
Soylent 1.4 begins shipping today - jbardnz
http://blog.soylent.me/post/112067551237/soylent-1-4-begins-shipping-today
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adamwong246
For all the naysayers... I eat it, I love it, I'll never give it up. Soylent
is awesome and I'm stoked to see v1.4 waiting on my doorstep.

Please, don't knock it till you try it OR at least do a little bit of
research. Soylentarians are bombarded daily by the uninformed opinions of
FoodBarbies and the like. At least do some research before you decide to tear
down the idea.

~~~
fizzbatter
And for a little more opinions,

I personally dislike official Soylent (own it, tried it, don't like it). With
that said, i've been on 70% DIY Soylent for ~9 months now. I couldn't live
without the stuff. While i may not like official Soylent, i am ever grateful.
It's been a huge boon to my life.

~~~
goodJobWalrus
Are you saying that 70% of calories you consumed in the last 9 month came from
Soylent? Are you sure about that? I'm mostly asking because it's well known
that people underestimate how much food they eat, so unless you actually made
food diary you are probably underestimating as well.

Aside for that, in what way was this a huge boon to your life?

~~~
fizzbatter
I'm averaging 70% simply off the top of my head, of course - but with that
said 2/3 meals a day are on average soylent - with a a couple random days a
week where it's 3/3 soylent, and 1/3 soylent. It might be closer to 66% of my
meals are from soylent, but it's hard to say.

It also is worth noting that i meant meals, not calories specifically. When i
eat "normal" food, i eat for taste - because DIY does get boring. So, it can
range quite heavily in what i eat - but i generally don't hold back. I'm a
thinner guy anyway, so i don't worry about calorie intake. I drink/eat soylent
for the ease of use, stability in meal consumption (i used to skip a lot of
meals), and a nice feeling bloodsugar level (i have not tested my bloodsugar,
strictly speaking about how i feel).

 __edit __: Oh, and the boon, as i mentioned before is.. well, all the
benefits i listed above. Specifically stability in eating. I don 't skip meals
anymore - which is a big win for how i feel. Moreover, a good chunk of the
meals i didn't skip in the past, were filled with horrible "just make hunger
go away" type meals. I don't eat fast food, so it was usually just random junk
in the house. Lots of cheese, usually hah.

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yaddayadda
>Due to U.S. food regulations, the exact makeup of the artificial flavors used
in Soylent versions 1.0 - 1.3 were proprietary and not made available for our
examination.

I understand proprietary formulas wouldn't be made public, but they start off
stating "Due to U.S. food regulations..." What food regulations would prevent
ingredients being shared?

~~~
berberous
If I had to guess, they were buying the flavoring from a third party, and the
third party refused to disclose what was in their product to Soylent. In the
U.S., for certain items all you have to disclose is either "Natural Flavors"
or "Artificial Flavors". So it's not that food regulations prevent the
ingredients from being shared, it's that they don't force you to share.

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leshow
Speaking as someone who has done contest prep diets for bodybuilders and
regular folk.... there is huge individual variation in metabolic rate, and the
existing calculators out there are all garbage at judging metabolic
expenditure.

the only accurate way to determine your caloric maintenance would be to track
your food intake while you remain weight stable, and then substitute that with
an isocaloric amount of soylent.

They seem to gloss over this and blanket recommend 2000 cals per day

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adamwong246
If you exercise, eat more. If you are sedentary, eat less. But more to your
point, that's really a criticism of the FDA guidelines, which recommends 2000
calories a day.

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dragonwriter
> But more to your point, that's really a criticism of the FDA guidelines,
> which recommends 2000 calories a day.

The FDA guidelines do not recommend any number of calories a day. The % DV is
based on the recommended amounts for a 2,000 calorie diet, and there is a
standard, required, footnote noting this and that actual DVs vary by calorie
needs.

~~~
frewsxcv
> The FDA guidelines do not recommend any number of calories a day.

Soylent does not recommend any number of calories a day.

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leshow
they sure do, the standard 'dosage' is 2k cals per day and they have a
calculator (that you have to dig for) if you figure your requirements differ
from the 2k cals per day. Nevermind the fact that these types of calculators
of woefully inaccurate.

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jack-r-abbit
It will be nice to get rid of the oil bottle. (Although my kids love the
empties for various play activities so I better stock up on them before I use
up my current supply.)

I also think the serving size fits into how I use the product. I usually go a
couple days consuming only Soylent, and then have dinner one night and then
back to only Soylent for a couple more days, and repeat. But either way, I
usually only have a pint for each meal. So even if I have nothing but Soylent
one day, I still only use 3/4 of a package. I never was able to drink an
entire pouch in a day.

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schintan
Soylent seems to be the only food product following software versioning.

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dmamills
I still don't understand this company, to me it just seems like a
marketing/branding ploy sitting on top of Ensure.

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adamwong246
If you check the nutritional information for Soylent and compare it to Ensure,
you'll see that Soylent is not at all like Ensure.

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copperx
Ensure + a multivitamin. Yeah.

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fizzbatter
Okay, i have a heavy urge to call your nonsense FUD - but to give you of the
benefit of the doubt, why do you think it is that?

Have you compared the two nutritionally speaking? If so, what led you to
believe they were so similar?

To me the differences are striking - unbelievably so. So much, that you come
off as a troll. Please inform me otherwise.

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superobserver
I've tried soylent for a week's worth. Unfortunately, my budget simply can't
handle the load that this would cost me - even at a bulk order for one month.
At half the current price, I'd be able to seriously consider it. Until then...

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adamwong246
I don't understand this at all. How do you manage to feed each member of your
family for less the $65 a week?

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drhodes
Here's one way to live on $1.70 per day if buying in bulk.

    
    
        lentil: 180	g
        rice: 180 g
        banana: 120 g
        olive oil: 20 g
        egg: 112 g
        milk: 99 g
        dry roasted peanuts: 50 g
    
        cost    : $1.70
        calories: 2000
        carbs   : 200 g
        fats    : 56 g
        protein : 175 g
    

with macronutirent ratio, calories from = fat:protein:carb = 25%:35%:40%

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datashovel
buying bananas, milk, and eggs in bulk doesn't sound like a great idea given
their inherently short shelf life.

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trishume
This looks like an awesome update! More convenience, more production, more
fat, more science!

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jimrandomh
> Sodium and chloride levels have been increased slightly, to 1,640 mg and
> 2,300 mg, respectively. In the past, Soylent has not fully met the Institute
> of Medicine’s recommended sodium intake levels, due to the challenges of
> providing recommended daily sodium values without creating an unpleasantly
> salty flavor. > > Thanks to the addition of isomaltulose, Soylent 1.4 can
> now meet the IOM’s recommended levels for sodium and chloride while
> maintaining a balanced flavor profile.

I should point out, here, that the IOM's recommendation is controversial, and
that many would consider 1.64g sodium per day to still be inadequate.
(Luckily, getting sodium elsewhere is easy.)

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lambdacore
I simply don't understand why someone would willingly give up one of life's
great pleasures for consuming something resembling thinset.

I'm glad Julia Child isn't alive to see this product.

~~~
mcdoug
I can tell you why, though I am very much against Soylent: convenience. My day
is limited, such that I spend a significant portion of my free time cooking.
If I had those 2 extra hours out of the 24 back, I feel I would be happeir and
more productive. This is the same reason I wish I could get away with only
sleeping 2-4 hours a day (I tried at one point to mess with sleep cycles; it
was not fun).

Why not Soylent? Because it will kill you. It's pretty simple, I think. I am a
big fan of Michael Pollan, and his main argument is that even nutritionists
and doctors, people who dedicate thier lives to studying nutrition, can't
answer lots of the more complex questions: "Eat carbs! No, wait, eat protein!
No, eat whatever you want, just get enough vitamins! Fast! Eat constantly!"
What are the chances that a single non-nutritionist got it right? I think
exactly 0, and I'm not willing to prove that theory wrong using my own body.

Edit: ideal situation is where the human body naturally requires only 1-5
meals per week. Then I could easily see myself cooking a few gourmet meals.
Alternative: be so filthy rich that you are either less busy or have a chef
ready to cook for you any time of day.

~~~
lambdacore
I get the convenience argument, but then again I don't: one can make (for
example) an omlette roulée and clean up after oneself in a few minutes.

Completely agree with you about nutrition angle.

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lfowles
For me, this is not just a few minute dish with no side effects. It's also
remembering to have ingredients on hand, making sure I actually use those
ingredients before they go bad, dealing with kitchen clutter, etc..... Hoping
I don't get bored of it in a week and spend hours on the internet looking for
more quick breakfast recipes, especially ones with similar ingredients but
different tastes. (There was that time I made 100+ breakfast burritos and
froze them all. I ended up tossing the last 20, because the thought of eating
them was just not acceptable.)

On the other hand, when I do manage to make breakfast, I feel like a million
bucks!

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rnernento
Is anybody actually living off of this stuff? After following them for a while
I got the impression they were a glorified Ensure and gave up.

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adamwong246
I do. I eat Soylent for lunch and breakfast.

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copperx
Why Soylent and not Ensure?

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fizzbatter
Because if you look at the nutritional facts Ensure is no where near what
Soylent is, nor is it designed to be. Not only is it missing the majority of
the daily requirement percentages (partially or entirely), but of the 11% of
your daily carbs that it _does_ give you, literally half of that is sugar.
Sugar.

Why you think Ensure is something you can live off of, is beyond me.

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bufordsharkley
Possibly stupid question: is the serving size meaningful? I thought the
procedure was to make a day's worth all at once, and consume it throughout the
day at whatever schedule you choose.

Three servings of 670 vs. four servings of 500-- I don't see exactly what this
changes.

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GenerocUsername
The labeling now more accurately reflects observed usage patterns.

Sort of the opposite tactic of most companies who try to squeeze serving sizes
to meet certain nutritional milestones despite having no basis in real-life
usage of the product. I'm looking at you Pop-Tarts! No body eats one tart at a
time.

~~~
bufordsharkley
Two Pop-Tarts at once? I've never done that.

...But then again, I don't eat an awful lot, and that's why I was originally
interested in the "revised serving size"\-- I'm wondering what other Soylent
drinkers do if their caloric input is usually (far) less than 2000 cal/day.

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elmin
The packages inside the box each contain two tarts, somewhat suggesting that's
how they expect them to be eaten.

~~~
lfowles
Wouldn't want one of them to go stale.

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neosilky
Damn, I'd love to try this. It's awesome!

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igl
Why would you eat that instead of vegys? I think food scarcity is not real.

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Mandatum
International shipping already, come on!

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Shorel
A bit more keto than 1.3, better.

