
Soylent gets tested, scores a wholesome nutritional label - cpeterso
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/01/soylent-gets-tested-scores-a-surprisingly-wholesome-nutritional-label/
======
gabemart
My concern about Soylent has never been about the macronutrient ratios, nor
the quantities of (comparatively) well-understood micronutrients like vitamins
and minerals. The amounts of these substances seem relatively easy to get
right, or at least within the range of "healthy" accepted by a consensus of
mainstream nutritonal experts.

My concern is about the thousands or millions of micronutrients and
phytonutrients that are poorly understood or even yet to be isolated by
nutritional science, and the subtle and complex way they interact with our
bodies and each other.

To me, the entire premise of Soylent is predicated on the idea that we know,
on a compound-by-compound basis, what's good for our bodies nutritionally. The
more I learn about the state of nutritional science, the less I believe this
to be true.

~~~
ekianjo
> To me, the entire premise of Soylent is predicated on the idea that we know,
> on a compound-by-compound basis, what's good for our bodies nutritionally.
> The more I learn about the state of nutritional science, the less I believe
> this to be true.

Well Soylent is going to be an interesting test to confirm what we know and do
not know about nutrition. As long as there are some willing volunteers to put
their health at risk, I'd say why not. It will benefit mankind as a whole to
know more.

~~~
DanBC
Because these people do not know that they are experimental volunteers. The
product is not being marketed as experimental. It is being sold as a mass
market product suitable for anyone. It is being sold as a finished, tested,
product.

~~~
ekianjo
Well, If someone tells you that you can replace all your food consumption with
a SINGLE food item, I'm assuming you realize it may sound too good to be true,
and that risks may be involved. But it depends on the target consumers of
Soylent, I guess.

On top of that, it will be interesting to see if people stick to Soylent on
the long term or just get bored once the novelty wears off, and return to
traditional food consumption.

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ColinWright
Amongst all the comments about poorly-understood or unknown micro-nutrients,
and whether or not this is healthy in the long run, I see here a sense of
bewilderment from some people:

    
    
        fidlefodl : i just hate eating 90% of the time
    
            riffraff : ... why do you hate eating most of the time?
    
            ekianjo : [hate eating] two words I have difficulty associating ...
    
            collyw : I really don't understand the enthusiasm for
                     this product. Eating is one of life's pleasures
    

Personally, I'm with fidlefodl. I cannot understand what pleasure people get
from eating. I cook, I eat, I share meals with others, but if I could get away
from eating and never have to eat again, I'd take it in a heartbeat. I derive
no pleasure from eating, and a great deal of negative pleasure from cooking.
If takeaways weren't a combination of unhealthy and unpleasant then I'd never
cook again.

I freely admit and acknowledge that some food tastes great, but on the whole,
I'd much prefer not to spend the time eating.

~~~
aianus
Seriously, I'd trade 10+ years of my lifespan to never have to eat again and
still maintain my weight / muscle mass.

~~~
pliny
The shitty years at the end, or would you immediately deteriorate your current
health ten years into your future?

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cordite
I would not say "Surprising" as in the title, it was designed to fulfill
nutrition from the beginning.

~~~
jamesaguilar
It is surprising to the haters on this site. There just isn't any other word
for the treatment and unjustified skepticism soylent has received here.

~~~
collyw
I wouldn't say I am a hater, but I really don't understand the enthusiasm for
this product. Eating is one of lifes pleasures. Why reduce it to the most
processed forms possible?

(I would make a bet that if it is launched in Spain, it will fail miserably.
People here have a real passion for good food.)

~~~
ekianjo
Same here. It's probably popular because it's new and it's an experiment
challenging the concept of "Food", but apart from that there's no way I'd want
to eat that stuff either. Actual food at home or outside is, as you say, one
of life's pleasures.

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zvrba
> a lot of people are seeing reduction in triglycerides or cholesterol

I suspect that the powder may be oat-based. Oats is a very nutritient-rich
cereal, and does in fact lower cholesterol. It has high carbohydrate content,
but it is also a rich source of minerals and proteins. See
[http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cereal-grains-and-
pasta/...](http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cereal-grains-and-pasta/5708/2)

If I were to mix my own "soylent", I'd base it on oat porridge, probably some
protein supplements, some vitamin and mineral supplement, and a can of fatty
fish. At probably a fraction of the soylent price.

~~~
thisishugo
If you are interested in creating your own Soylent, there's a dedicated
subsection of the website[0] for sharing recipes.

Frankly, I doubt you could recreate, or equivalently replace, Soylent-the-
product for as little money as it will cost to buy[1], but it's definitely
possible to replicate Soylent-the-idea yourself. It's much easier if you don't
intend to replace _every_ meal with a Soylent-like, as you can substitute the
harder-to-source ingredients with foods that already contain them.

[0] [http://diy.soylent.me](http://diy.soylent.me)

[1] Partly because of economies of scale, partly because some of the
ingredients are complicated to source.

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george88b
This article is from months ago. I thought they had to change suppliers for a
few things, wouldn't the nutritional info change also?

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001sky
Jan 29, 2014 10:54 pm UTC

 _" will begin shipments on a rolling basis at the beginning of March"_

so, any updates?

~~~
nammi
_" Orders projected to begin shipping 4/21\. Backerkit orders will be locked
down 4/11\. First batches of Soylent 1.0 will not be certified gluten free.
Some Backerkit add-ons removed."_

This was posted last week, so it seems like they will actually ship next week.
[http://blog.soylent.me/post/82129644711/weekly-
update-4-8](http://blog.soylent.me/post/82129644711/weekly-update-4-8)

~~~
yaddayadda
From rob earlier today,

>Update coming today -- starter kits scheduled to start shipping by Friday,
first Soylent shipments will be next week, though probably wed/thurs rather
than Monday.

\- [http://discourse.soylent.me/t/soylent-
update-4-8/12022/95](http://discourse.soylent.me/t/soylent-
update-4-8/12022/95)

So the first shipments should be rolling out of the dock by Apr. 24th. Still
no word on speed of delivery, but I'd expect the first shipments to start
arriving the week of Apr. 28th - May 3rd.

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robobro
As a type 1 diabetic, this could be handy for eating out / backpacking /
regulating glucose. Wish I could have gotten in on the alpha...

~~~
ryanmerket
It's high glycemic, so probably not the best for diabetics.

~~~
yaddayadda
I don't see a glycemic value on the label, so how do you know it's high? (I'm
not a diabetic, I'm just genuinely curious.)

~~~
ballard
Page with ingredients, don't know how to interpret:

[http://blog.soylent.me/search/Ingredients](http://blog.soylent.me/search/Ingredients)

~~~
Sammi
Main ingredients are:

    
    
      Oat Flour (110g)
      Maltodextrin (165g) 
      Brown Rice Protein Isolate (102g)
      Canola Oil (56g)
      Fiber (38g)
    

I'm worried about how much of that is Maltodextrin, as it's really just a
chain of glucose molecules, and so would give an extremely high glycemic load.
It's somewhat mitigated by the fiber, as fiber hampers sugar uptake in the
digestive system, but it's still a lot. I'd like to see some proper data on
the what the GI score of Soylent is derived from actually testing it properly.

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billrobertson42
There are a lot of mystery carbs in there. 84g carbs, 8g in fiber and 2g in
sugar. The remaining 74g?

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parag_c_mehta
How long does it lasts ? Does this mean we have perfect food replacement for
the apocalypse ?

~~~
mikenon
Up to a year, according to [1]. A staff member on their forum said similar,
[2] "We're probably going to stick with 1 year shelf life when kept in cool
dark place, thought it'll likely be much longer in actuality."

[1] [http://www.rosalabs.com/about/](http://www.rosalabs.com/about/)

[2] [http://discourse.soylent.me/t/official-word-on-shelf-life-
of...](http://discourse.soylent.me/t/official-word-on-shelf-life-of-
soylent/10203/5)

------
torrent-of-ions
If there is a demand for this the only thing I can wonder is what is going on
with people's mental health?

~~~
aianus
It's an expensive and frustrating struggle to maintain my weight and this
sounds like a promising alternative to dropping ~$800 a month (in money or
wasted time cooking and cleaning) on merely staying alive.

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spullara
You know you have an interesting article when the #1 comment has been deleted.

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PythonicAlpha
Just asking: Is this some kind of weird humor?

Can anybody tell the story of this in short words?

I am fearing, that those predicted times will come up, but that somebody would
name his product after a product that in a science fiction story was made out
of human bodies, is really a little beyond my comprehension. Some kind of
self-irony, perhaps? Or reverse marketing?

~~~
deckiedan
I believe in the original book ('Make Room! Make Room!'), soylent was not
specified as cannibalistic - that was added in the movie.

~~~
nodata
Yes, you're right. Soylent = soya + lentil steaks in the book.

