Soylent on the latest Vice piece • Hacker News Board

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#161

Post by lambda » Wed, Nov 13, 2013, 2:55 AM UTC

aianus wrote: post #136

lambda wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how much of a problem some people here seem to have with normal food (though it only seems to have happened after seeing the Soylent marketing materials, I didn't know anyone who complained about how much trouble eating was before the Soylent hype), it's hard to tell if you're being sarcastic or serious. I suppose I've just run up against the Silicon Valley Hype Machine version of Poe's Law. Given how bad the h…

I've been complaining about how much trouble eating was since I realized I was underweight maybe 6-7 years ago. I've narrowed it down to some kind of mental problem that makes me chew 3-5x longer than other people. I therefore get full 3-5x sooner and it's hard to eat enough calories. I've tried supplements and eating very dense foods (lots of grease and carbs) with lukewarm results but if Soylent works as promised,…

OK, so it was a mix of sarcastic and serious. Good to know.

Sure, there may be some people in specialized circumstances that have problems with normal food, though there are a lot of options already (smoothies, existing meal replacements like Ensure, possibly even bodybuilding focused meal replacements as they tend to focus on being high-calorie, soups, etc). And yeah, Soylent does seem like the ultimate first-world-problem food.

Anyhow, good luck with trying to get more calories in your diet, and if Soylent helps you with that, all the better!

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#162

Post by MarcusVorenus » Wed, Nov 13, 2013, 3:05 AM UTC

djur wrote: post #132

MarcusVorenus wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such option was not presented in the hypothetical scenario. It'd be trivial anyway to make the tasteless goop tasty with some flavorings.

If you think it is "trivial" to make a bland substance taste good without substantially changing the nutritional makeup of that substance, there are a lot of diet food companies who would like to have a chat with you and make you fabulously rich. Jamba Juice would like to know the secret, too. Most things that innately taste good -- stuff that you could drop in a blender and drink and it'd still be agreeable -- are f…

I guess I should have said it would be trivial to make it tastier for my own non-demanding taste buds. I could just add a few drops of stevia and I'd be good to go, but I see how it could be a challenge to make something that pleases most people.

"Fatty" is not a synonym for unhealthy by the way. A lot of people consider high fat/low carb diets to be healthier than the reverse.

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#163

Post by gotrecruit » Wed, Nov 13, 2013, 3:11 AM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #160

jonnathanson wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally speaking, I think the B2B market makes a lot of sense for Soylent. Especially sales to the military, space agencies, and maybe even white labeling for big food companies. In the consumer space, sure, you have some "Valley geeks" who see food as more of a burden to be solved than a source of enjoyment or socialization. But you've also got folks like athletes, both professional and amateur (a much bigger con…

I love good food. But I fall in the amateur athlete category, and for me getting the right nutrition mix is a massive chore on a day to day basis. I would never go to just Soylent, but I'd love to experiment with substituting a number of meals with it.

as an amateur athlete, it's time you learn about sports supplements. if you had, you'll come to realize there are many meal replacement products that can easily satisfy your needs and that has been around for decades. EAS myoplex is the first that comes to mind that not only has a lot of important nutrients, but actually tastes pretty good in my opinion.

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#164

Post by girvo » Wed, Nov 13, 2013, 3:25 AM UTC

selmnoo wrote: post #147

sneak wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I'd received my first shipment of Soylent in New York, it arrived in the office in a white UPS box—and the yellowish crust-dust was packed into barely-sealed Ziploc bags. How is something barely sealed? It is either sealed or it isn't. They're trying hard to play up the amateur hour part, and that bit with the doctor's "I don't recommend it" where she lists the social aspects of food after she was holding an e…

> They're trying hard to play up the amateur hour part, and that bit with the doctor's "I don't recommend it" where she lists the social aspects of food after she was holding an existing commercial meal replacement drink was pure sensationalism. What? I like rooting for the underdog newcomer and all but will you please settle down. The social aspects of food are pretty freaking relevant and worth talking about in an…

Text is horrible at getting emotions across, granted, but it seems like you're more upset (about GP's post) than he is about the Vice piece...

To me, the Vice article was okay. It certainly wasn't a smear piece, but it did (deliberately?) structure things or not talk about important stuff that would cause controversy. For me, I think Soylent isn't for me at all, but for such an extended article on it it sure missed some very important information. This gives the impression of trying to smear Soylent.

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#165

Post by thinkalone » Wed, Nov 13, 2013, 3:30 AM UTC

mcphilip wrote: post #143

tptacek wrote: post #2

Wow. Exactly the right response. I would never have paid any attention to Soylent's agreement with a large HACCP-certified manufacturer before, but Vice's story actually made that relevant to me. They might actually pick up customers from this shitstorm. Argh! But, well played.

It's hard to imagine the type of person that would be on the fence about Soylent that would be ok with it after reading this article. Hopefully the "it was beta" excuse for producing Soylent in an unhealthy environment won't fly outside of SV culture. If anything, it should bring up serious doubts about the integrity of a team that, when faced with overwhelming demand and flush with investor cash, stoop to a level of…

Isn't it just the first behind-the-scenes look at food production for most of us? A rat scurrying by on camera just looks worse than what frequently goes on in the storage room of your or my local food market.

As far as the "beta testing on strangers" aspect, I'd point you to sneak's comment[1], which sums up the slight absurdity of requiring one food to be rigorously tested and adhere to some hypothetical standard. I frequently eat MetRx "meal replacement bars"[2] and I don't assume they are held to any rigorous trials. After some cursory research, I don't even know if Plumpy'nut[3] is held to any standard, aside from beta testing it on starving children and seeing if they improve.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6722836

[2] http://www.metrx.com/protein-bars/

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy'nut

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#166

Post by vidarh » Wed, Nov 13, 2013, 3:30 AM UTC

gotrecruit wrote: post #163

vidarh wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love good food. But I fall in the amateur athlete category, and for me getting the right nutrition mix is a massive chore on a day to day basis. I would never go to just Soylent, but I'd love to experiment with substituting a number of meals with it.

as an amateur athlete, it's time you learn about sports supplements. if you had, you'll come to realize there are many meal replacement products that can easily satisfy your needs and that has been around for decades. EAS myoplex is the first that comes to mind that not only has a lot of important nutrients, but actually tastes pretty good in my opinion.

The condescending tone is unwarranted and distasteful.

Especially when you so totally miss the point of Soylent vs. sports supplements like Myoplex: The latter are not in any way trying to provide the same. They generally aim for roughly a certain mix of proteins, carbs and fats + various mixes of other ingredients that often seem to be chosen mostly to be buzzword complete.

In fact, here's some sales copy regarding Myoplex:

"EAS recommends supplementing your diet with 2-3 high quality Myoplex nutrition shakes along with 3-4 whole food meals a day to ensure that any nutritional "gaps" are filled. "

I use a lot of supplements - for my protein intake I use or have used a variety of shakes, bars, muffins (yes...), cookies, to complement my high protein "real foods". To date I have never found a sports supplement that tastes nice without being way too high calorie for my use, but I can tolerate that for the convenience.

But more importantly: most sport supplements are very limited in their overall nutritional profile. For a reason - for protein heavy products people tend to focus on whey and to a lesser extent casein, and most products aim to minimize other ingredients unless that are products for specific other purposes, such as weight gainers etc. They're supplements for occasional meal replacement. They are not intended to replace food in general.

And exactly what appeals to me about Soylent is that it might provide a good alternative to fill those "nutritional gaps" mentioned in the Myoplex sales copy, which are pretty much inevitable if you were to stick with only regular sports supplements. As I said: I'm not interested in replacing food entirely, but having something available that I can have reasonable confidence is reasonably complete, that I know the calorie content of by volume, so it's easy to measure and keep track, and that is quick and convenient for when I don't have the time or want the hassle of sorting out a proper meal would be great.

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#167

Post by nitrogen » Wed, Nov 13, 2013, 3:42 AM UTC

md224 wrote: post #54

contextual wrote: post #10

Soylent will likely become a billion dollar global enterprise, and even "disrupt" the food industry. It will also ultimately be a failure and frowned upon in modern society. Why? Because a Soylent-saturated world would rob families and loved ones of the ritual and benefits of eating together. Eating together civilizes people. It's emotionally and socially edifying. Studies show that families that dine together stay t…

> I'm glad to see so many people disagree with me. It means I'm on the right track. Does anyone else find this "first they ignore you" style of belief-reinforcement to be vaguely troubling? Don't get me wrong, you shouldn't just believe your critics without further inquiry, but the presence of critics shouldn't be used as supporting evidence in and of itself . You risk creating a kind of insular belief system where a…

Does anyone else find this "first they ignore you" style of belief-reinforcement to be vaguely troubling?

I vote that we colloquially dub this the "fight makes right" fallacy. And yes, I find it more than vaguely troubling.

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#168

Post by Scramblejams » Wed, Nov 13, 2013, 3:50 AM UTC

munificent wrote: post #109

Scramblejams wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now if only I could get everyone to stop using the word "performant." Good heavens, let's not rely on rusty old words like efficient or fast!

I dislike jargon, but in this case, neither "efficient" nor "fast" captures the same concept as "performant". First, both are open-ended and relative. "Fast" and "efficient" compared to what? A cheetah is "fast", but it's not fast if I'm trying to use them to propel fighter jets. If I say, "my code is fast", am I saying it's fast enough for the problem at hand? Faster than it was before? Fast compared to most other c…

Plenty fast and not fast enough just don't do it then, huh?

No, "performant" is one of those words which is usually chosen to flatter the speaker, not because it imparts some meaning which is so difficult to describe without it.

When it comes to technical topics, amateurs write to impress. Professionals write for clarity.

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#169

Post by sneak » Wed, Nov 13, 2013, 4:04 AM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #152

sneak wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That should not change the standards they are held to. Nobody's forcing people to eat soylent 24/7, any more than they're forcing people to eat supersized big macs for three meals a day.

Except food is held to a different standard than supplements. Soylent is regulated as a supplement, but sold and promoted as a food. People aren't asking for weird amounts of scrutiny, just for the same amount of regulation as the rest of the food chain. Seeing the filthy conditions that the beta product was made in was surprising - the founders knowing how bad it was but continuing to ship beta product to paying bet…

None of those were paying customers - it was private, invite-only promo only.

None of the paying customers orders' have shipped yet. That happens in January, and those orders are being prepared professionally.

Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece

#170

Post by pkinsky » Wed, Nov 13, 2013, 4:09 AM UTC

jebus989 wrote: post #33

The fact a rat was spotted in a dusty old warehouse isn't really worth addressing. From what I've learned so far, the only factor letting this product down for me is the price. I'd guess $65/w is around what I'm spending on food now. Do we have any idea of their margin? Is the price expected to decrease once they get a decent production line up?

Food prep in a dusty old warehouse is, however.