
Introducing Soylent 1.6 Powder - x43b
http://blog.soylent.com/post/146357422357/introducing-soylent-16-powder
======
calebsurfs
Does soylent include creatine? Its not an essential nutrient but if a human
exercises a lot and does not eat meat, creatine levels can get very low. This
leads to a lack of energy both mental and physical. Studies have shown [0]
improved mental performance in vegans when supplemented with creatine.

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-
psychiatry...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-
psychiatry/201202/your-brain-creatine)

~~~
mytochar
It also doesn't have near enough protein for someone who is actively working
out, so they're going to need to supplement it, too:

People that don't tend to work out need around 0.8g / kg; but, people that do
work out tend to need 1.2-1.4g / kg a day.[1]

[http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/414351](http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/414351)

~~~
LA_Banker
Precisely. I get the appeal of Soylent (quick meal replacement when otherwise
obtaining food would be too big a distraction), but I don't get the appeal
over meal replacement protein powders – many of which already taste better,
have more protein, and are cheaper than Soylent.

------
flogic
I would really like a version of Soylent that doesn't use sucralose. That
stuff leaves a nasty aftertaste.

~~~
pkulak
It's currently the sugar-substitute that tastes the best to the most people,
so I'm sure that they could replace it with something that would please you,
but it would probably displease many more.

~~~
anotherevan
Try xylitol. I use it for my coffee and the difference to sugar is barely
noticeable.

~~~
seventytwo
Works, but is extraordinarily toxic to dogs... I think that's why it's not as
widely used.

------
galistoca
Anyone know if there's anything like Soylent but for protein only?

Sometimes I go on a no-carb diet (sometimes to lose weight and sometimes
because carbs make me sleepy) and I am too lazy to buy ingredients and cook at
home.

I just want soylent, but with 0 carbs. Anyone know?

~~~
bfstein
Why not just get protein powder?

EDIT: Alternatively, you could go on
[http://blendrunner.com/](http://blendrunner.com/) which gives a comparison of
the various meal-replacement drinks out there.

~~~
eltoozero
Standard protein powder is usually animal protein which even if you're not a
vegetarian is kinda gross.

~~~
noir_lord
If you aren't a vegetarian why would be it be 'kinda gross' in fact even if
you are.

Protein powder is mostly whey, which is a milk component and most vegetarians
eat dairy.

------
afarrell
As someone who very occasionally gets very nervous about something to the
point of not wanting to chew, soylent+chocolate powder in a blender bottle is
really helpful.

~~~
ubercow
How much chocolate powder do you usually use? I've been trying to experiment
with different things to put in mine and haven't thought of chocolate powder
before.

~~~
gnoway
I was putting two heaping tbsp of cocoa powder per bag + a pinch of extra
sucralose - the 1.4/1.5 soylent only had enough sucralose to offset the
bitterness of some other ingredients, so adding 2+ tbsp of cocoa without
something to balance made it taste bad.

------
wasd
What's the difference between soylent 1.x and 2.y?

~~~
skybrian
1.x is powder that you mix yourself. 2.y comes in bottles.

~~~
profmonocle
They also have a very different taste and texture. I love the drink, but I
when I tried the powdered stuff (1.5) it made me gag. (And I know people who
have had the exact opposite reaction.)

------
teolemon
Can someone with access to the pack take pictures using the Open Food Facts
app ? [http://android.openfoodfacts.org](http://android.openfoodfacts.org) or
[http://ios.openfoodfacts.org](http://ios.openfoodfacts.org)

------
ben_jones
Is this a point of discussion or an Ad? Here are some previous discussions
which I feel cover everything their is to be said about the product:

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6247552](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6247552)

[2]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9995303](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9995303)

[3]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7814005](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7814005)

[4]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9109371](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9109371)

[5]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6115114](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6115114)

~~~
m0v_eax
Regardless, a 1.6 release is still a newsworthy item.

~~~
sikosmurf
It's at least as relevant as the "Electrn v0.0.5-rc finally released!" style
posts that seem to accompany every random web framework version release.

------
jey
I'm amazed the powder is still selling well enough to warrant further
development after the release of the drink form. It's it primarily an issue of
the drink being too expensive for many?

~~~
gnoway
I quit buying the powder earlier this year, but never considered the drink. I
don't want to be tossing a bunch of empty bottles or paying to ship a liquid;
it's honestly a little weird that they are prioritizing all this sustainable
food stuff but want to truck a prepared liquid to me. The liquid does (or did,
not sure now) cost more per kcal and comes in 400kcal bottles, so I would want
4-5 a day; they ship in 12 packs so I would be buying and shipping a lot.

I'm not sure I buy the soy-feminizes-men stuff but it was also at the back of
my mind. I don't particularly enjoy other soy things so I was disappointed
when they went that route.

~~~
deegles
I thought about this, but all the food you eat was trucked to a distribution
center, then trucked to the store, then driven home by you. There’s lots of
packaging involved there too. Meanwhile a shipment of soylent goes straight to
you, cutting out all those middlemen.

I'd be interested to see if someone has done the analysis to see if 2000kcal
of soylent uses less resources to ship than the same amount of calories from a
grocery store.

~~~
raisedbyninjas
It may use less than legacy solid foods, but it's significantly less efficient
than powder in bags. With that said, bottled Soylent is much more convenient.
I'm hopeful that they will improve the powder packaging and composition to
make preparation easier.

------
jgalt212
Nice piece on Soylent

Soylent: How I Ate No Food For 30 Days

[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/soylent-how-i-stopped-
eatin...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/soylent-how-i-stopped-eating-
for-30-days)

------
cisstrd
I will comment on Soylent as a product, not the 1.6 update specifically,
sorry, just want to make a few points (I think some of you are in for a tough
ride, just passionate, not my intention to attack anyone personally):

-) psychological value: eating has a great psychological value, it's pleasure (if not, you should eat better food)

-) social value: you probably won't go out with friends to have a glass of Soylent, would you?

-) Arguments about "increased productivity" because of less food preparation are ridiculous... if you can work all day long without needing a break, congratulations, you are everything common sense and science tells me is not possible. We need breaks, regularly, and why not use that to cook something. And cooking doesn't take hours a day.

-) Health: Because the supplement industry is such a thoroughly regulated and well behaving industry? If you believe that, do your research. I want to know what I am eating, and I don't when buying this mix of various powders they most likely buy in themselves. Would you give this crap to your children? Do you think we already have unlocked the key towards the perfect nutrition? (spoiler: no, we haven't, studying this is hard)

-) You can't cook: It's not hard, have you ever really tried? You don't need a Michelin star to cook solid and good food.

-) Unhappy with your current diet? Then change it, why ditch food altogether?

-) Cost, so it's not about productivity or health now, but about saving a few bucks? I doubt you save much if anything at all, it's not that expensive to buy good food, and isn't this mainly marketed towards high income people to begin with? You can afford it.

-) Soylent is revolutionary: It's not, 100% food replacements have been used in medicine for decades (just no one was crazy enough to ditch real food for it if not needed) - you can even buy it, it's far more expensive though than this, and of course I am still not for it as a food replacement for healthy adults.

-) Trust your body: Every body is different, the reason we have cravings for food is because the body tells us what it needs. This can fail us, for example when we eat too much sugar and our blood sugar levels are creating massive cravings for more down the line (I am not making a case for Coca-Cola here though), but all in all, it's an incredibly accurate and needed thermostat. If you eat more, you will ditch your blanket at night subconsciously to burn more calories by cooling down, if you eat less you will feel more cold and not do so. It's downright arrogant to think that some individual having read some studies and reports knows what is absolutely best (besides commonplace arguments like "sugar is bad", "being overweight is incredibly unhealthy", no proper doctor would ever make such bold and arrogant claims)

My opinion: This is part of a not well regulated industry, a repackaged and
cleverly marketed mix of food supplements that have been available for
decades, sold with incredibly high profit margins. They buy in their stuff,
they mix it, prep it up with some nice fancy talk, sell it, and see dollar
signs in their eyes.

Everyone should be able to do whatever he wants to as long as he is not
harming others. If you think Soylent is great, then by all means, I won't stop
you, I am passionate about food and am disgusted just looking at this. If
someone thinks this is healthy (spare me your cherry-picked study citations),
then - with all due respect - you are delusional

~~~
thatswrong0
Every time I see a comment like this, I'm amazed at the commenters inability
to _not_ take everything to the extreme. YOU CAN EAT SOYLENT AND STILL EAT
FOOD. If you don't have much time on your hands, and you want a quick meal, it
works really well and is better than, say, McDonalds.

1) Eating isn't pleasure for me 2 to 3 times a day. I eat lunch because I'm
hungry. I'll go out and eat a nice meal once or twice a week. You can drink
Soylent and still eat food. Everyone is different.

2) You can drink Soylent and still eat food. And I only eat socially a couple
times a week anyways.

3) Cooking takes time to prepare, time to fetch ingredients, and time to
cleanup. This is a non-negligible amount of time. I'd rather spend 10 minutes
total on a meal than 30+ mins.

4) Do you know if everything that goes into every processed food you eat? Do
you have verification?

5) You can eat Soylent and still eat food.

6) This clearly isn't about cost.

7) Soylent is evolutionary in the sense that it's one of the first food
replacement marketed to consumers that doesn't have a load of sugar in it.

8) Doesn't every company have dollar signs in their eyes? How is that a fault?
They're providing a product that people want at a price point people are
willing to pay. There isn't much to complain about there.

~~~
cisstrd
I am going by how they market it, not by how you use it. If company makes
market claim "x", which is ridiculous and I criticize that claim, someone then
saying that he personally hasn't bought it because of claim "x" does not make
my point invalid at all.

1) We differ there, I can well get all of my calories from normal food without
being annoyed by eating.

2) But it's marketed as complete food replacement, not as a simple nutritional
supplement. Though I don't fancy the supplement industry either.

3) I think it's stupid to consider this time as waste instead of time well
spent.

I had rice with fresh salmon today: Wash rice, put it in the rice cooker with
1 1/2 parts of water and some salt - wait 15 minutes (you can do whatever you
want there) - use a non-stick pan, some olive oil, fry the salmon, use some
spices, in between you can start cleaning up whatever kitchen equipment you
have used - 5 minutes later rice is cooked, salmon finished, arrange it on a
plate, some soy sauce and Wasabi on the side. Total time of work maybe... 8
minutes? Total time to clean up... 2? Total time to eat (quick eater)... 5?!
And that's a pretty decent dish I think, I have my go to foods too, when I
really can't be bothered. I can easily have a banana, an apple, eat some
peanuts (100 grams have 620 calories, important and healthy fats, 25 grams of
protein), can make some hard boiled eggs (can make them in the morning, eat
them during the day), I can just take some bread, butter, tomatoes, and salt,
sit in front of the computer watching something and eat during that. Takes no
time really, and in the end you don't have much to clean. Food allows for
creativity, be creative.

Have we all forgotten how to deal with real food?!

I hate to go to the store to buy, what I can I buy in bulk, sometimes I buy
things frozen (it's often incredibly healthy food, when immediately frozen the
nutritional value is great) and when I really can't avoid making an effort,
it's not a waste considering what I get out of it.

4) Standards for food production are higher, I can touch it, I can see it, I
can ask where it's from. Not sure where you have been buying your food. A
banana I eat is not the product of a badly regulated industry, where hobbyists
create mixtures of their liking.

5) It's the same point you made with 2)

6) It's an argument I have encountered multiple times, and it's also something
I remember from the early days of Soylent. "It only costs x dollars a day and
is all you need" (see my intro)

7) You mean "revolutionary"? It's not revolutionary by any means, if you mean
it's revolutionary because it has taken something previously not used as
mainstream food and marketed it as such, then yes maybe. I don't think that's
a great achievement.

8) You are only addressing part of my ending here, talking about the high
profit margins and that I think they are acting in bad faith was part of the
larger point, that what they are doing is fundamentally easy and a lot of it
is simply improvised, they don't really know themselves, but they claim to
know. They buy it in, they mix it, dress it up, and market it. Anyone can do
it, I can't however raise cattle, grow tasty bananas, peanuts, and catch
delicious fish every day. So talking about profit margins, I think their
profit margins are quite higher than people realize, their expertise is lower
than what people think, their claims are 100% marketing, what they do is
easier than people give them credit for.

~~~
GrumpyYoungMan
>Have we all forgotten how to deal with real food?!

Apparently, yes.

"The dream of all these companies is to capture the all-powerful and elusive
millennial eater, who just isn’t all that into cereal for breakfast. It’s just
too much work, for one thing. Almost 40 percent of the millennials surveyed by
Mintel for its 2015 report said cereal was an inconvenient breakfast choice
because they had to clean up after eating it."

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/24/dining/breakfast-
cereal.ht...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/24/dining/breakfast-cereal.html)

The Washington Post also has an analysis of the trend:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/23/this-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/23/this-
is-the-height-of-laziness/)

~~~
xiaoma
Wow... and I thought cereal was the _lazy_ option.

~~~
oopsies49
Soylent powder isn't that clean anyway. It's much easier to wash a bowl than
to clean your counter and scoop after making a Soylent meal.

~~~
reddytowns
But what's left on your rag after you do so becomes a free meal!

------
GreaterFool
Now if they would ship internationally... I'd love to order 6 months supply of
2.0

------
mkolodny
I've stopped drinking Soylent since I found out that it contains more than the
recommended amount of soy in a single meal.

Excess soy has been found to "feminize" men [1]. It also "may cause some
reversible sexual disruption in men".

Researchers decided the safe amount of soy (isoflavones) in a single day is
75mg [2]. If you drink Soylent as one of three meals in a day, Soylent
contains about 87mg (52mg * 5 bottles / 3 meals a day) [3].

[1] [http://blog.zocdoc.com/does-soy-feminize-men-fact-vs-
myth/](http://blog.zocdoc.com/does-soy-feminize-men-fact-vs-myth/) [2]
[https://www.fsc.go.jp/english/evaluationreports/newfoods_sph...](https://www.fsc.go.jp/english/evaluationreports/newfoods_sphealth/soy_isoflavones.pdf)
[3] [https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/205682935-Soy-
Prot...](https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/205682935-Soy-Protein)

~~~
MertsA
I've seen tons and tons of people pointing out that soy contains
phytoestrogens but I've never seen a single study that showed that it had any
significant effect on an adult male. I have seen studies that have shown no
statistical difference between a diet high in phytoestrogens and a normal
diet. Here's the abstract of an examination of 9 different clinical studies on
the topic:
[http://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(10)00368-7/abstr...](http://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282\(10\)00368-7/abstract)
. Also, I'd like to point out that your first reference even states that a
diet heavy in soy is unlikely to have any harmful effects. It also only
provided two anecdotes of men with a hormonal problem and in both of those
cases the cause was never determined.

I'd need to see some pretty strong proof before I am convinced that the amount
of soy in Soylent is anything to be concerned about.

~~~
soylent_comment
Soy can "feminize" in some men. It probably requires some kind of
predisposition, but it's not a conspiracy theory.

There are several case reports out there now. I remember reading about an
Australian guy who was otherwise healthy, with no prior hormonal issues.

For what it's worth, it also happened to me. When I was 20 or 21, I developed
a taste for soy burgers & started eating them every day.

I quickly developed breast tissue under both nipples. When I realized what was
happening, I cut out the soy & most of the tissue atrophied.

Same thing happened to my brother years later, from protein powder. I tried to
warn him but he didn't believe me.

It's a thing, it happens.

------
Animats
Synthetic food ad copy: _" In addition to sensory and macronutrient
improvements, Soylent 1.6 is the first powder iteration to use whole algal
flour and high oleic algal oil - innovative ingredients that are yet another
step toward sustainable food production. We have also introduced soy protein
isolate as the primary protein source, replacing the rice protein. Its
benefits include a superior ratio of amino acids for nutrition and smooth
digestion. Soy protein is isolated from other components of the whole soy
plant and offers an exceptional level of purity from inorganic compounds
compared to the rice protein._"

Synthetic motor oil ad copy: _" Synthetic oil is not only refined but also
distilled, purified and broken down into its basic molecules. This process not
only removes more impurities from the crude oil but also enables individual
molecules in the oil to be tailored to the demands of modern engines. These
customized molecules provide higher levels of protection and performance than
conventional oils. But the synthetic base oil is only half the story. The
correct blend additives must go into the mix to create the oil. Base oil makes
up nearly 80% of a motor oil formulation, and additives make up the remaining
nearly 20%. The chemically engineered molecules in synthetic base oil have
more uniform properties, while the molecules found in conventional base oil
differ in shape and levels of impurity."_

~~~
jey
So what?

~~~
Spooky23
Both read similar and are pretty much complete bullshit.

~~~
lowmagnet
How is synthetic oil bull? It is literally the process that prevents oils from
degrading, and results in cars that use far less oil over their lifetime due
to a tripling of change time and mileage limits.

