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Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

latimes.com

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

#41

Is anyone really surprised that this is happening? Nutrition is hard. Nutritionists don't get it. Would you trust a nutritionist by trade to program your pacemaker? If not, then why do you trust an engineer to formulate your food?

Ensure and related products in this space have a lot of research behind them, which Soylent appears to have completely ignored. However, this particular problem appears to be a basic processed food production screwup.

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

#42
post #23

Might it be soy allergy? I honestly see no reason to halt production entirely just because a small percentage of people are having allergic reaction. Can they not just add an allergy warning?

No, because they don't actually know exactly what it is.

I drink soylent 2.0 every day of the week. I ate a bunch of bars and boxes of 1.6 without issue.

I also got violently ill off 2 separate bars on completely different days.

If I had a soy allergy I would not be able to eat 2.0 either.

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

#44
A well cooked meal and wine - my greatest joys in life. Simple, romantic and fulfilling. Add butter. Add cream. A beautiful pan sauce from a well timed reduction. A cool glass of white wine in the hot kitchen as all the flavors come together. The scent of fresh cut shallots still lingering as the garlic in the pan sweats.

I don't judge anyone for making food and drink a footnote in their life. I enjoy cooking as much as eating but I don't expect anyone else to enjoy either of those, much less both. But I must admit, I sure don't understand the sacrifices of taste, scent, sight, texture and accomplishment for productivity or convenience.

Perhaps this is a reduction of the "Chicken McNugget"?

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

#45
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.

Its not quite what was described but refeeding syndrome is an interesting somewhat related thing https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC390152/

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

#46
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.

Your dismissive attitude discounts:

1. People lie.

2. People believe things to be true that are not, in fact, true.

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

#47
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…

I've gone through a few cases of the premade drinks. My first bottle or two did the same to me but never since. Pretty sure it was the high amount of fat (~50% of calories) coupled with an empty stomach. I keep them at my desk and in my car for occasional usage.

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

#48

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 don't really care about food. If I didn't have to eat anymore, that would be amazing! I tried Soylent and it was disgusting, though. Couldn't stomach it.

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

#49
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.

Pretty much any vegan diet is sufficiently efficient, if your goal is avoiding killing the planet. No need to eat powder.

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

#50
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.

I have to agree. I'm not saying that people on liquid diets don't have digestion problems, but the liquid diet alone likely didn't cause it.

Even if you eat no food, you'll still have bowel movements as your intestines shed cells and mucus. If you have a colostomy done (intestines no longer connect to your rectum) you'll still pass small small amounts of stool out the normal way (anus).

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