Synectar

What it’s like to cover your flat in dust and drink chalk as a reward.

Juraj

From our main provider of protein, oats and other party delicacies our shipment arrived, so that we would be adequately stocked for the previously mentioned big mix-up.

So we met one evening in my flat, vacummed rats and fungus and began with weighing. We prepared four versions of Synectar – Synectar One unflavoured, Synectar One vanilla, Synectar Hemp unflavoured and Synectar Hemp vanilla. We simultaneously modified the recipes from our weight-loss 1800 kcal to traditional 2000 kcal, as that was the wish of our first testers. This way we packed 26 days of Synectar altogether, plus a heap of absolutely legit-looking small packs of salt (so that our testers can choose whether to include the salt or not – I personally don’t use salt in my Synectar as my third meal tends to be on the salty side). Well, my flat ended up covered in dust and coughing rats, but other than that it was fun.

In other news, our shipment of ingredients from the local Slovak eshops arrived as well, specifically whey protein unflavoured, instant oats and hemp protein. We mixed it all toghether at once and thus produced hempy unflavoured “Slavnectar”, hoping the we won’t have to slavsquat on toilet for hours after drinking this.

Well, this Slavnectar definitely foams a bit, but that doesn’t matter much to me. The bigger problem is that I had this feeling that I’m eating chalk – totally strange dry sensation in my mouth which usually happens when you lick a school blackboard or walls at home. Two teaspoons of cocoa powder indeed fix that, though it’s not the good old Synectar. I have to say though that the oats are truly instant (they dissolved immediately) and the hemp is a little bit finer and settles less. So we just have to find out which ingredient contains the chalk – I personally suspect my neighbours’ harmful microwaves and the whey protein.

As if it wasn’t enough we received the first sample pack, from USA, but this will probably be the topic of one or more individual articles.

Everything was fine for the rest of the week, I’m still alive and still eating Synectar two times a day. The next week will be quite “dusty” too, as we are travelling to Brno, Czech Republic to exchange some samples and experience.

Pavol

Last week I was inspired by Japanese ideas (and scientific researches) about 5th part of the taste – “umami”. All five tastes together are: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. The word umami comes from Japan and it could be translated (by me, as the expert on Japanese language and dialects) as “tasty” or “pleasant” taste. This taste could be isolated as glutamate – well known (supposed) health destroyer found in various food seasonings. Foods containing this umami taste are for example tomatoes, anchovies or soy sauce.

And soy sauce was my ingredient of choice to put into Synectar one morning. Because soy sauce doesn’t contain only umami, but sodium chloride as well, I chose not to add any kitchen salt into Synectar.

Soy sauce changed Synectar’s colour (in a very similar way to the pumpkin oil) as well as the flavour – it added saltiness and the overall flavour became more rounded. I even thought (or sensed?) that it emphasized the sweetness too, compared to the plain Synectar, until I read somewhere that umami doesn’t make sweetness stronger. But, well, I know best.

The other two Synectars of this week were flavoured by cocoa, which still is my most liked additive.

As Juraj already mentioned, we mixed one big dose of Synectar in different flavour variations, so we’d have something to trade for other powdered foods, or to give as sample to our friends. Therefore I decided to taste the hemp protein version, which I didn’t try as a whole food yet. I don’t know whether it’s caused by hemp version being really tastier, but I liked it more than just a plain whey protein one. I even think, that cocoa makes even bigger taste improvement here.

We ended this week with very interesting discussion with our new “powdered friend” and with preparing for a trip to Brno (report soon).