
Soylent hits back at legal threat: ‘We display Prop 65 warnings' - kposehn
http://blog.soylent.com/post/126888496882/soylent-is-compliant-with-california-proposition
======
jpatokal
So I was wondering how "As You Sow" makes money if this is extortion (as
claimed in the article), and found this:

[http://www.asyousow.org/about-
us/grantmaking/guidelines/](http://www.asyousow.org/about-
us/grantmaking/guidelines/)

 _As You Sow’s grantmaking program is funded by settlements from our
enforcement of California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act
(Proposition 65)._

Can somebody explain to me how a non-governmental non-profit can go about
enforcing a state law and getting paid for it? Do they basically sue random
companies and extract "donations" in exchange for going away?

~~~
spacemanmatt
Whistleblower rewards, I would expect. It's not quite deputizing As You Sow as
an enforcement agent but it does take a load off the state.

------
leereeves
> safe harbor levels enshrined in Prop 65 are unrealistically low

If I understand the regulations correctly, the Prop 65 limit for lead is about
100x more restrictive than EPA standards for drinking water.

According to
[http://oehha.ca.gov/prop65/pdf/safeharbor081513.pdf](http://oehha.ca.gov/prop65/pdf/safeharbor081513.pdf)
the Prop 65 Maximum Allowable Dose Level for lead is 0.5ug per day (assuming
the lower of the two safe harbor levels applies).

According to
[http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/index.cfm](http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/index.cfm)
the EPA's action level for lead in drinking water is 15ug per liter (and
people drink more than one liter of water per day).

~~~
wyldfire
A great baseline that would make me feel better would be other foodstuffs'
lead and cadmium concentration. Are these contaminants a part of most food
production, at some astonishingly low concentrations already?

"Since Soylent is marketed as a meal replacement, users may be chronically
exposed to lead and cadmium concentrations that exceed California's safe
harbor level. We’ve worked with a few companies making protein powders and
they just need to look at their ingredients and investigate."

Well, if it's extortion, they're doing a great job sounding legit. Maybe
Soylent has a problem sourcing their ingredients from reputable providers? A
low cost target was a big part of its appeal, so I could understand if they
were aggressive in finding an affordable business partner to provide
materials.

As an aside, maybe we should try to avoid linking to sites who bar copying
article excerpts to the clipboard. A bit ludicrous to suggest that their
article's copyright justifies this silly barely-DRM-measure.

~~~
DanBC
The safe harbor limits are very low.

From
[http://www.oehha.ca.gov/prop65/background/p65plain.html](http://www.oehha.ca.gov/prop65/background/p65plain.html)

> For chemicals that are listed as causing cancer, the "no significant risk
> level” is defined as the level of exposure that would result in not more
> than one excess case of cancer in 100,000 individuals exposed to the
> chemical over a 70-year lifetime. In other words, a person exposed to the
> chemical at the “no significant risk level” for 70 years would not have more
> than a “one in 100,000” chance of developing cancer as a result of that
> exposure.

> For chemicals that are listed as causing birth defects or reproductive harm,
> the “no observable effect level” is determined by identifying the level of
> exposure that has been shown to not pose any harm to humans or laboratory
> animals. Proposition 65 then requires this “no observable effect level” to
> be divided by 1,000 in order to provide an ample margin of safety.
> Businesses subject to Proposition 65 are required to provide a warning if
> they cause exposures to chemicals listed as causing birth defects or
> reproductive harm that exceed 1/1000th of the “no observable effect level.”

------
dang
We changed the url from [http://www.foodnavigator-
usa.com/Manufacturers/Soylent-hits-...](http://www.foodnavigator-
usa.com/Manufacturers/Soylent-hits-back-at-legal-threat-We-display-
Prop-65-warnings) since this is the original source.

~~~
nkurz
Thanks for changing. I don't know if you happened to notice, but among others
things, the original link takes a dim view of fair use. If you try to copy any
piece of text from the original article, it denies you with a message "THIS
CONTENT IS COPYRIGHT PROTECTED". The incredible part was that I had been
trying to copy part of a quote from a third party to find the original source.

~~~
dang
Oh dear. That's pretty bad.

It's like those sites that append a long string of junk to whatever you copy,
only worse. I usually see that on media sites that seem a bit technically
naive, and always imagine the conversation with the salesperson who convinced
them they needed it.

------
kendallpark
I would love to hear opinions from other HN users that would actually use this
product. Clearly there are people that would love to forget about food--I
don't understand the appeal myself.

~~~
davnicwil
I've not used Soylent, but I definitely would. All that's put me off in the
past is the need to order large quantities of it before even knowing if I'll
like it, and a big waiting list to even get it in the first place.

Seems like a lot of hassle and since the attraction of Soylent for me is
precisely to avoid hassle and nothing intrinsic, I'm putting off trying it
until they work this out (if that's not already happened, haven't checked
recently).

Anyway, the appeal for me is summed up really well by this marketing quote, in
the article:

> “During a typical week there’s several meals I eat alone in front of the TV,
> weekday dinners mostly. Those were usually fast food, or frozen or canned.
> So I thought Soylent would be faster, easier, and healthier than what I had
> been doing before."

That absolutely nails the appeal for me. I love food, I even enjoy cooking
nice things occasionally. However, the the routine of cooking something quick
and boring for only myself on just an average Tuesday evening, coupled with
all the faff around planning, buying ingredients, taking things out of the
freezer at the right times, cleaning up, etc, just to sustain myself in a
healthy way, is something I'd love to substitute away with something like
Soylent and spend that time doing things I enjoy more.

~~~
AYBABTME
I've been doing Soylent for a month. I had the idea on a Saturday, placed my
order and Tuesday morning I had 14 days worth of powder delivered, in Canada.

After 1 week of eating it, I was happy and subscribed for 28 bags a month. My
wife likes it too, it's convenient when she doesn't have time to cook and
wants something filling and healthy.

------
tmuir
...its figures appeared to be based on the assumption that people eat "nothing
but Soylent everyday, 365 days a year, forever"

Maybe they got that impression from the marketing image in the article with
the text "What if you never had to worry about food again?"

------
codezero
A link directly to Soylent's Prop 65 page: [https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-
us/articles/204197379](https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/204197379)

------
tomohawk
If only we had the English Rule.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_rule_%28attorney%27s_f...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_rule_%28attorney%27s_fees%29)

~~~
Vecrios
Could someone shine some light on why the U.S. is not following such rule? I
can't see that many downsides to it, IMHO.

------
kposehn
OP here. This seems to have been sandboxed Off the front page for some reason.
Glad some people got to read this - will post more info on the suit as I find
it.

~~~
leereeves
It might have been flagkilled. It was interesting information, but perhaps not
the best source or most balanced coverage.

------
nkurz
A while ago, while there was a scare about elevated lead levels in licorice,
which led to a recall that worried lots of parents. The level in the candy was
.18 ppm: [http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/08/black-licorice-
recalle...](http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/08/black-licorice-recalled-for-
high-levels-of-lead/)

At that time, I tried to understand how much of a risk this actually
presented. My conclusion was no, it did not present any significant risk to
anyone. In fact, this elevated level was less than half the amount that the
EPA considered safe a few years earlier. And the EPA had changed it's standard
from the previous presumed to be safe level of .5 ppm to .1 ppm not because of
new evidence of risk, but because of a change in philosophy:
[http://www.fda.gov/RegulatoryInformation/Guidances/ucm077904...](http://www.fda.gov/RegulatoryInformation/Guidances/ucm077904.htm)

    
    
      This recommended maximum level of 0.1 ppm for lead in candy 
      likely to be consumed frequently by small children is 
      consistent with the FDA's longstanding goal of reducing 
      lead levels in the food supply to reduce consumers' lead 
      exposure to the lowest level that can be practicably 
      obtained. 
    

Previously, they had set the standard based on the level of exposure shown to
cause harm, divided by a safety factor (usually some power of 10) to account
for uncertainty and differences in individuals:
[http://www.epa.gov/iris/rfd.htm](http://www.epa.gov/iris/rfd.htm)

So the furor over licorice was not because there was any new evidence that the
level was unsafe, or even that there was greater uncertainty of the safety,
but because similar products were tested and found to have lower levels. In
one sense, this seems reasonable: lead is very bad for you, so we don't want
any of it in our food. But if the lead exposure from food is much less than
the environmental lead exposure from other sources, it's hard to justify going
to extremes to remove the remaining tiny fraction.

With this in mind, the tested level of lead in Soylent was .01 ppm. The
California "safe harbor" level for lead is .5 µg per day. Thus if you ate 50g
of Soylent, you would exceed the level at which California requires a warning.

For comparison, the EPA action level for lead in drinking water is .015 ppm,
and the EPA says that if the level is less than this you should not worry:
[http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/tips/water.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/tips/water.htm)

Thus if you drank 35g of the water that the EPA considers safe (about 2.5
tablespoons) you'd also be exceeding the threshold for which the State of
California requires a warning label. In fairness, the level of lead in most
drinking water is significantly less than the EPA action level. The US average
appears to be about .003 ppm, thus you would on average have to consume (by
weight) 3 times as much water as Soylent to receive the same dose of lead:
[http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/chemicals/lea...](http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/chemicals/lead.pdf)

I'm guessing that 3:1 is about the ratio at why Soylent is typically made? If
so, it would seem fair to say that if you are using average US tap water, you
are more at risk from lead poisoning from the water with which the Soylent is
made than from the Soylent itself, for which they are being sued for not
making their warning sufficiently prominent.

If this wasn't enough, that last link from the World Health Organization also
estimates that an adult gets about 4 µg of lead per day just from breathing.
To equal this amount from Soylent, you'd have consume 400g (1 lb) of Soylent
per day. Since Soylent is packaged in 459g packages designed for 3 meals, it
would be false to claim that you are getting more lead from the air than you
do from the Soylent. But if you only ate two meals of Soylent per day, you'd
be getting more from the air than from the Soylent.

So despite being a strong believer in food safety, as a former owner of a
failed California food business (whose failure was in considerable part due
our inability to manage the with regulatory requirements) I applaud Soylent
for fighting back here.

------
x5n1
Yes everything which tells me to do the stuff I don't want to do is extortion.

------
monochromatic
This title is pretty poor.

~~~
wyldfire
I suppose Soylent has markings that confess that it "contains a chemical known
to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other
reproductive harm".

EDIT: From Soylent's FAQ [1] "This warning is triggered by extremely low
levels of the regulated compounds, and as such, the notification is a familiar
sight to anyone who has eaten at a restaurant, stayed in a hotel, attended a
theme park, or parked in a parking garage in California."

[1] [https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-
us/articles/204197379](https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/204197379)

------
MPSimmons
I have absolutely nothing against Soylent, and I've thought about buying it,
but for what it's worth, this post has +20 points in under 30 minutes with one
comment, and it reads like a PR retaliation.

~~~
codezero
As a consumer of Soylent, I am looking forward to any and all information
about this hitting HN.

It sounds like there aren't dangerous levels of heavy metals, and this suit is
brought because it will cost Soylent less to settle than to do their own
testing?

~~~
kbd
According to Soylent, they test every batch[1]. But yes, it seems like As You
Sow is like a patent troll, but instead is a prop 65 troll.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/soylent/comments/3ha4et/soylent_is_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/soylent/comments/3ha4et/soylent_is_compliant_with_california_proposition/cu5lm89)

------
ekianjo
> Soylent insists its products are "completely safe and nutritious"

Based on how many years of market experience? Based on how many studies ? Oh,
none. Yeah, "completely safe" \- except that we don't know what happens 10
years down the line - the kind of timeline that matters for cancer or other
long term disease.

~~~
jpatokal
AFAIK there is nothing in Soylent that is not regularly consumed by lots of
humans already. Instead, the primary concern is its use as a total food
replacement, since it's unclear what sort of dietary deficiencies may crop up
ten years down the line.

~~~
ekianjo
> Instead, the primary concern is its use as a total food replacement

Yes, that's why the "completely safe" is misleading, from Soylent's part. They
actually have NO clue.

~~~
jpatokal
Where do you see Soylent marketing itself as "completely safe"? Their website
is pretty nuanced.

~~~
DanBC
The kickstarter campaign where they described Soylent not just as perfectly
safe, but perfectly safe for anyone; and where they say it puts you in perfect
health; and where they claim rigorous testing.

This iterative approach to regulatory compliance - ignore everything until a
regulator points out a problem - should be worrying when you're talking about
food.

