
The Register puts Soylent to the test - oneandoneis2
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/14/soylent_experiment/
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angersock
Wait.

Wait wait wait.

Is there a chance, however fleeting, that a chunk of the Register's staff
could come down with food poisoning, or be hospitalized for malnutrition?

Maybe 2013 isn't so bad after all.

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Kurtz79
Regardless of what anyone can think about the actual product, I find it
remarkable how the author managed to get such resonance in the media.

It might be the name, it might be that the subject matter generates strong
opinions in people, but in terms of generating buzz and getting attention it
has been quite a success.

~~~
danielbarla
Personally, I'm slightly surprised that it's proving to be so popular. Making
and eating awesome food is a great joy in life; why would you try to work
around that? Interesting concept, nevertheless.

~~~
gadders
Not every meal is a gourmet experience that you savour with friends.
Sometimes, you just need to refuel your body. Soylent could be perfect for
that.

~~~
Nursie
What if every meal _is_ an experience to savour with friends and/or family?
(well ok, every evening meal)

I like to live that way.

But then I also couldn't eat the same thing for lunch every day. Stuff that
has actual flavour and texture gets boring fast. This would be boring before
I'd finished the glass.

~~~
Anderkent
Then this is not a product for you. But I'd say you're the exception, at least
from my anecdotal experience.

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sheri
I think Michael Pollan described it well when he said food in America was
undergoing a process of 'nutrification', i.e., breaking it down into its
nutrients, and trying to create supplements with those nutrients. The studies
in the book, though, say that we haven't yet cracked the code. I.e., taking
the equivalent of one apple's nutrients isn't the same as eating an apple. The
reasons weren't quite known yet. I read the book a long while back, so my
recollection may be spotty.

~~~
Swizec
I read that in the case of C vitamin, for instance, the body simply doesn't
recognise it as C vitamin when it doesn't come directly from fruit. Just
ignores it and passes it onto urine.

A nootropicist friend I have suggested that C vitamin only works in
combination with Magnesium supplements ... etc. It gets pretty complicated.
I'd rather just eat a stupid piece of fruit. It's tasty, efficient, and
awesome. Why complicate things with dystopian future pills?

~~~
carbocation
> I read that in the case of C vitamin, for instance, the body simply doesn't
> recognise it as C vitamin when it doesn't come directly from fruit. Just
> ignores it and passes it onto urine.

If it's getting absorbed but excreted, it sounds like you're taking more than
enough. Usually absorption is limited by cofactors. Allusions to fruit being
better than isolated Vitamin C should be backed up by evidence.

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jaachan
I can't find anywhere what it's actually made of (not on the campaign page
either). And none of the people listed in the company has any training
regarding food or medicine. #slightlyworried

Other than that, could be awesome. You could just have a cup with you all day
and drink some whenever you feel hungry.

Question then remains, why isn't it green?

~~~
DanBC
They do list the ingredients, but not the sources of those ingredients.

There are existing alternatives if you want to try liquid feeds but want
rigorously tested QAd product from existing reputable manufacturers.

Or Soylent, but be aware that it's fun self-experimentation.

Here's one of my (grumpy) posts listing alternatives
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5876219](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5876219))

~~~
Anderkent
It's hard to say which products of listed companies are supposed to be
nutritionally complete (i.e. meal replacement, not supplement). Do you know of
any?

Browsing through the pages: Complan - explicitly states you should have normal
meals in addition to the product ("Avoid missing meals completely − you may
not feel hungry but your body still needs nourishment") Medifast - want you to
eat at least 1 cooked meal daily Optifast - not available for retail (or at
least the webpage claims so)

I'm looking for a replacement for the main meal, not breakfasty/lunchy things,
which none of these seem to provide. Though perhaps I misunderstand their ads?

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venomsnake
Start the soylent diet. Then take some pill to suppress your libido. Know that
now you lost all joy in life, not only half of it.

~~~
bestdayever
If eating is half the joy in your life you live a miserable life I wouldn't
wish on my worst enemies.

~~~
calinet6
Hogwash. If you have the good grace to eat food that makes up half the joy in
your life, then you have a good life indeed.

In my experience, good food is everything that joy intends: gardening, growing
food from nothing, spending time outdoors, connectedness with the land,
creativity, quality process, science, creation, enjoyment, collaboration with
others, socialization (especially when combined with good booze of many
varieties), nutrition, survival, health, and certainly joy.

In fact you could say that eating and everything that goes into it makes up
the a good chunk of life, and a good life at that. Certainly a hundred years
ago, if you could do everything required simply to eat and eat well, then you
had a life better than most. And in fact, you could certainly say the same
today. Eating is a luxury, and the choice of what to eat an even greater
luxury. You are lucky for it, and you should be damn joyful.

~~~
sp332
Doing that when you want to, and to the extent that you want to, is enjoyable.
But subsistence farming is not. There's a middle ground, you know? It's nice
not to be forced to think about your next meal several times every single day.
You can relax and focus on a few meals a week that you actually care about
instead of being stressed about food all the time.

~~~
calinet6
True, that's a luxury too. There is balance in all pursuits.

All I know is that my favorite memories and the most joyful times in my life
were camping in Yosemite, where the only concern of the day is where we were
hiking to, and what we'd eat when we got there, and when we'd hike back, and
what we'd eat for dinner.

That's about half of the concern dedicated to the food of the day. And it was
joyous.

I find that lack of concern for food is generally caused by a lack of joy, or
a lack of freedom; and in cyclic turn also results in it.

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DanBC
I'm interested in shelf life.

What's the shelf life of the beta product? And what's the expected shelf life
of the released final product, in the correct packaging?

Are they going to sell it as a monthly subscription, delivering each week as
individually bagged days? Or do they deliver a huge box of the stuff?

The World Food Program has a Specialized Nutritious Foods Factsheet, and that
lists shelf life as 12 or 24 months. (One product, Wawa Mum, is listed at 6
months.)

([http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/co...](http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/communications/wfp255508.pdf))

I'm still strongly against the way it's being sold at the moment. Other people
on HN have said that they enjoyed the idea of Soylent when it was self-
experimentation.

As Kurtz79 say, they've done a remarkable job of generating media buzz about
something that is not new or disruptive or innovative. I'd be interested to
see what they could do with a real product.

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namwen
I still don't buy into this being a real product. Everything about it is far
too generic and uniformed. "It comes in a large unmarked baggy". Really? No.
This can't be true.

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DanBC
They have branded stainless steel mixing / drinking cups on their pages, and
they're working on branding.

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dhgisme
Is anyone else suspicious about the amount of money that they raised in their
first day (around $130k)? The company's crowdfunding site doesn't let you see
who contributed to its campaign and that's a lot of money to raise in one day.

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raldi
How is this different / better than any other shake-based diet powder?

Edt: As my wife just put it, "It sounds like guys are too insecure to drink
Slim-Fast, so the idea is being re-branded to be more manly. Like the Axe of
diet shakes."

~~~
ctdonath
It's not a cheap diet-oriented meal replacement (little more than protein,
sugar, and vitamin mix) intended to provide satiating filler with minimal
meaningful content but still requiring "a sensible meal". It's a serious
attempt at providing EVERYTHING a body needs, including hard-to-manage
micronutrients.

~~~
raldi
In that case, how is it different from the stuff hospitals feed old people
with no teeth? For example:

[http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-
shakes](http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-shakes)

or

[http://www.amazon.com/Nutrament-Energy-Fitness-Drink-
Banana/...](http://www.amazon.com/Nutrament-Energy-Fitness-Drink-
Banana/dp/B000KK2KU8)

~~~
ctdonath
Ensure Complete describes itself as "Provides balanced amounts of
macronutrients and essential vitamins and minerals." Lacks the micronutrients
needed. Strikes me as intended for "we really don't have any other options at
this point" and consequential symptoms will be treated as illness.

Nutrament describes itself as "This nutritional drink is ideal as a snack, an
occasional meal replacement, or a perfect post-workout drink." Note the
"occasional"; it's filler augmenting an otherwise sensible natural diet.

Soylent is intended as "you can live on this stuff full time", which its
creator does. He's suffered some pretty painful & weird symptoms of not
getting everything right (like inadequate micronutrient supply causing bizarre
cravings), and felt profoundly satiated when he did get it right.

Anecdote: I once worked on a portable IV pump intended to "feed" people
lacking most of their GI tract, injecting nutritionally complete "meals"
directly into the bloodstream. Each "meal" cost about $300.

~~~
Anderkent
There are solutions that claim to be nutritionally complete (Sustagen Hospital
Formula) and anecdotally are sustainable for months:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5399994](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5399994)

~~~
ctdonath
I'd first wonder about cost (hence my anecdote about $300 nutritionally
complete goo-in-a-bag meals), then about completeness (side effects may be
preferable to alternatives). Other products may exist which are what Soylent
aspires to.

Seems a big part is that the Soylent guy just decided to DIY for fun, it went
viral, and he went entrepreneur. If you've got would-be customers banging down
your door, you don't respond with "somebody else makes something like it", you
monetize the opportunity.

~~~
raldi
I don't think anyone's blaming him for starting the company. The reason I
raised this line of questioning isn't to criticize him, but rather to figure
out if this is a new idea, in a space that hasn't been explored before, and
thus worthy of our interest and excitement... or just an age-old idea with a
bit of new marketing.

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riams
Soylet has done a great job with getting media attention. Thumbs up for that!

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einhverfr
As an environmentalist I want to know, how green is it? O.o

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Kilo-byte
Soylent, the man food :)

~~~
n3rdy
I completely forgot about the original blog post about this and was thinking
"they couldn't possibly mean".. I must need to catch up on sleep.

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rfvtgb123
The article fails to mention how much product is in the bag you get (weight)
and it's kcal/day ratio. The bag looks really small in the picture... Also,
think about how much you will hate the flavor after a while. Anyone who ever
bought cherry flavored protein powder by mistake will know what I'm talking
about. Have fun forcing the stuff down your throat the 10th or 20th time. I
going to eat my steak an laugh at you.

That said I would be really interested to use the product on expeditions IF it
provides a significant advantage. So - how is this superior to a load of
sugar(s), whey protein and a micronutrients supplement?

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NathanRice
Wow. The marketers have done a good job to get such an insipid product so much
attention in diverse media outlets. Meanwhile, there are probably dozens of
more substantial products failing because their creators don't know how to
sling bullshit. #FailuresOfCapitalism.

