I would be very, very interested to see the long-term consequences of an exclusively Soylent diet. I suspect the lack of phytochemicals would lead to increased incidences of cancer. That said, I would also guess that millions (billions?) of people have far worse diets.
Soylent on the latest Vice piece
171–180 of 205 posts
Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece
#172Earlier 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…
You are counting out lazy people. There are lots of lazy people who find it even a burden to grocery shop, unpack and microwave food.
Jeez, where are we heading to?
I would consider 'microwave food' as lazy. Food is the at most basic necessity of your body, with air, water, shelter and clothes.
Are people really so busy that you can't get off your keyboard to eat something? I am not sure if that is the case merely using Soylent is going to fix any of your problems.
Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because there's nothing I love more than factory farmed animal protein and excessive, unneeded carbohydrates. Delicious cheeseburger? Have you even eaten at a McDonalds?
McDonalds is fucking delicious. I'd still much rather put bland goop into my body considering how terrible the contents of a Big 'n' Tasty combo meal is for my health.
I'm pretty darn sure the bland goop eaten in the same quantity is as equally dangerous.
Ever heard of the term 'balanced diet'?
Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my mind, I think of Soylent as "food for people who don't like food". In the same way I think of Nickelback or American Idol as "music for people who don't like music". There are millions of these people worldwide. But yes, obviously this doesn't apply to 100% of all people.
Actually I like food a lot, it's just that health is more important to me than taste. After all, the pleasure we get from tasty food only lasts a moment, while the pleasure we get from having a healthy body and mind lasts a lifetime.
I agree with your main point that long-term health is very important, but I'm hoping you're not saying that healthy food and tasty food are mutually exclusive.
Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece
#175I don't really understand why Soylent needs a factory anyway. Just white label some generic meal replacement shake like Ensure and they are done. The only thing interesting about the company is they managed to market a product that already exists as something new to a new audience.
Please see this discussion, in particular the response from "rob": http://discourse.soylent.me/t/comparing-soylent-to-existing-... Summary: Soylent aims for something more ideal than a suboptimal solution. It's a day to day meal replacement for otherwise healthy, active people. Given the ingredients of Ensure, I wouldn't want to try to live on it for 30 days. It's like Google vs. Altavista, if you'll pardon the strai…
>>Given the ingredients of Ensure, I wouldn't want to try to live on it for 30 days.
Ensure itself doesn't want you to. Because its a food supplement, not 'food'.
The right analogy is to compare {Soylent, Ensure} with {Cereal, Fresh Fruits, Vegetables, Meat, Milk, Eggs and other natural food}
Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Soylent is a food, like the McDonald's McRib sandwich, the Baconator from Wendy's, the Denny's Grand Slam Breakfast, and the delicious beef tacos from my local Mexican restaurant. Why does Soylent need more scrutiny than any of these or the hundreds of thousands of other food products on the market today?
> Soylent is a food The company is claiming that it is a dietary supplement and NOT food in order to avoid FDA scrutiny. At least that is what the PandoDaily article that was originally linked to claims.
This is from the actual parent article:
Soylent is designed and regulated as a food, not a supplement.
Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
What shitstorm? The Motherboard piece was overall positive, and didn't have the tongue-in-cheek holier-than-thou tone that most articles about Soylent have had.
> 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…
I would interpret barely sealed to mean the zip strip was 95% sealed. That is generally sufficient to keep stuff from falling out, but it's not quite airtight, and prone to opening with jostling.
Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece
#178Many startups put the word "utilize" in their press releases to sound fancier and more official: "This...prompted us to utilize more robust packaging." You can always say "use" instead of "utilize" to avoid buzzwords and sound more conversational. In fact, there are only a few specific cases (mostly in science writing) where "utilize" is necessary: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/use-versu...
>Pretentious diction. Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate, are used to dress up a simple statement and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgements.
From: Politics and the English language, George Orwell, 1946 https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Not really. Smart people are just as susceptible to logical fallacies as average people. Perhaps more so since they can 'reason out' the fallacies they make. I find I need to constantly double check myself to see I'm not missing something. But this is not a new phenomenon.
heh, humblebrag much? :P
Re: Soylent on the latest Vice piece
#180Soylent 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…
> Soylent will likely become a billion dollar global enterprise, and even "disrupt" the food industry. Have my doubts on this though. One of the things that contribute most to software startups being successful, and the cause for most hugely successful startups having a software component in them, is network effects. You use that software and not another one because, even if there are alternatives, you have vested in…
Soylent's recipe is supposed to be open.
http://blog.soylent.me/post/65760097009/as-mentioned-in-the-...