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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

#181

Post by mei0Iesh »

warfangle wrote: post #140
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 still curious why the soylent thing has hit it off in the HN crowd and not, say, Slimfast. Which is basically the same thing but with more production hardening. Maybe fragile masculinity? IDK.

Branding? I think it's basically an Ensure for geeks. "Soylent Green" is from an old science fiction. I seem to recall Soylent being started on Reddit years ago. They call a recipe "open source", and it grew inside a group of internet culture.

It's like how "Gatorade" was neon colored and marketed for athletes, when the same kind of formula was also used for less glamorous rehydration.

Instead of being packaged like Slimfast is, where it becomes part of weight loss culture, Soylent is targeted at hacker types. It fits. They're supposed to always be working and have no time for cooking, and it has a futuristic image, so they integrate with it.

When really, you're right, it's basically the same thing as Slimfast.

http://observer.com/2013/10/how-is-soylent-not-just-slim-fas...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/01/food-tech...

I didn't read those, but I think there's a slight difference between Soylent and other meal replacement drinks, mainly in the purpose. Slimfast is for people who only use them to lose weight. Ensure is for people who only use them because of illness. Soylent is for people who want to transcend humanity to sustain life without the hassle of ingestion.

I get it. I'd love to bypass eating. But I think it's naive. When I saw the people getting excited over it on Reddit many years ago, I rolled my eyes. Nutrition is not so simple and understood where you can mix some ingredients in batch, then drink your meals quickly without thought. You can get away with it for a while, especially if you're young. But it's really a science fiction fantasy, and I thought the people buying into it were naive at best, and being scammed at worst.

Just like I think believing you need Slimfast to lose weight, or that it's a smart approach is equally naive. People want simple programs to follow though, and it's opportunity for businessmen to capitalize on the desire.

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

#182

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

davnn wrote: post #174
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 that people are too stupid to understand, they just did a really bad job telling us, but it kind of was their PR strategy. Look how many articles there are "I ate Soylent only for X days". Let's see how long it takes them to lose that image of a complete food replacement.

True that, it helped them get the funding and the interest so it was a great marketing strategy. But now that people understand the theory (ie you can supply someone with all the nutrition they need from the one product) they are going a bit more on a sane sort of image.

Soylent makes perfect sense in the context of a meal replacer for busy or lazy people. But even the original creator stopped eating it at all times because he missed the "social aspect of eating".

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

#183

Post by otuutti »

fusiongyro wrote: post #69
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 absolutely love food and I'd say a significant amount of my hobby budget goes into food and cooking supplies. I was an early Soylent supporter because my wife and I were curious about it and thought it might be inexpensive and sensible to replace our lunch meals with it. If we both worked through lunch, hilariously, we could have had an extra hour to spend cooking dinner. Not every meal of my day needs to be a fine…

If you stopped solely based on taste you should just try a couple similar products, eg. ambronite might fit the bill pretty spot on.

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

#184

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

benevol wrote: post #164
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…

Processed food is always a bad idea. It's simple, really: The closer your are to nature, the better you feel (because the healthier you are). Our body is happier when we spend our time in nature instead of artificial environment (there are studies on that subject) and we are less cancerous when we eat natural food (as opposed to processed food). Every time we step away from our nature, we sabotage ourselves.

....you realise people are living longer than they ever have before, even though we all live in bigass cities - the literal antithesis of nature.

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

#185

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

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…

Well yeah, you don't eat one meal your whole life. You have multiple meals in a day.

But regardless, they went for that angle in the early days because it got them the advertising and funding. It got the attention, it's good marketing.

Nowadays they bill it as a meal replacer, in the respect of you CAN replace whatever meal you want with it without having to worry about the effort or time it takes to prepare/research a good balanced meal.

All that said, I don't personally use the stuff but would like to try it out.

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

#186

Post by grzm »

lsc wrote: post #180
warfangle wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still curious why the soylent thing has hit it off in the HN crowd and not, say, Slimfast. Which is basically the same thing but with more production hardening. Maybe fragile masculinity? IDK.

I certainly think that it's a marketing thing; while gender identity I'm sure plays a role as it does in most marketing, it's not the whole story. There are already meal replacement drinks targeted at manly men; muscle milk is one of the more well known brands. I think that the difference is that this stuff was uniquely (and probably irresponsibly[1]) marketed towards nerds. - It's not advertised, as the shakes I men…

"There are already meal replacement drinks targeted at manly men; muscle milk is one of the more well known brands."

Huh. I've always gotten the impression that Muscle Milk is a protein supplement (though it's got carbs, too), not really a (full nutritional) meal replacement.

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

#187

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

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.

Well yeah, armies didn't really have much else to entertain them back in the day.

We have enough other stuff in our lives to look forward to that we can sacrifice one part of it.

Not that anyone should if they don't want to, just saying I can understand it.

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

#188

Post by htns »

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?

This appears to have absolutely nothing to do with nutrition. It's contamination. People are getting sick hours after eating.

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

#189

Post by mysterypie »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #160
warfangle wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still curious why the soylent thing has hit it off in the HN crowd and not, say, Slimfast. Which is basically the same thing but with more production hardening. Maybe fragile masculinity? IDK.

I wouldn't attribute it to some kind of nefarious gender issue. It's as simple as marketing, which does matter. Slimfast in it's name implies a diet drink, not food replacement. Most people would never even consider them in the same arena and that's due to simple marketing by the very companies that produce them.

Yes, I can see that in the case of Soylent vs Slimfast, customer choice is driven by what marketing says is the intended use.

But don't be too quick to dismiss masculinity or coolness factors in product selection. Diet Coke and Coke Zero are essentially the same thing made by the same company (the latter having a slightly different "flavor profile"). Coke Zero exists because some men or many men will not order a Diet Coke: it's sissy or uncool. Coke Zero was introduced solely for that reason.

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

#190

Post by fryguy »

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,…

Why do you have "Never any ... sick feeling" under pro, and then under con "First 2 weeks were brutal. Felt all manner of sick and uneasy"?
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