Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

Inexcusable.

The only reason Soylent have gotten away with it for so long is that the FDA rules for this category of product haven't been written yet.

A product shouldn't make people sick when used as intended. So if a product is intended to be consumed as 100% of your diet, it MUST:

- contain all known macro- and micro-nutrients necessary for human health

- contain nothing that makes you sick when you eat it all the time

Soylent failed on both counts:

- Early formulations lacked selenium. Beta testers duly developed symptoms of selenium deficiency.

- The latest formulation contained algae. Customers duly got sick from consuming more of this kind of algae than humans have ever consumed before.

The first mistake might be excused as a beginner's error and a learning experience. But they didn't learn. Luckily, Soylent lives in the land of class action lawsuits. The lawyers are gonna shut these jokers down.

> This isn't a tech app, this isn't a linux distro. This is a general consumer facing product.

I thought you said it was clearly an experimental beta. They can't have it both ways, where they get a pass for any problems they encounter because it's experimental and not fully beta-tested (and thus not yet ready for general consumption) and they get a pass on vague marketing because it's a general consumer-facing product (which means it's considered "ready" for the general consumer).

> They're using experimental products, which they are up-front about

No, they aren't. That is the entire point I was making in the comment you're replying to. Their marketing doesn't claim to be any more "experimental" than the countless other brands that call themselves innovative.

I don't mean to harp on Soylent, because I mean, I'm not sure how many people were aware that this allergy even existed. Stuff like this happens even to much larger companies. But I think it's reasonable to hold them to the same standards as any other company producing food for the general market, not treat them as though they're in some hazy "public beta food" state that grants carte blanche.

> The population at large has a very poor level of education about food, and Soylent seeks to exploit that very large business opportunity.

Conceptually, the advantages of a product such as Soylent includes long shelf-life, reducing the frequency and time needed to shop food, offering healthy fast-food meals, having a lower carbon footprint and being more sustainable than regular food, reducing the time spent preparing food, being cheaper than other sources of ready-made food (with basis in my own budget). These are not trivial advantages if fully realized, and it seems reductive to reduce the advantages of Soylent to just being a product for people poorly educated about food.

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

I believe most people who eat healthy basically just follow hand-wavy norms and guidelines about what is considered healthy, e.g. include fish and vegetables in your diet (simplified). Once someone actually tries to engineer a complete diet such as Soylent it becomes apparent how hard it is to guarantee rich completeness. However, in the long run I believe the engineering approach, based on scientific input, is more likely to result in a proper diet. Especially when in the long run a "Soylent version X" can be based on a closed loop with personal body telemetry and customized food mixes based on these sensor readings.

Good lord. The percentage of people who 'got sick' by Soylent was less 0.1% of all consumers. If we went into panic-mode for that kind of result for every product, we wouldn't have any products. The variation in humans is too great to test for everything.

"The Lawyers" aren't going to shut anyone down because no one is suing, and if they tried I doubt any judge would allow a class-action lawsuit for a few tummyaches.

Soylent lists the ingredients on the box. That the consumers were unaware of their sensitivity to algae is not evidence of misconduct on the part of Soylent.

Food poisoning is bad food prep techniques.Restaurants generally provide food with ingredients within an expected band, prepared in an expected way.

Soylent using experimental ingredients in their products and finding out that they are irritating some users is not the same thing.

If a restaurant told me they used all sorts of "new" industrial ingredients than I would likely balk. I would not want to be in on that beta program.

Especially since, you know, it's likely they are pursuing new ingredients all the time to improve their margins, not the food quality, taste or nutrition.