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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

#211

Post by greglindahl »

Karunamon wrote: post #200
greglindahl wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, you realize that nutrient absorption means that you can't just eat the molecules that you need and stay healthy? That's why products in the same space as Soylent, like Ensure, have a lot of research involved.

Given the amount of people that are consuming large amounts of this stuff and reporting their progress, I'd have expected any serious nutrient deficiencies to have been reported quite a while ago.

I'd suggest that you read research on the topic instead of having expectations. Some things only affect some people. Other things take a long time to develop.

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

#212

Post by TheGRS »

fryguy wrote: post #190
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,…

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"?

Not sure what the sick feeling they had was, but any diet for me usually takes my system a little getting used to, especially if the food makes you more regular. You and your gut aren't used to all the fiber and it will not feel good at first, but I would bet its fine after awhile.

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

#213

Post by greglindahl »

kazagistar wrote: post #193
greglindahl wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of products, like Ensure, which have a much longer researched track record than Soylent. It's more than sticking a few things into a powder.

As far as I can tell, Ensure is just sugary chocolate milk with vitamin pills, ie it has horrible macro-nutrient balance. Its not like these companies do their own research anyways; its an application of the same nutritional studies everyone else has access too.

And I see no evidence that Soylent paid any attention to basic things, like what you need to also eat in order to absorb the necessary nutrients. While Ensure has more sugar that I'd like, at least it's not totally ignorant.

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

#214

Post by praxulus »

ng12 wrote: post #113
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…

> 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…

Surely cleaning up after cooking is almost always a chore, no matter how delicious the food was?

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

#215

Post by cknoxrun »

greglindahl wrote: post #165
Meegul wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by unnatural? What is in Soylent that isn't natural ? Food in and of itself is just a mix of different chemicals - be they from plants, animals, or other sources. But at the end of the day, a molecule of glucose from a plant is identical to a molecule of glucose created synthetically.

If you grind beans and rice into a powder, with other stuff, and cook them, do you think that that's the same as cooking whole beans and whole rice with the other stuff? The answer is no. It's not just about molecules.

Can you please expand on how they are different? A powdered bean or powdered rice contains the same macro and micronutrients. Perhaps the quality of the fiber would be different?

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

#216

Post by martin_bech »

mysterypie wrote: post #189
aaron-lebo wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I can taste the difference between Diet Coke, Coke Zero and the new Coke Zero - Zero Sugar. Diet Coke has the most artificial sweetener taste, while Coke Zero Zero sugar almost has none.

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

#217

Post by greglindahl »

nemo44x wrote: post #133
pen2l wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, way more simple! But closest to a "gravy-like sauce". But you have a lot of room for improvisation once you master the basic technique. One of the beauties of classical French cooking is that it is simple. It is based on this premise of simplicity. One of the easiest things to learn is a "pan sauce". After that you might learn to make the 5 mother sauces which are super simple too. What this means is you cook the…

Also, note that all of this can be done without meat.

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

#218

Post by nnq »

untog wrote: post #194
jedberg wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's exactly the alien part, I think. Equating eating to flossing is utterly alien to me. Every meal is a positive thing.

From people on the other side: sometimes I'm like "ugh, even drinking smth seems too much distraction, don't wanna loose this focus now, an IV-cathether port that could just pump the right stuff into my veins, triggered automatically by sensors knowing my dietary intake history and pooling blood concentrations of things from me, would be so awesome now" :)

Also, deciding what to eat is a huge chore and mental energy drain for me... especially since I like constant diversity and novelty even in food. If I could afford to have a personal chef that would be trained to "always surprise me" and occasionally I could just tell him smth like "uhm, that salad looks delicious, but I'm too lazy to eat it, grind it up into a shake please so I can slurp it on my way to place X or while coding" it would rock!

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

#219

Post by nemo44x »

bsder wrote: post #192
nemo44x wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Research is increasingly pointing out that vitamin supplements don't work for certain nutrients.

Isn't Soylent equivalent to a supplement in essence? It's a base diffused with certain nutrients. Why is this different than a sandwich and a vitamin in terms of nutrition? Or even more, how is it different from a vitamin?

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

#220

Post by summarite »

Matachines wrote: post #85
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…

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…

That's probably just me but a lifestyle where you have no time to take a break (or meet friends/colleagues) and eat doesn't sound very healthy and not very desirable either. I understand the desire to optimise eating times and life overall, and sometimes there's a lot of work that seems important, but at the point where you drink a supplement rather than eat it seems there's no life left in what should be more than just a person working and sleeping (or napping if you're in the sleep optimiser boat..) .

Probably it's all not that black and white, you like the convenience etc, but damn it just sounds sad. I also used to try to optimise my life to have impact etc, until i realised that i don't want to miss out on also living it.

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