Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 1001 posts

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

#101

Post by vacri »

refurb wrote: post #50
nkozyra wrote: 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.

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).

Your bowels are muscle. Like any muscle, if it doesn't get used much, it wastes. Just because you're passing some stool, doesn't mean you're in good digestive shape, no more than an irregular heartbeat is healthy "because at least the heart is beating"

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

#102

Post by throwaway101416 »

I had hemorrhoids that would flair up from soy/almond milk or large quantities of corn chips. However, I never had blood loss and it was mostly gone by the time I tried Soylent.

After having one drink made with powder version 1.2 or 1.3, I lost about a liter of blood and couldn't move or work on anything that week. Had to switch to yogurt for a month to eat normally again. I think it has to do with jagged precipitates that remain after going through the large intestine.

I love the idea of the product, but unnatural food like this has potential to cause unforeseen side effects.

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

#103

Post by rgrove »

I bought a box of Soylent bars to use as occasional between-meal backups, since I sometimes miss a meal while traveling or because I forget to eat lunch.

Over the course of a few weeks I ate two or three bars and was fine. Then one day I missed lunch, ate a bar, and about four hours later started feeling nauseous and experienced the worst diarrhea of my life.

Let's just say I'm glad it hit me when I was at home, within tightly clenched shuffling distance of a good sturdy toilet.

By the next morning I felt fine.

I have no known food allergies or sensitivities. On no occasion did I eat more than one bar in a single day, and I don't think I ever even ate bars on two consecutive days.

I do remember thinking, while eating that last bar, that it didn't taste quite as good as I remembered the other bars tasting. It seems possible that the bars contained inconsistent amounts of an ingredient and the last one just happened to have a larger amount of whatever did me in.

I sure would like to know what it was so I can avoid it in the future.

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

#104

Post by pen2l »

nemo44x wrote: post #91
pen2l wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A beautiful pan sauce from a well timed reduction. Well timed reduction? Sorry, don't know what that means, please explain?

Sure. One of the hardest things when reducing a sauce is to not stop to soon and to not go too far. If you stop too soon you can use a roux or more crudely use flour or starch to thicken the sauce. If you go to far you end up with a glaze. You could add stock or water to thin, however. A well timed reduction, in my opinion, you end up with a sauce that is "nappe". But the trick is knowing when you're there. An intere…

Thanks for expanding.

I wonder what kind of sauce you're thinking of when you write all of this... some sort of alfredo sauce for pasta? And Indian curry kind of sauce? Some gravy-like sauce you put on your turkey or chicken?

Could you maybe link to a youtube recipe tutorial of some sort which you feel demonstrates this "reduction" to your approval?

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

#106

Post by labster »

djsumdog wrote: post #11

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…

Not all people taste food the same way. Some people don't have a strong sense of taste, so eating Soylent all/some of the time is just not a big deal to them. Just the same as how some people are tone deaf, so music is not important to them. Or colorblind people can't tell the difference between red and green, so stoplights aren't a big deal to them. Wait a minute...

But really I think a lot of the Soylent hate comes from the fact that people assume their own senses are the best judge, when really we only have a sample size of one. It doesn't even have to be a lack of sense acuity as I said above, but just personal taste. People come in all different types, and that's cool.

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

#107

Post by vacri »

mulletbum wrote: post #39
beedogs wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Anecdata... strawman... no citations of your own despite requirements for same... somethingsomething 'unscientific'?

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

#108

Post by Daishiman »

phowat wrote: post #62
enneff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm really not into food. I force myself to eat. If it wasn't for me trying to bulk up I'd eat just one meal a day and be fine. I force myself to eat 2800 to 3000 calories per day and it's a HUGE pain in the ass. Since I first heard about Soylent I wished they'd start selling Here in Brazil. This report doesn't change that.

To be honest, Brazilian food is IMO some of the most bland and least interesting in the continent, so it wouldn't be suprising.

A lot of people think they don't like fish because they've never tasted fresh fish.

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

#109

Post by matt_wulfeck »

esotericsean wrote: post #48
djsumdog wrote: post #11

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.

Honest question: Why not just make yourself a bowl of lentils? Definitely more nutritious than this stuff and very easy to make it bulk/reheat.

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

#110

Post by duaneb »

djsumdog wrote: post #11

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'm anorexic. This shit is amazing.
Post reply on HN