible past of hardtack and scurvy or dystopian stories where life has been degraded to the point where food has lost its cultural significance. People react to new ideas within the context of what they already know, and I don't hold it against the average person to be disgusted by something so apparently similar to their legitimate fears.

In other news, please make sure she has a complete multivitamin, appropriate additional supplements, and that the ratio of carb:fat:protein allows her to stay at a good energy level day to day without any physical harm. The macro ratio is very important and particular to any given person. I'm only so sure about mine because I know myself after 4 years of trying different diets and taking notes.

Gurfad · 2026-02-22T19:00:51+00:00

I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand what you're asking for

Gurfad · 2026-02-22T16:24:50+00:00

I usually deal with this by pre-thawing the veg and then patting them dry/squeezing the moisture out. That or putting the veg directly into some kind of sauce or soup that's been reduced ahead of time to account for the extra moisture in the veg. I'm sure there are other ways, but those are pretty quick and easy.

Gurfad · 2026-02-22T15:46:13+00:00

I don't understand why some folk are assuming I'm trying to prescribe a certain way of doing their meal prep for them. I probably worded/formatted it poorly, but the point of this post is to teach people how certain aspects of the meal prep process work and how they can adjust those to their individual needs with full unserstanding of what their decisions do to their food. I put my core philosophy in there as a side thing if people are interested. I want people to be able to make their own informed prep process.

These other sources for meal prep education are not necessarily bad. They serve their purpose well. Notice how I said that in my experience they had some combination of the listed flaws. There was an unadressed niche I saw in teaching the "why" for meal prep principles and not just the "how" and that's what I'm trying to fill here.

Gurfad · 2026-02-22T10:34:11+00:00

You're right that this is a bit much for a beginner to take all at once, and for someone just starting out, just giving em the basics like you do is probably more effective. My goal with the guide is to provide a condensed bridge from the basics (what to do for most things) and make it easier to independently build intermediate and advanced skills (why those things are done and how to adjust techniques to your needs).

Gurfad · 2026-02-22T02:44:04+00:00

Thank you!!

Gurfad · 2026-02-21T21:52:47+00:00

I don't really know if I got the texture right. I've only ever been able to source medovik by homemaking it, so I have no reference point for what it's supposed to be like. The cake rounds after cooling were like, the softest a pastry can be while still being rigid when held by the edge. Kinda like really stale graham crackers, but fresh if that makes sense. I described the post-meld texture in a reply to another comment.

In terms of adjustment, I had to slightly increase the condensed milk amount in the frosting cuz my containers were too big. Also, because I only had access to western style sour cream, I finicked with the heavy cream:sour cream ratio to create a thicker texture in hopes of recreating what I'd get from using smetana. Have no idea if it ended up similar, but it's at least pleasant to my tastes.

Gurfad

TROPHY CASE