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Soylent International

blog.soylent.me

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Re: Soylent International

#71

Post by jljljl »

Afforess wrote: post #44
tokenadult wrote: post #20

This is perhaps the worst example of people who learn their science and medicine from reading Reddit that I have yet seen in the Hacker News community. It illustrates the fallibility of human nature behind every new business scheme, and shows that a business doesn't have to be a big, multinational publicly traded corporation to engage in business with little regard for customer safety or public benefit. AFTER EDIT: I…

I find the HN hate for this guy incredible. The NSA is less loathed. Do you need to be a nutritionist with a PhD to open a restaurant? Why does he need to be one?

You don't need a nutrition Ph.D to open a restaurant, but if you are going to claim that your restaurant provides certain health benefits, or that it is specifically tailored to certain body types and lifestyles, being a trained nutritionist who can support your claims with data makes you much more credible.

Re: Soylent International

#72

Post by jamesaguilar »

chasing wrote: post #41
jamesaguilar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that you don't actually know where this guy learned his science and medicine. Let people experiment on themselves. IMO there are enough humans that if a few get slightly ill from this, it is worth it for the chance that it does work (which seems significant given the experimentation he did on himself, the presence of similar, competing products, etc.).

Rob Rhinehart's bio starts: "Rob is a Y Combinator alumnus with professional experience in electrical engineering, computer science and entrepreneurship." If he had some powerful degree in nutrition or a medical degree, it would be mentioned in this sentence. It's not. He doesn't. And he's not experimenting on himself. He's selling a product that he's advertising as a food replacement with all sorts of health benefit…

The person I'm responding to claimed that he learned the science from Reddit. I am not claiming he learned it in medical school. I'm claiming that there's no evidence he got it from Reddit.

> As far as "it's cool if a few people get sick..." Are you insane?

They know what they are getting themselves into. I don't have any problem with people who choose to binge drink or the alcohol manufacturers that sell that product. If people know what they are getting themselves into -- and they'd have to go out of their way to not know with this product -- I'm normally OK with the outcome. Especially if the probable worst-case outcome is a few months of suboptimal nutrition followed by a return to a normal diet. Nope, not insane.

Re: Soylent International

#73

Post by jamesaguilar »

jljljl wrote: post #61
jamesaguilar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that you don't actually know where this guy learned his science and medicine. Let people experiment on themselves. IMO there are enough humans that if a few get slightly ill from this, it is worth it for the chance that it does work (which seems significant given the experimentation he did on himself, the presence of similar, competing products, etc.).

One of the reasons we have consumer protection laws and the FDA is so that people _don't_ have to experiment on themselves in order to verify the more extravagant claims made by products. People should have a reasonable expectation that when they buy a product, it will work as expected and as advertised. And they should have recourse if this turns out not to be the case.

I'd totally have a problem with this if it were being advertised as a highly tested, rock solid product rather than a nutritional experiment. Since that's not the case, I'm fine with it.

Re: Soylent International

#74

Post by jamesaguilar »

jessedhillon wrote: post #34
jamesaguilar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that you don't actually know where this guy learned his science and medicine. Let people experiment on themselves. IMO there are enough humans that if a few get slightly ill from this, it is worth it for the chance that it does work (which seems significant given the experimentation he did on himself, the presence of similar, competing products, etc.).

I agree with the first part of your comment. But let's not play up his self-experimentation as anything more than whimsical. His result are not significant in any way. Ffs he has been on it for how long? Months? Maybe a year? And n=1 as well.

Right, for me "chance that this does work" is valued somewhere around 5-25% right now. It is worth that chance for more people to try it and really see.

Re: Soylent International

#75

Post by chasing »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #72
chasing wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rob Rhinehart's bio starts: "Rob is a Y Combinator alumnus with professional experience in electrical engineering, computer science and entrepreneurship." If he had some powerful degree in nutrition or a medical degree, it would be mentioned in this sentence. It's not. He doesn't. And he's not experimenting on himself. He's selling a product that he's advertising as a food replacement with all sorts of health benefit…

The person I'm responding to claimed that he learned the science from Reddit. I am not claiming he learned it in medical school. I'm claiming that there's no evidence he got it from Reddit. > As far as "it's cool if a few people get sick..." Are you insane? They know what they are getting themselves into. I don't have any problem with people who choose to binge drink or the alcohol manufacturers that sell that produc…

Really? I've got to explain the difference between something touted as a health supplement / meal replacement and booze? (Which, if you'll notice, is covered in warnings and regulated out the wazoo.)

Re: Soylent International

#76

Post by jamesaguilar »

chasing wrote: post #75
jamesaguilar wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person I'm responding to claimed that he learned the science from Reddit. I am not claiming he learned it in medical school. I'm claiming that there's no evidence he got it from Reddit. > As far as "it's cool if a few people get sick..." Are you insane? They know what they are getting themselves into. I don't have any problem with people who choose to binge drink or the alcohol manufacturers that sell that produc…

Really? I've got to explain the difference between something touted as a health supplement / meal replacement and booze? (Which, if you'll notice, is covered in warnings and regulated out the wazoo.)

> I've got to explain the difference between . . .

My point is merely that I'm fine with people choosing to do risky things as long as the risk involved is obvious. I'd be a little more comfortable with this campaign page if they made slightly less grandiose promises, but for the most part I think the people ordering it will be aware of the shallowness of the testing so far and can decide for themselves if that is a risk they are willing to accept.

Re: Soylent International

#77

Post by chasing »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #76
chasing wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I've got to explain the difference between something touted as a health supplement / meal replacement and booze? (Which, if you'll notice, is covered in warnings and regulated out the wazoo.)

> I've got to explain the difference between . . . My point is merely that I'm fine with people choosing to do risky things as long as the risk involved is obvious. I'd be a little more comfortable with this campaign page if they made slightly less grandiose promises, but for the most part I think the people ordering it will be aware of the shallowness of the testing so far and can decide for themselves if that is a…

Despite my snark, I do understand what you're saying. It's the "as long as the risk involved is obvious" part that bothers me. Soylent has had a presence on sites like Hacker News, so we kind of know what it's about. But not everyone does. And I really do believe that honest food labeling is very, very important.

They're passing this off as a cure. That's what really irks me. None of the presentation I've seen so far communicates "participate in our experiment!" It's all stuff like "For anyone who struggles with allergies, heartburn, acid reflux or digestion, has trouble controlling weight or cholesterol, or simply doesn't have the means to eat well, soylent is for you." That's a health claim they simple can't back up in any reasonable way. And it's a claim that many people are likely to assume is true! Not everyone will dig into the site and see that Rhinehart has a background in engineering, not nutrition, and that these claims haven't actually been backed up at all. You and I might know to do that, but many people won't. Which is why we have food labeling laws in the first place.

Re: Soylent International

#78

Post by jamesaguilar »

chasing wrote: post #77
jamesaguilar wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've got to explain the difference between . . . My point is merely that I'm fine with people choosing to do risky things as long as the risk involved is obvious. I'd be a little more comfortable with this campaign page if they made slightly less grandiose promises, but for the most part I think the people ordering it will be aware of the shallowness of the testing so far and can decide for themselves if that is a…

Despite my snark, I do understand what you're saying. It's the "as long as the risk involved is obvious" part that bothers me. Soylent has had a presence on sites like Hacker News, so we kind of know what it's about. But not everyone does. And I really do believe that honest food labeling is very, very important. They're passing this off as a cure. That's what really irks me. None of the presentation I've seen so far…

I agree that that sentence is very unfortunate. It's in total contradiction to what they say below, which is that Soylent has not been evaluated by the FDA to treat any disease.

Re: Soylent International

#79

Post by DanBC »

Soylent have mentioned world hunger. Here's how the World Food Programme tackle it: (https://www.wfp.org/nutrition/how-wfp-fights-malnutrition)

Here's the list of WFP food products (https://www.wfp.org/nutrition/special-nutritional-products) - especially look at the price. I guess they're making full use of charitable status and economies of scale.

Here's Plumpy'Nut, a fortified food product for starving children (http://www.irinnews.org/report/83124/malawi-cheaper-recipe-f...)

EDIT: And even here micronutrient powders are nothing new. See the link to DSM embedded in WFP page above. Here's their corporate page (http://www.dsm.com/corporate/investors.html). They're pretty big.

Note that an important part of Soylent, which is offloaded onto the consumer, is a source of clean water. Much of the world, especially in the target hungry world market, does not have access to clean water. I think people would criticise Soylent for that, so it's something for them to be thinking about.

I have no idea how Soylent is in anyway "disruptive" to that market.

Ignoring the "fixing world hunger" bit, liquid foods are not new. Here's a list:

(http://ensure.com/) Ensure

(https://www.nutricia.co.uk/fortisip//) Fortisip

(http://www.complan.com/) Complan

(http://abbottnutrition.com/brands/abbott-brands) Abbott Nutrition Brands

(http://www.medifast1.com/index.jsp) Medifast

(http://www.optifast.com/Pages/index.aspx) Optifast

(http://www.slim-fast.com/products/) Slimfast

Again - I have no idea how Soylent are disruptive.

Selling into other markets is interesting. I hope they've put disclaimers on some of the more outrageous claims, or they may find resistance. For example "For anyone who struggles with allergies, heartburn, acid reflux or digestion, has trouble controlling weight or cholesterol, or simply doesn't have the means to eat well, soylent is for you." contains medical claims which are treated very differently in the UK than they are in the US.

I see no evidence that Soylent have done any research at all.

Re: Soylent International

#80

Post by superkamiguru »

Afforess wrote: post #49
superkamiguru wrote: post #39

I'm not liking how they are going about this at all. They should ensure it is safe first before trying to sell everywhere. I don't like the perception of their intents.

And you need money to do that. Or is crowdfunding now not cool?

They aren't crowdfunding with the intent of verifying the safety of their product. They are just crowdfunding to make ample amount of product to start the cycle of selling. The fact that they already have anticipated shipping dates shows that verifying the use of this product from a health standpoint is secondary to their goals.

Why soylent has intrigued me since this first started out. The way they are going about everything makes it feel so much like snake oil...

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