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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

#721

Post by brandon272 »

timdorr wrote: post #674
muppetcore12 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tim...I have a lot of sharp words for you now, probably because members of my family have spent many years inside the food industry. 1) I do not doubt the veracity of these claims 2) They are substantiated. It's clearly your research that is not. People die because of this kind of ignorance. If you want me to elaborate, I've got the grizzly details. I wish I didn't.

"They are substantiated. It's clearly your research that is not." Where is the evidence? Link me to one scientific paper or credible news source on this. There is no backing to either your claims or the throwaway account's claims.

Both accounts are throwaways!

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

#722

Post by carrja99 »

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.

> The walls are buzzing. I know this because I have a magnet implanted in my hand and whenever I reach near an outlet I can feel them.

What in the world...?

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

#723

Post by squeaky-clean »

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…

Find me a MRP that has: A balanced amount of nutrients, and not just 600% protein and 10% of everything else. Isn't loaded with sugar so it tastes like a dessert. Isn't filled with artificial sweeteners so it tastes like a fake dessert. And isn't nutritionally designed for body-builders / children / elderly.

I wouldn't mind switching away from Soylent. With articles like this, and their spammy marketing for their new products (no, I don't want a coffee flavored drink, no I don't want a candy bar). But I don't know any other products like it aside from the Soylent clones.

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

#724

Post by ajmurmann »

nemo44x wrote: post #44

A well cooked meal and wine - my greatest joys in life. Simple, romantic and fulfilling. Add butter. Add cream. A beautiful pan sauce from a well timed reduction. A cool glass of white wine in the hot kitchen as all the flavors come together. The scent of fresh cut shallots still lingering as the garlic in the pan sweats. I don't judge anyone for making food and drink a footnote in their life. I enjoy cooking as much…

I love a good meal and often plan my holidays and trips around them. However, lunch at work I an office park makes it hard to get good prepared food. It's also expensive. I love cooking, but I also love other things like programming and ceramics, so my time is limited. Soylent strikes a nice balance between nutrition and convenience for occasions where I don't have time and/or don't want to spend the money. I would not otherwise eat z Chicken McNugget but probably a at best mediocre sandwich or cereal.

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

#725

Post by nsaslideface »

rimantas wrote: post #439
Taek wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eating a meal takes a lot of time. You've got to prepare it, clean up afterwards, and take your mind off of whatever you are doing. Or you have to order it, and then still usually there's some cleanup and interaction. The liquid Soylent is about as disruptive as drinking water. That's really useful to me when I'm sucked into a programming challenge or research task. Sometimes I'll go 3-4 days doing nothing but work a…

"Good morning," said the little prince. "Good morning," said the merchant. This was a merchant who sold pills that had been invented to quench thirst. You need only swallow one pill a week, and you would feel no need of anything to drink. "Why are you selling those?" asked the little prince. "Because they save a tremendous amount of time," said the merchant. "Computations have been made by experts. With these pills,…

"New technology usurps romanticization of older technology" is not a new and surprising concept. One could replace "pill" and "spring of fresh water" with any technological advancement which took over some earlier activity that a subset of the population found and still finds enjoyable to do. Typewriters and computers, bicycles and cars, making a fire using sticks verses using a stove to cook food even.

In my experience no one who treats that idea as novel ever seems to offer a litmus test to tell if the value of technology trumps the potential enjoyment in doing something manually. Does rimantas use stone or metal tools to cook? But the feeling of spinning the tree branch in your hands against the kindling! How greatly rimantas has lost in their fervor for convenience...

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

#727

Post by GrinningFool »

DanBC wrote: post #568
delecti wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Tooth decay: giving your dogs something hard to chew on is essential if you don't relish the idea of brushing your dogs' teeth. If they're not gnawing on actual bones, their teeth aren't get cleaned. Hard chew toys are a good substitute. The only dog I've had with tooth troubles didn't like chewing hard things.

Obesity: that's not a result of an unvaried diet, that's a result of eating too much and/or not enough exercise for the amount of food being given.

Kidney damage: I find it's surprisingly hard to find unbiased information around this that isn't published by pro- and anti-commercial dog food organizations. Even within that subset, documented facts seem rare, and articles read more like scare advertisements to encourage $PREFERRED_FEEDING_METHOD[1]. Anecdotally: after six dogs and three cats that have all lived somewhat to significantly longer than the breed average life span while being fed largely the same food for their entire lives... kidney troubles have never been a problem for us.

1.The closest to consistent info that I could find were statements that high vegetable protein content can cause kidney troubles in older dogs. Even these only showed up on a) "Feed your dog all natural" blog-type-things, b) specialty dog food sellers/manufacturer sites, c) copy lifted from these places largely verbatim and deposited onto other sites.

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

#728

Post by ubercore »

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…

That's not _the_ problem, it just means Soylent isn't for you. Which is cool. I love Soylent 2.0. I'm very happy that I can get a decent chunk of my calories from a vegan source with little effort and lots of convenience.

Maybe it's the way Soylent markets itself, but I don't understand why people are so _personally_ offended by it. Just... don't eat it.

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

#729

Post by livingparadox »

arvinjoar wrote: post #499
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.

It's not a bad attitude though. Experts with authority granted to them in the form of titles have failed us, and keep failing us in so many areas. Ranging from nutrition to psychology, we really shouldn't put their work on a pedestal. Techies are a smart bunch on average and can stomach a lot more complexity than the average joe. It makes sense for them to try to pick up stuff outside of their line of work. Take Elon…

On a side note, disregarding experts is most certainly not what Rob Rinehart is doing. They specifically only regard expert, peer-reviewed literature as authoritative sources for formula changes. Trying to depend on your own analysis is a poor substitute for standing on the shoulders of giants.

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

#730

Post by lazerpants »

codingdave wrote: post #656
ajamesm wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"doing startups is hard, and we all make mistakes along the way" I'd love to see a restaurant use that line. Food safety is hard!

Or a surgeon. "Sorry, but surgery is hard and we all make mistakes along the way!" The statement is actually true... but you need to hold yourself to a higher standard when your product can have an impact on people's health. Of course, stopping the product while investigating the cause sounds like they are taking it seriously, so hopefully it will all work out in the end. But I'm not worried either way - meal replace…

You should go talk to some surgeons during residency. There are systems in place to mitigate the possibility of mistakes, but they do happen during the learning process for new surgeons.
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