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eh, as the first trying to bring science in food science and use microbiology instead of dietary esoterism I'm willing to give them some slack

sure this turn of people getting sick is worrying, because coming late and sudden hints at contamination, and I hope they can mature enough to go past manufacturing problems

but the data they're collecting will be extraordinary for bringing down the layers of encrusted myths about how the body works.



> ... as the first trying to bring science in food science...

I'm pretty sure food science and studies of nutrition have been around a lot longer than Soylent.

Also, I see no reason why they should be cut any slack. It's not just a webapp that experiences downtime. When this goes wrong people get hurt.


I'm pretty sure food science and studies of nutrition have been around a lot longer than Soylent.

I've only read about this in passing, in general histories, but this was one of MIT's early strengths, in the post-Civil War late 19th Century era.


Total parenteral nutrition (TPN) has been used in medicine for a while; it feeds people directly, bypassing the digestive tract and delivering nutrients via an IV. Enteral nutrition (feeding tubes) have been used for a long time as well. Medicine has thought long & hard about how to keep people alive on a liquid diet. It's not a new thing and Soylent is not even close to a "first".


Could you elaborate on the data they are collecting?

The human body with it's organs and molecular pathways is quite a tough black box to crack, and there is not a spark of a doubt that Soylent - and no one else - will not understand it for quite a while.

And then there is human human variations.

The concept was flawed from the very beginning. It's sad to see them fail, and I feel bad for the people that suffer because they believed what was marketing and not hard science.


well human response to soylent is already a huge data set, was used so far to add/remove/rebalance stuff and of course drive recalls.

> there is not a spark of a doubt that Soylent - and no one else - will not understand it for quite a while

I agree but at some point this work should begin somewhere, somehow.


> well human response to soylent is already a huge data set

"People love it" isn't a rigorous double-blind scientific study.


Or it could be the move to using Soy protein in 1.6 (and the bars) and some people are sensitive to that level of it.




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