
As You Sow Files Notice Of Legal Action Against Soylent Super Food - pkinsky
http://news.yahoo.com/sow-files-notice-legal-action-against-soylent-super-200000801.html
======
jayess
One of those press releases that doesn't provide any context. What exactly is
a "California Safe Harbor" level? How does that compare to a Clean Water Act
level of safe lead.

Not trying to defend Soylent here, but these types of press releases don't
provide any useful context.

~~~
DanBC
It's a bit confusing. I think this is the current list of maximum allowable
levels and safe harbor levels:

[http://www.oehha.ca.gov/prop65/pdf/safeharbor081513.pdf](http://www.oehha.ca.gov/prop65/pdf/safeharbor081513.pdf)

EDIT: someone asked for the safe harbor levels. I provide a link to the
current safe harbor levels. I'm not sure why this deserves a downvote?

~~~
gnoway
I don't either. Upvoted.

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Animats
Here's As You Sow's own site info on this.[1] The info is about the same.
They're using the California act because a private party can bring an action
under that act.

"One serving of Soylent 1.5 can expose a consumer to a concentration of lead
that is 12 to 25 times above California's Safe Harbor level." That would mean
12 * 15 micrograms per day. Soylent's suggested serving size is 0.5 liter, so
that would be a lead level of 90 micrograms / liter. The EPA's action level
for lead in water is 15 micrograms / liter. So they're 6x over the allowed
maximum level for water. (That's the maximum level allowed for water; the
desired level, according to the EPA, is zero.)

On the other hand, heavy metal levels are routinely higher in foodstuffs than
in water, because plants and animals concentrate them. It gets worse as you go
up the food chain; mercury in shark and swordfish is a real issue. The EU and
WHO allow a level of provisional tolerable weekly intake (PTWI) of 25μg/kg
body weight. US male mean body weight is about 85kg, so that would be
2125μg/kg/week, or 101μg/kg/serving, or about 200 micrograms/liter (1 liter
water masses 1kg, so assume that density). So Soylent, at 90 micrograms/liter,
is about half the usual limit. That's pushing it, though; a small person
drinking four servings a day of the stuff could go over the limit.

Because Soylent wants to be the only dietary component, they need
pharmaceutical grade quality control. They should be running a sample of every
batch through a mass spectrometer, and testing their raw materials. Given
their emphasis on how "online" and "digital" they are, you ought to be able to
view the analysis for your batch on line.

[1] [http://www.asyousow.org//?s=soylent](http://www.asyousow.org//?s=soylent)
[2] [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX...](http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:02006R1881-20100701&from=EN)

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easong
The soylent forums have discussed this quite a lot in the past and people who
seem to know what they're talking about have come to the conclusion that the
levels are both nothing to worry about and also significantly under a lot of
traditional food. [http://discourse.soylent.com/t/question-about-
proposition-65...](http://discourse.soylent.com/t/question-about-
proposition-65-warning-in-faq/22132/18)

Also, As You Sow appears to be a woo-peddler, so I would be less than inclined
to take their word without independent confirmation.

Edit: And their CEO doesn't seem to be taking their complaint terribly
seriously either - he issued the following statement recently.

"Andrew here. Most of what I was trying to do is get a conversation going
around food safety, and it worked. I smile at every in depth analysis on lead
or cadmium that I triggered. Oh no! You just proved me wrong and educated all
the readers of your comment, as well as learned more yourself."

~~~
gnoway
I have never in my life seen the term 'woo-peddler'. For anyone else in a
similar situation, it's roughly equivalent to snake-oil salesman.

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hvs
Here are the California Safe Harbor levels for [1]:

    
    
      Lead:    15 micrograms/day
      Cadmium: 4.1 micrograms/day
    

The EPA's safe water regulations for lead are [2]:

    
    
      If more than 10% of tap water samples exceed the lead action level of 15 parts 
      per billion
    

Which is 15 micrograms/liter.

Cadmium is 5 ppb.

[1]
[http://oehha.ca.gov/prop65/pdf/safeharbor081513.pdf](http://oehha.ca.gov/prop65/pdf/safeharbor081513.pdf)

[2]
[http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/basicinformation/lea...](http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/basicinformation/lead.cfm)

[3]
[http://www.epa.gov/safewater/pdfs/factsheets/ioc/cadmium.pdf](http://www.epa.gov/safewater/pdfs/factsheets/ioc/cadmium.pdf)

~~~
anonbanker
FTA:

Test results commissioned by As You Sow, conducted by an independent
laboratory, show that one serving of Soylent 1.5 can expose a consumer to a
concentration of lead that is 12 to 25 times above California's Safe Harbor
level for reproductive health, and a concentration of cadmium that is at least
4 times greater than the Safe Harbor level for cadmium. Two separate samples
of Soylent 1.5 were tested.

------
DanBC
This press release would have been more useful to me if they had given details
of the testing.

Did independant labs buy the products direct from Soylent, or was the products
supplied by a third party to the testing lab?

Was a single lab used? Are they an accredited lab?

If true (and that's a big if at the moment) this is just another confirmation
that Soylent is cavalier around a product that they really should be careful
about.

Of course, this press release may well be bollocks and Soylent might do
rigorous QA testing on every batch, using accredited labs and posting the
results to a public webpage.

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watson
This is "just" a press release made by As You Sow in its un-edited form. This
doesn't necessarily make it claim invalid, but just remember that no
journalist have been involved here.

It is also weird that As You Sow hasn't added any mention of whether or not
they have tried to contact Soylent for a comment.

~~~
pbreit
I sure hope they contacted soylent prior to publicizing. It casts pretty bad
assertions despite little or no apparent corroboration.

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sajal83
Is this comparing allowed levels in drinking water to whats allowed in food?
if so then its apples and oranges. I would like to see if it compared to whats
allowed in food.

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anonbanker
Hold up. They found massive levels of Lead in the product?

EDIT: To all those wondering why they were not first contacted before going to
a court: this PRNewswire piece is a public notice of them telling Soylent that
there is Lead in the product.

Personally (and tangentially), I feel this is how software exploits should be
treated in open source software; let people know immediately so _all_ the
eyeballs focus on a solution, rather than a subset.

~~~
mtmail
Unlike open source software nobody can look how Soylent produced the product,
and why would anybody outside Soylent work on a solution?

PRNewswire is indeed a public notice. But so is Oracle telling the world that
Google is bad for poising Java (can't remember their exact argument).

~~~
DanBC
You don't really need to see how they made the product. If you have the money
you can send it for independent testing; or you can ask regulators to do so
for you.

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Namrog84
Does anyone know if any other groups have independently verified this? Bad
batch? Potential contaminatdd samples?

~~~
fencepost
Depending on where the source crops are grown it could easily be a raw
materials problem that nobody ever even considered as a possibility so they
didn't test. As a related thing, consider arsenic in rice due to where it's
grown.

Edit: addressed here, with comparisons to other meals. Brown rice protein is
the source. [https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-
us/articles/204197379-Californ...](https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-
us/articles/204197379-California-Proposition-65)

~~~
kenOfYugen
When ordering ingredients in powder form from China in bulk batches, you get
MSDS analysis. But in my experience you cannot rely on that info. I have
received completely random papers from factories, which made me avoid China
entirely when it come to ingredients for human consumption.

~~~
fencepost
In 2008 Trader Joe's pulled foods sourced from China of their shelves after
one too many adulteration stories (not affecting their products AFAIK), I'm
not sure if that still holds but clearly you're not the only one who has been
concerned.

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gnoway
The stated reason for replacing rice protein with soy in their 2.0 formula was
texture/mouthfeel, but I bet it has something to do with this as well.

Why does rice tend to have such high heavy metal content? Is it simply
coincidence w/ where rice tends to be grown?

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sunnid
Is there a better source than "Yahoo.com" for this?

~~~
Natsu
Possibly Pacer, if anyone with access can find a copy of the complaint.
Otherwise, probably not, given that this is a press release from the
plaintiff.

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3327
Ouch... Well whatever this is its how a startup goes under- Fast

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11thEarlOfMar
If they haven't already, Soylent will do their own testing and release the
results. If it turns out to be true, they will fix it and take their lumps. If
it is false, they can counter-sue, should they choose.

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ZoeZoeBee
You've gotta tell 'em! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE! We gotta stop them! Somehow!

------
fencepost
Interesting. I don't see any indication in the article that they contacted
Soylent first so they could do little things like recall it. I'm sure that a
bunch of the Soylent staff are heavy consumers of their product so I suspect
they'd take the matter very seriously, and since it's only available from them
I'm pretty sure they have contact information for everyone who has it.

So I'm going to paraphrase as follows: "As You Sow," a group claiming to be an
environmental watchdog, noted a likely safety problem with Soylent and instead
of notifying the manufacturer to minimize the harm to consumers chose to file
a lawsuit.

Edit: less inflammatory paraphrase

~~~
Natsu
Sometimes there's an 'unclean hands' defense if someone didn't take reasonable
steps to minimize the harm they suffered. Courts can be suspicious of
plaintiffs who allow harm to accrue in order to sue for more damages.

That said, I'm only speaking in general. I don't claim to know anything about
the factual background of this particular case.

------
kevinpet
The organization opposes GMO foods: [http://www.asyousow.org/our-
work/environmental-health/gmos/](http://www.asyousow.org/our-
work/environmental-health/gmos/)

So I value their opinion about as much as I do Dr. Jenny McCarthy's pioneering
work on vaccinations.

~~~
DonaldFisk
You're entitled to your opinion, and I share your views on Jenny McCarthy, but
there are plenty of health, environmental, and economic reasons to oppose GMO
food, none of which are the issue here. It's alleged that lead and cadmium
levels are too high, which is verifiable and so not a matter of opinion.

Even if they were within safe limits, I still wouldn't want to take a food
replacement. I like food, and don't think time eating it is time wasted. YMMV.

~~~
eosrei
I find the argument "I like food" against Soylent confusing. Most people who
eat Soylent like food IMO. I eat Soylent and LOVE food. I don't like having to
spend so much of every day sourcing, cooking, eating, and cleaning up after
food. I've removed all of the rushed, low quality, and/or boring meals from my
life while saving money and getting better nutrition(except perhaps my lead
intake!) Now I only eat the delicious, interesting, and slow-paced meals. Not
attempting to change your mind, just informing it's not just food hating
people. Haha!

