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

141–150 of 1001 posts

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

#141

Post by [deleted] »

LordHumungous wrote: post #124
Itsdijital wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a DIY soylent diet for ~6 months last year. I had maybe 1 regular meal every 2 weeks during that time. Honestly, it fucking kicked ass. I'll list some of the pros and cons Pro - Easy to make - Portable - Little mess/no cleaning - More time to do other stuff - Most insane regular shits. 2pm everyday, sit, shit, 2x wipe, done in 30 seconds. Every shit was exactly the same. - Never any indigestion, gas, diarrhea,…

Armies have mutinied over bad food and here you are voluntarily subsisting on gruel. The 21st century is weird.

[deleted]

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

#142

Post by Meegul »

LordHumungous wrote: post #130

I'm a big fan of Michael Pollan's manifesto: Eat food . Not too much. Mostly plants. The idea being that processed foods cannot hope to match the nutritional profile found in whole foods, particularly plants. This soylent stuff is about as processed as food comes, so I'm inclined to be very skeptical of it's healthfulness.

Do you believe that there is some chemical (or other) difference between two molecules of, for instance, glucose, solely due to their origin?

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

#143

Post by oh_sigh »

cko wrote: post #132
greatjones wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I'll never understand that feeling of "ugh, I need to eat, guess I'll have a Soylent". It sounds like you have either more free time or a more a steady work schedule then their target user.

I have all the free time in the world and I have that "ugh do I really need to eat again?" I find it hard to hit 2500 calories daily to not lose weight.

Replace all water with whole milk - problem solved!

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

#144

Post by rockdiesel »

joe_the_user wrote: post #128
Matachines wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time Soylent is on HN people say this. Why don't people understand? It's so simple: Soylent is for meals you don't care about but need. It's not a) the ONLY food you can eat or b) supposed to replace all meals. I order a box of Soylent bottles every few weeks—they come in handy while working or for a quick breakfast or if I have little time and am hungry. I also cook meals with my girlfriend a few times a week…

"It's not [...] supposed to replace all meals." Wait, "Soylent is an open source meal REPLACEMENT [emph added], advertised as a "staple meal", available in liquid and powdered forms as a beverage, and as a solid-form meal bar. Its creators state that Soylent meets all nutritional requirements for an average adult." If something is advertised as a "meal replacement", it seems likely that people will use it to ... repl…

Also, they originally advertised it with copy like "A full day of balanced nutrition prepared in 3 minutes for $3/meal" and "What if you never have to worry about food again?"

https://web.archive.org/web/20150515220800/https://www.soyle...

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

#145

Post by LordHumungous »

IgorPartola wrote: post #15

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?

I don't understand why they felt the need to pull the product. Lots of foods don't sit well with certain people, for whatever reason. If it makes you sick then don't eat it. As long as it contains food grade ingredients that are non-toxic then it's not on them.

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

#146

Post by nemo44x »

BigJono wrote: post #112
nemo44x wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this why we invented the "sandwich"?

I believe the point is that a sandwich doesn't have the macronutrient ratio most people want and a full range of micronutrients so people don't have to be worried about missing anything important if they decide to eat sandwiches for 2/3rds of their meals.

Isn't this why we invented the "multivitamin"?

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

#147

Post by couchand »

jedberg wrote: post #129
ng12 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Soylent is for meals you don't care about but need This is the problem. That concept is completely foreign to a lot of people (me included). The combination of my body's needs and the way I was raised lead me to view each meal as an opportunity to be enjoyed, never a chore. Something I observed in the weightlifting community: there are people who need to worry about dieting (cutting) and people who worry about eati…

Think of something you have to do every day that you don't like to do. Like flossing maybe? Some people really enjoy flossing. Some people don't. If there were a device I could put in my mouth and in 30 seconds everything were flossed, I would totally do that. But some people would think, man how can you do that and take all the enjoyment out of flossing? Sometimes when I'm working, I run to the fridge, grab whatever…

"If there were a device I could put in my mouth and in 30 seconds everything were flossed"... I think what you're looking for is dental floss.

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

#148

Post by Jommi »

jaworrom wrote: post #61
throwaway898908 wrote: post #14

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…

Not to mention, a major part of digestion begins in the mouth. Saliva breaks food down and prepares it to be broken down in the stomach, so that it can be assimilated in the intestines. When you consume liquid calories, you miss out on this important part of the digestive process (and subsequently lose out on absorbing a portion of the nutrients), unless you are "simulate chewing" or leave the liquids in your mouth l…

Source?

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

#149

Post by matthewwiese »

Itsdijital wrote: post #120
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 did a DIY soylent diet for ~6 months last year. I had maybe 1 regular meal every 2 weeks during that time. Honestly, it fucking kicked ass. I'll list some of the pros and cons Pro - Easy to make - Portable - Little mess/no cleaning - More time to do other stuff - Most insane regular shits. 2pm everyday, sit, shit, 2x wipe, done in 30 seconds. Every shit was exactly the same. - Never any indigestion, gas, diarrhea,…

Care to share your recipe?

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

#150

Post by LordHumungous »

nemo44x wrote: post #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…

> I don't judge anyone for making food and drink a footnote in their life.

I certainly do. Yes I'm a snob.

Post reply on HN