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

#741

Post by lazerpants » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 3:37 PM UTC

kaitai wrote: post #629

the_duke wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cooking still takes time. For anything decent, you need AT LEAST 30 minutes, usually more like 60+. And then comes the cleaning of pots, pans, filling the dishwasher. That's a WHOLE HOUR I could be wasting my time on HN instead!

I'm sitting here eating my scrambled-eggs breakfast taco. Fry eggs, fry taco (for decadence), add veggie condiments that are already prepared, eat. I even use a cast-iron skillet so I don't have to wash it, just rinse & leave on the burner a minute. 10 min. Cookbook author Melissa Joulwan has an algorithmic approach to weekly meal prep that results in delicious and easy weekday meals, if you're willing to make the "c…

You can, and maybe should, wash cast iron skillets...

http://www.seriouseats.com/2016/09/how-to-clean-maintain-cas...

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

#742

Post by livingparadox » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 3:37 PM UTC

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?

If Ramen were nutritionally complete to a reasonably modern understanding of Human nutrition

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

#743

Post by splawn » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 3:42 PM UTC

dave_sullivan wrote: post #682

splawn wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution is not an optimizer for health. It is an optimizer for breeding and nothing more. The only optimizer for health that I know of is medical science. EDIT: Also I think the term we should actually be using is "Natural Selection" rather than "Evolution" in this case.

> Also I think the term we should actually be using is "Natural Selection" rather than "Evolution" in this case. Nope, I'm using it in the "evolutionary algorithm", "evolution as mathematical optimization" sense. > It is an optimizer for breeding and nothing more. I really disagree there. Humans did not evolve in a vacuum; their are a ton of systems and subsystems that evolved across different species leading up to h…

Ok, I now see how you were using the word "evolution". For some reason the fact that you were addressing the "natural fallacy camp" made me think you were talking about human evolution and its role in our eating habits, my mistake.

As far as your disagreement goes... Perhaps "breeding" wasn't the 100% accurate thing to say, but natural selection is the process that decides what genes to pass to the next generation causing evolution... if you really disagree with that you are not disagreeing with me personally, you are disagreeing with over 200 yrs of science spanning many fields.

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

#744

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 3:43 PM UTC

arcadeparade wrote: post #737

lexhaynes wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on these rumors?

Read on Twitter a while ago about a guy who ate almost nothing but Soylent for two months and started getting joint pain and trembling, and was falling over a lot. Then there was a comment by someone on Reddit who started having seizures and anxiety and blamed Soylent. Seems crazy that people are just eating nothing but this stuff for months on end and not thinking about the consequences.

I'm anti-Soylent, but I'm not sure I'd classify "two random anonymous internet anecdotes" as "disturbing".

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

#745

Post by Mordak » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 3:45 PM UTC

harveywi wrote: post #626

ghaff wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone marketed this type of product as a reasonably nutritious meal on the go as an alternative to grabbing a Big Mac or a soggy slice of pizza, it would be utterly unobjectionable--and no one would pay it the slightest mind. So instead we get this narrative around meal replacement for Silicon Valley types who are too busy advancing Western civilization with a Facebook for Farmers to have time to eat.

What's wrong with skipping a meal? (While we're on the subject, what's right about it?) Folks have been sold a solution to a problem that does not exist. Marketing and its various permutations wins again. The use case of this aptly-named "Soylent" product is a load of hooey. When the military starts using meal replacement powders instead of MREs, then I will reconsider my position on this issue.

> When the military starts using meal replacement powders instead of MREs, then I will reconsider my position on this issue.

The primary challenge with feeding soldiers in the field is not efficiently delivering nutritionally complete food to them, it is getting them to eat it day after day after day. Soldiers get bored eating the same things over and over again and eventually this drives them to stop eating, which negatively affects their performance.

It was technically feasible to replace rations with meal replacement powders decades ago, but the reason that MREs continue to be a variety of real food items is because they are more likely to be eaten that way. Even with all the variety, most US and Canadian rations include hot sauce to add optional variety to the same set of packaged meals for those who happen to eat a lot of them. This is also why MREs include heater bags - because hot food is more likely to be consumed than cold. Incidentally, this is also why personnel tend to love other nations' ration packs and disparage their own - not because they're better, but because they're not sick of them.

Food Officers take this stuff pretty seriously, and put a lot of effort into delivering nutritionally complete food to soldiers that they will actually enjoy eating. Meal replacement powders don't cut it in this environment.

As for Soylent, the primary use case I have seen is convenience. In this role, it's better than many other convenience foods, so I can see why some people go for it.

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

#746

Post by 0-9 » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 3:46 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.

A hybrid of hubris and chutzpah

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

#747

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 3:47 PM UTC

LoSboccacc wrote: post #442

wuschel wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on the data they are collecting? The human body with it's organs and molecular pathways is quite a tough black box to crack, and there is not a spark of a doubt that Soylent - and no one else - will not understand it for quite a while. And then there is human human variations. The concept was flawed from the very beginning. It's sad to see them fail, and I feel bad for the people that suffer becau…

well human response to soylent is already a huge data set, was used so far to add/remove/rebalance stuff and of course drive recalls. > there is not a spark of a doubt that Soylent - and no one else - will not understand it for quite a while I agree but at some point this work should begin somewhere, somehow.

> well human response to soylent is already a huge data set

"People love it" isn't a rigorous double-blind scientific study.

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

#748

Post by batbomb » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 3:48 PM UTC

rgbrenner wrote: post #98

nether wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rhinehart asserted from the start that Soylent was meant to replace shitty meals like the Big Mac consumed at your desk alone. There was and still is a lot of misunderstanding about this. One of his interviews took place at some LA hipster fried chicken place. He's not antifood or antisocial.

He asserted this from the start??? Here's the Tilt crowdfunding page: https://wayback.archive.org/web/20141012152640/https://crowd... Note, it's titled "Soylent Free Your Body". Here are some phrases in the short post: "What if you never had to worry about food again?" "Soylent frees you from the time and money spent shopping, cooking and cleaning, puts you in excellent health, and vastly reduces your environmental i…

Don't forget:

"Soylent™ was developed from a need for a simpler food source."

"No need to shop for individual ingredients or plan ahead" (I think this one was Mealsquares)

"You’ve got more important things to do than worry about food."

"Enjoy a 26 hour day"

I wrote a parody post based on the marketing on the web page and my own personal outrage with the claims:

https://medium.com/@__1/on-food-and-not-cooking-4c9fba0d2d20

I still believe my note is true:

    Note: Neither Soylent nor Mealsquares make any public claims that I could find, 
    beneficial or otherwise, about using their product for the complete nutrition 
    of women, especially those expecting or nursing, children, teenagers, the 
    elderly, or people with medical conditions, including malnutrition. I think 
    it’s probably optimized for healthy males, aged 20–40-ish, or in the words 
    of Soylent: “All Adults”, but I don’t have a B.S. in Electrical Engineering 
    like Rob, so I probably shouldn’t comment. 
    
    Please proceed at your own risk just in case.

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

#749

Post by squeaky-clean » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 3:49 PM UTC

debaserab2 wrote: post #198

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…

> Some people really enjoy flossing. Who does exactly? Food, to me, represents more than replenishment of nutrition. It represents meeting and understanding my coworkers. Learning more about my significant other or unwinding with this person to talk about our week. Even when it's not a social situation, for me it's a treat. I completed some work and now I should treat myself by revitalizing my body with a substance t…

> Eating couldn't be any more be the opposite. It's something that all humans can relate to and bond over no matter what your opinions are.

I generally don't like food. Sometimes I crave something specific, or want to eat at a nice place. But 6 out of 7 days out of the week, food just isn't appealing to me, and is a chore to eat. It's basically like flossing.

Ever since a time when I was a teen and had to fast because of an esophagus problem, I haven't really felt hunger the same way. It's possible for me to go a few days without eating and not notice it or feel hungry. I can tell when I'm very hungry because I get lightheaded and weak around day 3. (Note, I don't do this intentionally and it isn't often I go days without eating).

So Soylent (or equivalent) is really helpful in making sure I get some food everyday.

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

#750

Post by dasil003 » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 3:52 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #462

dasil003 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attitude is exactly bothered me about the CEO of Soylent when he was first doing PR about the product years ago. It's not a question of being "natural" per se, it's the question of trace elements and how our body metabolizes food. Food is not just a pile of molecules, it's a particular organization of molecules. How your body digests it matters. A bunch of milled and refined powders of macronutrients is simply n…

>>It's not a question of being "natural" per se, it's the question of trace elements and how our body metabolizes food. Food is not just a pile of molecules, it's a particular organization of molecules. How your body digests it matters. A bunch of milled and refined powders of macronutrients is simply not the same as anything we've evolved to eat over the last X million years. How different is it? That's hard to say,…

This is science-worship attitude that is prevalent among a certain type of personality, usually a person who prizes their own logical thinking and objectivity, and thus more easily misses their own biases. Essentially you're using "natural" as a dog whistle that says my argument is wrong and the Soylent CEO is right. But the only reason you feel that way is because he fits the sort of engineer-type logical thinker which you trust. It's all emotions.

Here is the hard truth: there is no science here on either side. There's a subjective judgement about how complete our knowledge is. I say nutritional science is still in the dark ages and therefore we don't have evidence to conclude a pile of molecules is the same as traditional food, Soylent CEO says nutritional science is "pretty good" and the only thing that matters about food are its measured consituents and there in the absence of evidence we should just assume that eating the exact same thing in liquid form at metered intervals should be perfectly healthy.

For you to suggest he is arguing from first principles is absolutely ridiculous, his argument is chock full of hubris and assumptions. It's very very wrong to hold that up as an example of sound scientific thinking.