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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

#421

Post by kelseydh »

skuhn wrote: post #286
Animats wrote: post #196

Soylent made such a big deal of being a "tech company", and boasted about their overdesigned web infrastructure for a business that did two transactions a minute. What they didn't have is advanced technology on the production side. They write about "sending samples out" to external labs. It's not like they had an automated lab constantly sampling their production line and posting the results to the web. There are pro…

I think that Soylent will go down as a cautionary tale for anyone who looks at a field they know very little about and thinks "how hard could it be?". Along with Theranos. What Soylent should have built to be worth $100+ million is a way to make a food product tailored to a particular person or group of people that's based on automation and nutritional science. Instead they seem to have a cobbled together amalgam tha…

A cautionary tale that produces a fast-growing company now worth at least $100 million dollars? I'll take it.

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

#422

Post by Alex3917 »

Laforet wrote: post #116
Alex3917 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are a limited number of ingredients, all of which are surely well documented and tested. There isn't really any bright line between edible and poisonous. E.g. if you buy a bunch of field guides, the exact same plants and mushrooms will be listed as edible in some books and poisonous in others. There are lots of species that are widely considered poisonous, but many people eat them anyway without any ill effec…

> the exact same plants and mushrooms will be listed as edible in some books and poisonous in others. Are you serious? Any mycologist or survivalist worth their salt will tell you to avoid any mushrooms you could not identify with 100% certainty because there is no regret if you had them. Some manuals may advocate (in very desperate situations) eating a small piece of an unknown species to see if you have a reaction…

Whether something is safe to eat has nothing to do with identification. If you don't know what something is then obviously you shouldn't be eating it.

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

#424

Post by mrob »

madaxe_again wrote: post #311
jonmc12 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the reports say its contamination. Its possible the powder is just incompatible with the digestive system of some people in same way as, say, leafy vegetables or carrageenan affect some people's digestion but not others. Soylent may be recalling because they don't want to be liable in the _possibility_ of contamination. However, over time, they may find they can make the best product that is compatible w…

From the description I'm willing to bet its polyphenols and some of their customers are sensitive - feed me two pots of green tea and I'll projectile vomit.

I wouldn't be surprised if the fact that it's a powder contributes to this. I've vomited from strong green tea on an empty stomach before, but never from green tea with food. Solid food works as a sustained release mechanism for the nutrients/phytochemicals. A sudden burst of polyphenols won't necessarily have the same effect as the same dose spread over time.

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

#425

Post by LoSboccacc »

xg15 wrote: post #413
chucksmash wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I can't back this up with a link but I remember a HN thread where the infrastructure was strictly characterized as more of less mostly good enough, not a point of pride

So you have a mostly-good-enough tech to sell a mostly-good-enough product. Then what exactly justifies the $20 mio venture capital?

being the first* there and having a chance of becoming the de-facto monopoly of the industry

*there are food substitute in use already for in-patients with certain conditions, but are pricey, incomplete and not really into the nutrition substitute space, more like into the 'survive a week on this because you can't eat food' space.

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

#426

Post by tudorw »

tudorw wrote: post #423

chewing is what stimulates the bile gland, bile is what you need to help with toxins removal, you need to chew, no short cut! http://www.spinelab.co.uk/chewing-is-foreplay-for-digestion-... http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/digestion/live...

try this, eat what you normally eat, except take twice as long to eat it, after eating sit quietly for the same amount of time and meditate on how awesome you are for getting feeding yourself right.

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

#427

Post by kelseydh »

nether wrote: post #377
Animats wrote: post #196

Soylent made such a big deal of being a "tech company", and boasted about their overdesigned web infrastructure for a business that did two transactions a minute. What they didn't have is advanced technology on the production side. They write about "sending samples out" to external labs. It's not like they had an automated lab constantly sampling their production line and posting the results to the web. There are pro…

Their main product is their ecommerce tech stack. Soylent is a side project.

In fairness they have developed an active and engaged online community with customer support that resembles a tech product I can't think of another food product that's done this, it's definitely a part of what's allowed them to take off.

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

#428

Post by LoSboccacc »

andy_ppp wrote: post #335
lifebeyondfife wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you tend to swallow raspberries whole, or chew them first?

Are you saying chewing is as effective as blending? Are you saying saliva doesn't have enzymes in it that might affect things? Point to research or I'll assume you are just making things up! Just to be clear I'm not saying I'm right I'm saying I doubt we have proved it...

I spit in the blender, of course.

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

#429

Post by kelseydh »

xg15 wrote: post #413
chucksmash wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I can't back this up with a link but I remember a HN thread where the infrastructure was strictly characterized as more of less mostly good enough, not a point of pride

So you have a mostly-good-enough tech to sell a mostly-good-enough product. Then what exactly justifies the $20 mio venture capital?

Since they're producing an actual food product they arguably have higher costs than most software efforts that get investment backing.

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

#430

Post by simplemath »

markdown wrote: post #275
hvidgaard wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to do that as well when I was younger. Obviously not with Soylent, that wasn't around then. It works well for menial programming tasks where time is the limiting factor. Incidently, those are the problems where you can for the most part jump out and right back in without too much overhead. But when facing a hard problem, getting up and away from the computer, and cooking a meal always mean I'll solve the probl…

> I used to do that as well when I was younger. Obviously not with Soylent, that wasn't around then. Is Soylent ramen for rich people?

Stealing this shamelessly
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