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Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

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Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#191

Post by frugalmail »

amelius wrote: post #143
darawk wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say the same thing about the food in any restaurant. I really don't understand the hate that's directed towards this product. Nobody was seriously injured, it was a relatively small number of people that got sick. Soylent is trying to do something more ambitious than other packaged food manufacturers. It's not unreasonable to expect there to be some small hiccups. If you can't tolerate that, then don't buy it…

> You can say the same thing about the food in any restaurant. But Soylent is supposed to be consumable on a daily basis, so long-term effects are important. Remember the documentary Super Size Me, which tested long term effects of food from a certain fast-food restaurant? [1] [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521

That's more entertainment than a real documentary.

Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#192

Post by DanBC »

jacobolus wrote: post #167
DanBC wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They made a specific, clear, medical claim: this product is okay for everyone, even those with allergies. They then made the product with known allergens. How is that okay?

Their product pages all clearly state that they are vegan, lactose-free, nut-free, but are not organic, not certified kosher, not GMO free, not allergen free (“contains soy & gluten”), not gluten-free (e.g. “less than 20 parts-per-million (ppm) of gluten but does not meet the Celiac Support Association gluten-free guidelines.”), and have a list of all ingredients. Your complaint seems to be about one sentence on the…

They kept up with those claims over several versions.

Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#193

Post by frugalmail »

darawk wrote: post #153
glenda wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do stop going to a restaurant once I or someone I know has gotten sick there. Look at Chipotle for instance, they are dealing with similar contamination related problems.

Ya, and there's nothing wrong with that. I wouldn't fault anyone for choosing not to use Soylent because of this. But there seems to be a weird sort of vitriol in the reaction here that doesn't seem like it happened to Chipotle. Perhaps because people see it as an example of the overconfident arrogance of 'tech people'. I'm not sure. But it seems deeply misguided to me. Yes, something has gone wrong. Yes, they are ha…

The whole point of bringing in the discipline associated with release notes and iterations is to make it a lot more transparent than existing food producers. The only problem is that they are not transparent enough with exact quantities and processes anymore.

However, their process is supposed to decrease the number of issues not increase it.

Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#194

Post by akamaka »

Balgair wrote: post #166

Oh boy, another Soylent discussion. Here is what all the off topic discussion will be: Person1) "What is so hard to understand sheeple?! Soylent isn't for all your meals, just ones that you are too busy to eat. Also, it has all the vitamins you need not like all those thousand other bars/drinks!?" Person2) "I'd rather move to the bottom of the ocean than buy Soylent. Why would you ever skip a meal?! Capitalism is the…

You could also say some people like Trump and other people like Clinton, and it's just an opinion. However, one opinion is highly correlated with being more educated.

I suspect that the same is true here. The population at large has a very poor level of education about food, and Soylent seeks to exploit that very large business opportunity.

I would prefer to see more people with an understanding of healthy eating and cooking.

Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#195

Post by PeterisP »

DanBC wrote: post #105
squeaky-clean wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ask this in every thread when it's brought up and almost never get a real answer. Are there any examples of drinks with a flavorless (or very mild) option, that don't focus on imbalanced amounts of protein and body-building? I like Soylent because it's relatively cheap (if I was just going for cost effectiveness, nothing beats bulk-buying beans and rice), I don't get sick of the taste after having it 3 times in a r…

Have you looked at medical product supply houses? There's a wide variety of tube feeding products, and many of those are unflavoured. (There's no point putting flavour in a product delivered into the stomach via a tube through the nose). Some of these are fibre free, and most of them are high calorie, but there are normal calorie and with fibre versions available.

I recall looking them up back when Soylent was just getting started - aren't they horribly expensive, just as most other medical products?

Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#196

Post by dnautics »

hueving wrote: post #179
amelius wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can say the same thing about the food in any restaurant. But Soylent is supposed to be consumable on a daily basis, so long-term effects are important. Remember the documentary Super Size Me, which tested long term effects of food from a certain fast-food restaurant? [1] [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521

That documentary tested overeating well outside the bounds of any sane nutritional guidelines. It's sad that people don't have the critical thinking skills required to realize the same thing would happen if you ate those levels of calories at any restaurant or even at home.

wasn't there a counter-documentary where someone ate from mcdonalds every day and also followed a fairly strict exercise regimen and wound up being way fitter than when he started?

Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#197

Post by jonlucc »

marcosdumay wrote: post #171
glenda wrote: post #4

Sounds like they have a bug in their "food stack" and this modification is like printf debugging - if no one gets sick then it was the algae, otherwise they will need to continue poking around to figure out what's wrong. What a silly game to play when people's health is at stake.

> What a silly game to play when people's health is at stake. Hum... Do you know of any other way to do health research?

For one thing, if this is research, the subjects should know that and the protocol should be approved by an IRB. Instead, they are selling it as a product, so it should meet the standards of safety that other food products do.

Personally, I'm not sure they've failed that, but it shouldn't be allowed under the guise of calling it health research.

Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#198

Post by JohnnyConatus »

amelius wrote: post #143
darawk wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say the same thing about the food in any restaurant. I really don't understand the hate that's directed towards this product. Nobody was seriously injured, it was a relatively small number of people that got sick. Soylent is trying to do something more ambitious than other packaged food manufacturers. It's not unreasonable to expect there to be some small hiccups. If you can't tolerate that, then don't buy it…

> You can say the same thing about the food in any restaurant. But Soylent is supposed to be consumable on a daily basis, so long-term effects are important. Remember the documentary Super Size Me, which tested long term effects of food from a certain fast-food restaurant? [1] [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521

The main point of that documentary was to make the creator famous by doing click-bait style journalism in long-form.

Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#199

Post by DanBC »

PeterisP wrote: post #195
DanBC wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked at medical product supply houses? There's a wide variety of tube feeding products, and many of those are unflavoured. (There's no point putting flavour in a product delivered into the stomach via a tube through the nose). Some of these are fibre free, and most of them are high calorie, but there are normal calorie and with fibre versions available.

I recall looking them up back when Soylent was just getting started - aren't they horribly expensive, just as most other medical products?

They're comparable in price if you're buying in bulk.

I guess if you want quality assurance you're going to have to pay for it.

2015: https://www.reddit.com/r/soylent/comments/3o1uit/a_note_abou...

2016: https://www.reddit.com/r/soylent/comments/4tabm4/found_mold_...

2016: https://www.reddit.com/r/soylent/comments/55q9ga/is_this_mol...

Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#200

Post by jorblumesea »

sowhatquestion wrote: post #154
jorblumesea wrote: post #118

The fact that Soylent is classified as a "Nutritional supplement" is absurd. No inspections, no accountability.

This is false. Soylent is classified as a food, and has to follow the same FDA requirements as any other food. "Soylent is not in violation of any product-safety standards or requirements, and is manufactured in FDA-approved facilities that follow federally regulated current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP)." Source: https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/204197379-Californ...

You just proved my point: cGMP relates to drug safety, not to food consumption. It is not regulated as a food.

http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DevelopmentApprovalProcess/Manufact...

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