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Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

latimes.com

31–40 of 1001 posts

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#31

I'm really amazed by all the supporters on here. When I first heard about Soylent, I thought it was a terrible terrible idea. I mean, there's so much to food. It's not just eating it, it's all the flavours and ingredients and cooking with friends and loved ones and parties and such. I'm guessing most people on here use it as a supplement + regular food, but when I saw it originally, it seemed like it was intended to…

Rhinehart asserted from the start that Soylent was meant to replace shitty meals like the Big Mac consumed at your desk alone. There was and still is a lot of misunderstanding about this. One of his interviews took place at some LA hipster fried chicken place. He's not antifood or antisocial.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#32
post #26

Man, this is a bummer. As much as I hate the concept of Soylent as food, I see it as the only way to scale food production for the growing population, without killing our planet. The other options are still in the labs. Artificial tissues for instance. Vertical farming is one alternative, but that is again fraught with massive energy consumption. I hope Soylent gets to solve this.

Isn't Soylent primarily made from rice and soybeans? These are commodity crops that require huge amounts of fossil fuels (chemical fertilizer, fuel for tractors, transportation, processing) and government subsidies in order to be profitably cultivated.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#33
post #27

Not putting solid food into your system for long periods of time (months, years) will destroy your ability to digest solid food when you start refeeding. I've seen people in eating disorder facilities who have lived on diets of liquid food (historically Ensure, basically the same thing) who have not defecated for months, and when they start eating again suffer for weeks and weeks from horrendous constipation, often r…

I don't advocate for or against liquid diets necessarily - and I realize this is overtly a throwaway account - but this sounds pretty pseudo-sciency to me, anecdote notwithstanding. At bare minimum, include some citation here.

He just told you what he lived through, and you're asking for a citation?

Never change, HN.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#34

I'm really amazed by all the supporters on here. When I first heard about Soylent, I thought it was a terrible terrible idea. I mean, there's so much to food. It's not just eating it, it's all the flavours and ingredients and cooking with friends and loved ones and parties and such. I'm guessing most people on here use it as a supplement + regular food, but when I saw it originally, it seemed like it was intended to…

Believe it or not, some people are just not really into food. Just like some people are not into music or sports.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#35
post #2

Halt production? It seems these soylent formulations are versioned. So can't they revert back to an older version till they fix the issue? Or its not as simple as this?

they don't know what's causing it. If you just revert the formula, that doesn't mean the ingredient causing the problem has been removed. Contaminated soy protein is contaminated soy protein (for ex). Changing the amount of contaminated soy protein in your drink isn't going to fix anything.

I am one of the people who got violently ill from a bar. I ate numerous bars and boxes of 1.6. I had no issues, I usually eat 2.0 every day.

One single bar made me ill, I ate numerous bars before getting ill.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#36

I'm really amazed by all the supporters on here. When I first heard about Soylent, I thought it was a terrible terrible idea. I mean, there's so much to food. It's not just eating it, it's all the flavours and ingredients and cooking with friends and loved ones and parties and such. I'm guessing most people on here use it as a supplement + regular food, but when I saw it originally, it seemed like it was intended to…

I appreciate your position. I agree there is more to good than mere nutrition. There is also a segment on HN that likes the idea of hacking biology, especially their own. They seem good more as fuel for an engine than something to be enjoyed.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#37
post #33
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't advocate for or against liquid diets necessarily - and I realize this is overtly a throwaway account - but this sounds pretty pseudo-sciency to me, anecdote notwithstanding. At bare minimum, include some citation here.

He just told you what he lived through, and you're asking for a citation? Never change, HN.

No he told us about something he claimed to see at a place. A lot of people say the same thing about UFOs.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#38
post #28

> Soylent said there shouldn’t be any issues with its premade drinks, which cost slightly more than just the powder. Interesting. I tried the premade drinks (Soylent 2.0) a couple of months ago and within an hour had stomach cramps and was forced to retreat to the bathroom. Unlike a software bug it's mentally very hard to forgive -- I love the idea of Soylent but doubt I will ever try it again, in any form. Serious q…

> There are a limited number of ingredients, all of which are surely well documented and tested.

There isn't really any bright line between edible and poisonous. E.g. if you buy a bunch of field guides, the exact same plants and mushrooms will be listed as edible in some books and poisonous in others. There are lots of species that are widely considered poisonous, but many people eat them anyway without any ill effects. And others that are widely considered edible that people get very sick from eating.

Some of the best advice I got from a well-known mycologist is when in doubt about whether something is edible, set up a TV in the bathroom first.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#39
post #33
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't advocate for or against liquid diets necessarily - and I realize this is overtly a throwaway account - but this sounds pretty pseudo-sciency to me, anecdote notwithstanding. At bare minimum, include some citation here.

He just told you what he lived through, and you're asking for a citation? Never change, HN.

"Not putting solid food into your system for long periods of time will destroy your ability to digest solid food when you start refeeding"

That is an unscientific statement based on no citation.

Top it off, I have personally lived of Soylent for a year. I go out to eat only a couple times a month and I do not die from horrendous suffering everytime. In fact, nothing changes.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they don't know what's causing it. If you just revert the formula, that doesn't mean the ingredient causing the problem has been removed. Contaminated soy protein is contaminated soy protein (for ex). Changing the amount of contaminated soy protein in your drink isn't going to fix anything.

I am one of the people who got violently ill from a bar. I ate numerous bars and boxes of 1.6. I had no issues, I usually eat 2.0 every day. One single bar made me ill, I ate numerous bars before getting ill.

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