
Soylent Micronutrient Breakdown - ph0rque
http://blog.soylent.me/post/69835344439/soylent-micronutrient-breakdown
======
jlas
And here's a compact version:
[http://pastebin.com/WNZnF1N7](http://pastebin.com/WNZnF1N7)

Extracted via command line, of course:

    
    
      curl http://blog.soylent.me/post/69835344439/soylent-micronutrient-breakdown | grep -o "<strong>.*</strong>" | sed "s/<strong>\(.*\)<\/strong>/\1/"

------
codex
Soylent is going to have a very, very hard time with new customer acquisition.
Right now it's riding a wave of novelty, but as it solves a problem very few
people have, and solves it in a way that leaves people craving the innate
satisfaction of eating, it's not going to go far. But there are founders with
more ambition than sense. In fact I suspect that's most of them.

~~~
arbitrarilyHigh
It's riding a wave of novelty, but it's hard to argue that it's actually
solving the problem that it claims to (busy/lazy, want healthy food-
substitute).

The post doesn't actually tell you much about the nutrition without evidence
about levels of actual nutrient absorption, but a quick google scholar search
finds that calcium inhibits iron and copper absorption, especially in the
presence of phytates [0,1] (which Soylent contains from the oat flour) and
that zinc, manganese, and iron have similar uptake pathways and limit each
others absorption by competing for use of those pathways [1,2]. No idea if
there's any other interactions, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to rely
on this stuff much for nutrition.

Aside from that, he vetted the formula by an uncontrolled, unblinded study
with a sample size of n=1 (i.e. trying it himself for a few months), and he
says on his blog that he "started having joint pain and found [he] fit the
symptoms of a sulfur deficiency. This makes perfect sense as [he] consume[s]
almost none, and sulfur is a component of every living cell. Sulfur is hard to
miss in a typical diet so the FDA would have little reason to recommend it. A
typical male physique has 140g of sulfur, making it the sixth most abundant
element in the human body. Ten grams of sulfur from Methylsulfonylmethane
cured me right away, and I now consume 2g/day." [3]

In that same post, he says that "After three months I should be finding
deficiencies, and I did", and makes major revisions to his formula, apparently
assuming that he's figured it all out this time. He puts a significant amount
of fiber in the formula for the first time, going from 1.2 grams to 40 grams,
in line with the 38 grams recommended for men under 50 [4], which was probably
a good idea considering how much low fiber intake increases the risk of heart
attack [5].

A month later, he responds to criticism by saying that "there have been no
deficiency symptoms, and if this becomes a problem the amounts can be changed
to compensate" [6]. His dismissal of concern ignores the fact that many known
nutrient deficiencies can take much longer to manifest, and have severe
irreversible harm (like B12 deficiency leading to nerve damage, or developing
heart disease after years of insufficient fiber intake, or calcium
deficiencies and osteoporosis). He also says that "The initial sample size was
small and the timeframe short, but the results are easily reproducible, as
shown by the community site discourse.soylent.me", as if having a greater
amount of data overcomes the fact that the sample was extremely biased, still
short-running, and with nothing even resembling a credible study design or
consistent data collection.

Maybe it's not a bad thing that Soylent's probably not going to take off?

[0]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1600930](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1600930)

[1]
[http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FBJN%2FBJN...](http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FBJN%2FBJN85_S2%2FS000711450100109Xa.pdf&code=4b47255651139890417e3dfa463249ff)

[2]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2058577](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2058577)

[3] [http://robrhinehart.com/?p=570](http://robrhinehart.com/?p=570)

[4]
[http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/fiber/NU00033](http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/fiber/NU00033)

[5]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8941095](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8941095)

[6] [http://robrhinehart.com/?p=507](http://robrhinehart.com/?p=507)

~~~
rlwolfcastle
There is also no evidence that the quantities and ratios of nutrients in the
formula are anywhere near complete or optimal.

The easiest way to illustrate how this can be a problem is to compare the
difference between growing cells in minimal media versus complex media, where
they grow much faster.

Soylent is basically a crude minimal media for humans. The proper comparison
for soylent will be against someone who is eating a complete diet, not someone
who is skipping meals or eating poorly.

------
seiji
Still not sure how this varies from a basic bulk vitamin and mineral powder
(besides the übernerd ego "this _one weird_ nutritional trick" loyalty
marketing):
[http://www.gnc.com/graphics/product_images/pGNC1-9331188_gnc...](http://www.gnc.com/graphics/product_images/pGNC1-9331188_gnclabel_pdf.pdf)

~~~
garblegarble
To be honest, neither am I - although part of it seems to be the idea of this
as a complete diet replacement rather than a supplement (although I suspect
the existing products are marketed as a supplement for legal reasons more than
anything else and Soylent may have to use the same language)

~~~
yaddayadda
The FDA considers Soylent a food.

"According to Arthur Whitmore, a press officer with the FDA’s Center for Food
Safety and Applied Nutrition, Soylent would fall into the category of what the
FDA considers food. Unlike a medication, Soylent will not require FDA
approval, unless it contains some new type of food additive, which Rhinehart
would need to disclose.

It’s important to Rhinehart that Soylent be considered a food, as opposed to a
medicine or supplement, so that food-stamp recipients can buy it using EBT
cards."

[http://www.healthline.com/health-news/tech-is-powdered-
soyle...](http://www.healthline.com/health-news/tech-is-powdered-soylent-the-
food-of-the-future-062613) [http://discourse.soylent.me/t/fda-press-officer-
comment/3783](http://discourse.soylent.me/t/fda-press-officer-comment/3783)

~~~
saalweachter
One month of Soylent is currently $255; the maximum SNAP benefit for a single
person is $189. If he makes his $5/day target, maybe, but the SNAP benefit for
the Nth person in an N person household decreases to $142.

~~~
yaddayadda
This has already been acknowledged within the Soylent community: \-
[http://discourse.soylent.me/t/soylent-and-food-stamps-
ebt/33...](http://discourse.soylent.me/t/soylent-and-food-stamps-ebt/3315) \-
[http://discourse.soylent.me/t/food-stamp-friendly-
soylent/44...](http://discourse.soylent.me/t/food-stamp-friendly-
soylent/4424/4)

Within the Soylent community, there are two acknowledged classes of soylent.
The two are distinguished by using "Soylent" when referring to the "official"
recipe, and "soylent" when referring to DIY versions.

Rob has stated several times that he isn't going to patent the Soylent recipe.
The reason is because the only product on the market that comes even close to
Soylent for complete nutrition (without lots of harmful other components) is
Plumpy'nut [1]. Plumpy'nut's recipe is patented, so even if someone could
produce it cheaper, they can't legally produce it.

Rob is keeping the Soylent formula open in large part so that other people can
produce exact and comparable versions. In addition, Rob has not only allowed
others to develop comparable version, but outright encouraged it. So much so
that when NickP developed a tool to develop recipes based on a list of
ingredients and individual goals, Rob promoted the tool and gave it a home on
the official soylent.me domain -
[http://diy.soylent.me/](http://diy.soylent.me/)

In otherwords, people are being actively encouraged by the founder of Soylent
to develop versions of soylent that meet needs that are not met by Soylent.
And people are rising to the challenge -
[http://diy.soylent.me/recipes?sort=dailyCost&pctComplete=0.9](http://diy.soylent.me/recipes?sort=dailyCost&pctComplete=0.9)
There's even a 100% complete recipe that can be made for $2.45 per day; this
works out to about $74.73 a month - [http://diy.soylent.me/recipes/low-entry-
barrier-soylent](http://diy.soylent.me/recipes/low-entry-barrier-soylent)

tl;dr - Your concern has been already been acknowledged by the community;
there are alternative recipes, including one that works out to $74.73 a month,
which is well under the $225 SNAP allowance.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut)

------
manicbovine
Soylent really belongs on a late night infomercial for pseudo-scientific
products.

------
itafroma
The amount of potassium in Soylent is interesting. I noticed a while ago that
I wasn't getting enough potassium in my diet, went searching for a supplement,
and found that you can't buy an OTC supplement that contains more than 100mg.
It turns out the FDA severely restricts the amount of potassium you can get in
OTC supplements to prevent certain health risks.[1] I wonder how they get
around that restriction.

[1]:
[http://www.berkeleywellness.com/supplements/minerals/article...](http://www.berkeleywellness.com/supplements/minerals/article/potassium-
pills)

~~~
maxerickson
Ensure has lots:

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

(I accidentally clicked the one with the most though)

~~~
itafroma
Interesting: so it's not just Soylent. I wonder why liquid supplements aren't
affected by the 100mg limit.

~~~
caublestone
The FDA has different restrictions and requirements depending on if a product
is labeled a food or a nutritional supplement. A nutritional supplement is
limited to 100mg of potassium while something that is a food is free to have
up to 1500mg. Soylent is a food and is thus able to have 3500mg of potassium.

------
applecore
Macronutrient breakdown:

[http://blog.soylent.me/post/68180382810/soylent-1-0-macronut...](http://blog.soylent.me/post/68180382810/soylent-1-0-macronutrient-
overview)

------
pushedx
Whenever food preferences come up as a topic of conversation at work, I have a
co-worker who says, "As soon as they come out with Soylent, I'm in. That's it,
that's all I'm going to eat for life." I want to see him do it.

~~~
droopyEyelids
If he's really that excited about it, we've already been able to buy complete
liquid nutrition for decades.

[http://www.nestlenutritionstore.com/departments/therapeutic-...](http://www.nestlenutritionstore.com/departments/therapeutic-
nutrition/general-tube-feeding-nutrition/general-tube-feeding-nutrition)

For the truly hardcore, you can also buy complete sources of intravenous
nutrition. Expect to pay hundreds of thousands a year for this extreme
productivity boosting option.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parenteral_nutrition](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parenteral_nutrition)

~~~
yaddayadda
From the creator of Soylent

> Soylent is not the first drink with calories in it, nor was Google the first
> search engine. There are many liquid diets. You'd probably be surprised how
> long you can survive on just cow's milk. No one says 'solid diets exist
> already' when someone makes a new food. I don't see how the viscosity makes
> up an entire category. I considered Ensure but found it much too expensive,
> low calorie, unpalatable, and an ingredient make up that was far from
> complete or optimal.

> The goal of soylent is to make something ideal, not just a quick shot that
> will get rid of hunger for a few hours. I need something that allows me to
> run and lift and think, not just survive, and something considerably cheaper
> than normal food. A big part of soylent is its personalization as well.
> There is no 2000 calorie human. If you want an ideal diet you have to
> personalize it.

[http://discourse.soylent.me/t/comparing-soylent-to-
existing-...](http://discourse.soylent.me/t/comparing-soylent-to-existing-
nutritional-products/431/7?u=biab)

------
Pitarou
Can anyone explain why there is any interest in this story? I'm not snarking:
I genuinely want to know.

Why are you following this story? Why are you voting it up? Do you actually
want to buy and eat this nutritionally balanced gruel? Why?

~~~
gnoway
I have prepaid for some. If it's not awful I plan to try using it for the
majority of my nutritional needs.

I like eating, but I don't like sourcing, preparing, cooking or cleaning up. I
don't like eating in at restaurants either. I'm lazy and antisocial. So my
intake is currently pretty bad, mostly take out or processed items. Soylent
would definitely be an improvement for me nutritionally.

You may not be snarking, but a lot of people seem very upset that this product
exists and that people are interested in it. I'm not sure why.

~~~
tedunangst
I assume people are upset with the idea because it epitomizes the worst parts
of nothing but numbers reductionist tech ideology. They're upset with the
product because it preys on such people, and is possibly a net negative. It's
not a major concern of mine.

~~~
XorNot
That still doesn't make any sense. They're not forced to do anything with it -
it's the "offended it exists" thing which I simply do not understand (well
that, and all the people creating 5-star gourmet cuisine every night, who seem
to show up).

~~~
manicbovine
That's not it at all. Soylent is uninteresting. Have the Soylent fans ever
gone to a GNC?

------
kolev
Calcium carbonate, really? Basically, it has some basic nutrients, but most of
them are pretty low quality. I'm not sure about you, but I personally get
stomach sick even just with 5g of Potassium Gluconate - I can't imagine the
(pukey) effect of 15g!

------
xahrepap
I'm interested to see how Soylent works out in the long run. I've read the
articles and blog posts about people going on it for a month at a time and
doctors telling them they're perfectly healthy. But how does their health look
after 6 months? A year? Several years? That's what I'm interested in hearing
about.

So for a couple years I'll still have my suspicions. I hope it works out,
though.

------
olva22
It's a shame they used the cheap, synthetic (and less bioavailable) forms for
quite a few of the ingredients. For instance:

Cyanocobalamin vs Methylcobalamin

D2 vs D3 (ergocalciferol is D2)

Folic Acid vs MethylFolate or at the least Folinic Acid

Sodium Selenite vs Yeast based Selenium or Selenomethionine

Why not just eat a bowl of total cereal? Or, eat a bowl of oatmeal and pop a
centrum?

------
Shorel
I still think this stuff is very conservative with the macronutrients ratios.

I would pay for a keto-friendly version, but as it is, it seems too full of
carbohydrates to fit my current needs.

------
ChristianBundy
I wish that they would show how these compare to the recommended dietary
intake of the micronutrients.

~~~
jonah
Though, generally the US RDA is around the minimal needed level.

~~~
garblegarble
As a european this is what I wonder about most, I'm toying with the idea of
ordering Soylent but I'd prefer to get the UK RDA... but it seems that mixing
vitamin supplements with Soylent runs the risk of an excess of a number of
vitamins (and I'm too lazy to mix my own... maybe I should stick to cooking!)

------
moeedm
Can this please just go away? What a load of horse shit.

