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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

#581

Post by chadcmulligan »

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…

yes I agree, the lack of bulk would be one of the many worries I'd have about eating this regularly (if you know what I mean). Is it really that hard to go and pick up some groceries? This would probably keep you alive for a while, but is it really worth it? even prisoners get better food.

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

#582

Post by ommunist »

The idea behind this powder is uberidiotic, because we receive most of nutrients from our intestine microflora, and not from food per se. Diet like this destroys microflora, and here it is - diarrhea! But microfloras are unique to their bearers, there are some general types, of course. You cannot standardize food and not harm your microflora at the same time. So on place of Soylent, I'd run tests on volunteers for microflora replacement first, and then feed them powder. Could be like that: Stage one - 3 days on amoxiclav, 3 days fasting and water. This is cleaning fase. You will be sick, and have diarrhea. Stage 2 - 2 weeks on growing Soylent-compatible microflora, something like genetically modified bifiform. Stage3 - You became happy Soylent eater. But remember - from this time further any normal food except Soylent will make you sick.

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

#583

Post by dilemma »

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.

> Getting rid of my fridge was one of the greatest days of my life.

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

#584

Post by acdha »

tluyben2 wrote: post #253
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.

Somehow this seems like an American thing or maybe people in other places make less of a spectacle of it? Always having too little time, always working and being proud to plan every minute of every day (recently Marissa Mayer and Bill Gates and someone else from the US said in interviews they have every minute of every day planned; sounds like pure hell but he) seems very American. This Soylent thing fits in there. W…

It's an old tradition, too: there are accounts from the early days of the United States talking about how reading is treated as labor rather than the enjoyable affairs which visitors from England, France, etc. were accustomed to.

https://books.google.com/books?id=2uBEAAAAIAAJ&lpg=PA44&ots=...

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

#585

Post by anExcitedBeast »

rl12345 wrote: post #572

Soylent’s product itself has zero novelty in it. Meal Replacement Powders (MRPs) have been around for decades and are popular among the bodybuilding crowd. The only “innovation” Soylent has brought to the table was being the first company to market MRPs to geeks and hipsters -- and that's it. Personally, I've never tried their product because the ingredients they use seemed average/fudged at best (and I tend to avoid…

> Tip: if you care about maximizing the quality of your dietary supplement, research and buy each ingredient individually, and then mix it all up yourself.

That defeats my primary use case for MRP: not needing to think about nutrition. I hate cooking, I hate cleaning, and eating out all the time feels wasteful. I just want quick, healthy meals with a decent shelf life.

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

#586

Post by Mikho »

Lately growth hackers and marketers for some reason consider themself tech companies and disruptors while what they do is just repackage old things that were out there for decades into attractive offering for millennials.

Soylent is a mere marketing company having not real innovation on the product side, not to mention questionable ingredients quality.

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

#587

Post by rl12345 »

anExcitedBeast wrote: post #585
rl12345 wrote: post #572

Soylent’s product itself has zero novelty in it. Meal Replacement Powders (MRPs) have been around for decades and are popular among the bodybuilding crowd. The only “innovation” Soylent has brought to the table was being the first company to market MRPs to geeks and hipsters -- and that's it. Personally, I've never tried their product because the ingredients they use seemed average/fudged at best (and I tend to avoid…

> Tip: if you care about maximizing the quality of your dietary supplement, research and buy each ingredient individually, and then mix it all up yourself. That defeats my primary use case for MRP: not needing to think about nutrition. I hate cooking, I hate cleaning, and eating out all the time feels wasteful. I just want quick, healthy meals with a decent shelf life.

It requires you a little more upfront work indeed but once you have your stack mixed and stored it gets as practical as with any other MRP.

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

#588

Post by adrianm »

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.

This has to be satire. Right? Please be satire.

Thanks for sharing this though, I was previously under the impression Soylent was created by someone relatively sane.

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

#589

Post by d0lph »

DanBC wrote: post #397
magila wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ensure is not intended to be used as a complete nutrition source, so it's not surprising that subsisting on it for long periods would cause problems. For long term use a nutritionally complete formula should be used such as Jevity or Twocal (made by the same company that makes Ensure).

> Ensure is not intended to be used as a complete nutrition source, Why did Soylent promote it like that? When did that message change? On the front page at Soylent they have "We engineer foods that offer complete nutrition, value, and convenience." -- here "complete nutrition" means it can be used as a sole source of nutrition. On their about page they say "Soylent™ is a pioneer in food technology, producing conveni…

Ensure is not made by Soylent.

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

#590

Post by mpg33 »

rl12345 wrote: post #572

Soylent’s product itself has zero novelty in it. Meal Replacement Powders (MRPs) have been around for decades and are popular among the bodybuilding crowd. The only “innovation” Soylent has brought to the table was being the first company to market MRPs to geeks and hipsters -- and that's it. Personally, I've never tried their product because the ingredients they use seemed average/fudged at best (and I tend to avoid…

I'm not even a "foodie" person and the idea of just eating these meal replacements all the time seems like being in "food prison."
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