Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick • Hacker News Board

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

#561

Post by eloisant » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 12:25 PM UTC

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…

Yes, Soylent is Slim-Fast.

Just with a different marketing pitch.

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

#562

Post by alvarosm » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 12:25 PM UTC

n72 wrote: post #477

slg wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the biggest flaws of the tech industry is the belief that being a tech expert is enough to disrupt other industries in which they don't have any expertise. Sometimes they get lucky and it works despite something like Uber's or Airbnb's total ignorance of the law. Sometimes it fails like with numerous cryptocurrency companies relearning why the finance industry has so many dang regulations. Seems like Soylent i…

The founder of Soylent clearly believes he's an expert in many, many fields: http://robrhinehart.com/?p=1331 BTW, anyone know a good word for this attitude? I wouldn't call it hybris, though it's closely related. It's a mix of arrogance, over confidence, ignorance, plus more and very prevalent in SV.

yeah I have two good words: mental illness. the guy is nuts

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

#563

Post by mbillie1 » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 12:27 PM UTC

kelseydh wrote: post #421

skuhn wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Here, in a nutshell, is everything that is wrong with the toxic valley startup culture.

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

#564

Post by delecti » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 12:29 PM UTC

eriknstr wrote: post #504

n72 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founder of Soylent clearly believes he's an expert in many, many fields: http://robrhinehart.com/?p=1331 BTW, anyone know a good word for this attitude? I wouldn't call it hybris, though it's closely related. It's a mix of arrogance, over confidence, ignorance, plus more and very prevalent in SV.

At least he's been eating his own product almost exclusively when at home according to that blog post. This gave me a positive impression at the start of the blog post and I was agreeing with what he said initially, but then it went downhill. I would not want to get rid of my kitchen and I would absolutely never replace my food with Soylent, especially now that I've heard of all the people getting sick from it. Also,…

That gizmodo article's only "source" of nutritionists is from this article [1] (another article on the same site). That article's only source of nutritionists is someone who just called them up before Soylent was even on the market, and while none of those nutritionists had examined the product.

Many cats and dogs will eat the same food source almost exclusively for most of their lives without any ill effect. Obviously Soylent is having problems right now, but outright dismissing the mere possibility of a healthy "people-kibble" by those nutritionists seems rather unscientific.

[1] http://io9.gizmodo.com/could-soylent-really-replace-all-of-t...

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

#565

Post by FLUX-YOU » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 12:29 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #278

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…

One of the biggest flaws of the tech industry is the belief that being a tech expert is enough to disrupt other industries in which they don't have any expertise. Sometimes they get lucky and it works despite something like Uber's or Airbnb's total ignorance of the law. Sometimes it fails like with numerous cryptocurrency companies relearning why the finance industry has so many dang regulations. Seems like Soylent i…

This thread seems like it's out to crucify someone and validate some belief that tech CEOs are masters-of-the-universe types instead of assuming Rob hired people to validate his ideas and tweak them which would be the sensible assumption.

If someone has proof that Soylent employs zero nutritionists/food scientists, please enlighten us, because if that's the case, the product never should have gone to market and I'll throw my supply out immediately and go get a refund.

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

#566

Post by Meegul » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 12:31 PM UTC

gerbilly wrote: post #543

Meegul wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No I don't but that's not the point.[1] When glucose is bound up in fiber for example, it is released at a slower rate. This leads me to believe that there may be 100s of other beneficial side effects of getting your nutrients via natural, minimally processed food. [1] I'm not the original poster.

Yep, that's the point I was partially getting at. People often attack Soylent for nebulous reasons, stating that it's 'unnatural' and you'll die if you replace meals with it. However, I do feel confident that at some point, we will 'solve' nutrition past simple chemical content. For now, things might not get absorbed properly, but I still think that a bottle of Soylent is far better than the diet most Americans find themselves to consume.

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

#567

Post by mtreis86 » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 12:32 PM UTC

cknoxrun wrote: post #204

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…

I have two young kids and a startup. The idea that I should view each meal as an opportunity to be enjoyed is honestly a pipe dream right now. I enjoy as many of my meals as I can with my family. But when the kids are sick or I'm running behind and have a meeting, I grab a soylent and I feel like it's a lot healthier than picking up sugary junk or other alternatives.

How much longer would an apple and a handful of walnuts take to eat?

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

#568

Post by DanBC » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 12:32 PM UTC

delecti wrote: post #564

eriknstr wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least he's been eating his own product almost exclusively when at home according to that blog post. This gave me a positive impression at the start of the blog post and I was agreeing with what he said initially, but then it went downhill. I would not want to get rid of my kitchen and I would absolutely never replace my food with Soylent, especially now that I've heard of all the people getting sick from it. Also,…

That gizmodo article's only "source" of nutritionists is from this article [1] (another article on the same site). That article's only source of nutritionists is someone who just called them up before Soylent was even on the market, and while none of those nutritionists had examined the product. Many cats and dogs will eat the same food source almost exclusively for most of their lives without any ill effect. Obvious…

> Many cats and dogs will eat the same food source almost exclusively for most of their lives without any ill effect.

Where "without any ill effect" includes tooth decay, obesity, and death from kidney damage among others.

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

#569

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 12:33 PM UTC

NumberCruncher wrote: post #560

TeMPOraL wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on keto. It worked. No rectal bleeding. I also didn't die of various stuff I was supposed to. I'm close to getting jailed though, because I fear that at some point I'll break and punch the next person who tells me that artificial sweeteners cause cancer.

It would be so sad if you get jailed because of an "urban myth".

Someone could at least write a magazine article proving that artificial sweeteners cause incarceration.

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

#570

Post by pas » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 12:33 PM UTC

webscaleizfun wrote: post #418

Meegul wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

We can't actually quantify nor do we fully understand all the vitamins, chemicals & molecules in your average vegetable, or how they are digested and used in your body. It might be bad to peel a carrot prior to eating it, since you lose the nutrients in the skin (that may only exist there) and oxidize the rest of the carrot breaking down other potentially good nutrients, similar to how garlic loses certain multi-drug…

Yeah well, there are millions living on processed food. They are pretty much a-okay.

Yes, sure, there is probably some difference, but it's marginal. Translated to QALY (quality adjusted life year) I guess it's probably somewhere under 1.

Differences in individual biology are much more influential, and matching our own needs contributes a lot more QALYs than eating it as raw as possible or as processed as possible.