Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

stackshare.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 237 posts

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#131

Post by tetraodonpuffer »

jimrandomh wrote: post #92
slinkyavenger wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would this create a risk of deficiency for most people? Excepting exercise - the maximum daily recommended amount is 2,300mg; for people who have problems with sodium (particularly those with high blood pressure), the recommendation is to limit sodium to 1,500mg/day.

The controversy I refer to is over whether the 1500mg-2300mg range is sensible. If you trust the IOM guidelines, that's fine, but my own reading of primary-source research has come up with nothing but null results and my personal experience has been that more is needed.

there is a lot of literature about how much sodium is too much, it's much harder to find minimum values: I personally due to health issues am on an extremely low sodium diet (< 500mg/day, usually around 400mg) and have been for over two years with apparently no ill effects, but then again my wife seems to not do very well if she goes under 1500, I guess we're all different (which would make it nice for soylent to come with separate sodium so that could be adjusted on an individual basis).

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#132

Post by tetraodonpuffer »

cblock811 wrote: post #79

The value prop that people will save money is kind of funny to me. My diet: Breakfast: Oatmeal, honey, cinnamon $0.20 Lunch: Large Salad(spinach, carrot, tomato, cucumber, mushroom, bell pepper, sometimes almonds) $2.50 Dinner: Steamed Veggies and Seared Tilapia (kale, carrot, tomato, capers, tilapia) $3.50 If people just budged properly they would be fine. That being said, I'm curious to try soylent and have purchas…

it depends on where you live, over here a medium sized bunch of organic kale is $2.99 at whole foods by itself, and $0.20 won't get you that many oats, let alone honey or cinnamon.

The advantage of things like Soylent is that the price is the same no matter where you live, whether you are in a small town with great produce where it's cheap or whether you live in an expensive downtown with limited access.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#133

Post by Shivetya »

Nadya wrote: post #120
jahewson wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, I cannot stomach green beans. Attempting to chew them results in vomiting within my mouth. The smell of them alone is repulsive to me. Sauté them with butter, it's like a different food.

I don't tend to have butter (or margarine spread) in the house. Not to mention I would have to cook them and clean the dishes :) I've tried them buttered, steamed, roasted, in a casserole, mixed into Mac&Cheese, and 1,000 different methods my mother tried to sneak green beans into my diet as a child. I struggle to stomach them no matter how they are prepared. I have little concern for trying foods I dislike. I make a…

tarragon, heavily on green beans would be worth a shot.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#134

Post by baddox »

jahewson wrote: post #117
pdeuchler wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your hourly wage? Don't forget an hour of your time! Not saying that makes it impractical to cook your own food, but we can't act like the only cost in making dinner is the raw materials. As an aside, it's pretty difficult to maintain those price levels if you'd like to eat more than oatmeal, spinach salad, and tilapia every day.

That only makes sense if you're taking time off work to cook, which most people aren't. Otherwise you weren't getting paid for that hour anyway.

I value my free time too. Significantly, in fact.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#135

Post by baddox »

raverbashing wrote: post #38
jamii wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their launch comments on hn explained why they believe that using whole foods is a lower risk way to get 'everything the body needs' to actually end up in the body - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7314183

"And that's the problem I see artificially constructed meal replacements running in to--if you do the best you can based on the science available, that still may not be enough." This is an excellent summary. It's not about a "fad" or being "organic" or something like it. Nutrition is a very complicated subject and while science has shone a lot of light on the subject we still don't know a lot . So sticking to the "tr…

I don't buy it. Using "natural" ingredients is no less scientifically risky than using "artificially constructed" ingredients, unless of course you have scientific results showing precisely that.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#136

Post by bane »

jules wrote: post #116
nether wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if I'm alone I can whip up a 10 minute meal that tastes damn nice compared to what Soylent is supposed to taste like. E.g. heat a wok with a bit of oil, dump in a package of pre sliced wok vegetables and a handful of cashew nuts. Your lack of empathy for others' lifestyles is outstanding. Not everyone has access to a kitchen at lunch, or wants to deal with the grocery buying and washing dishes that come with c…

My argument can't be aimed at fast food because most people find that it tastes nice. You could indeed make a different argument based on price and health against it. The point of my argument is that you don't need to choose between healthy and fast (Soylent), or tasty and fast (fast food), or healthy and tasty (elaborate home cooking). With just a little bit of know-how and practice you can have all three. I'm not t…

> Unless you eat 100% Soylent you are not going to save much time on grocery shopping because you have to go to the supermarket anyway

That's not really true. We're finding that our grocery bills have been cut quite a bit and the amount of ingredients we keep around (especially quick to prepare stuff) has basically gone to zero. Prep-time is virtually zero and cleanup time is rinsing the container when it's empty -- thus our dishwashing has also dropped quite a bit.

And we still eat great dinners prepared with fresh ingredients from our garden.

And it's still healthier than even your quite good sounding 10 minute meal.

As a fun challenge for yourself, see if you can assemble a 5 minute meal that's as nutritious and balanced as one serving of Soylent. And i don't mean guesswork, run the numbers, compare to FDA guidelines and see what you come up with. (then please share the recipe because I'd love to eat it!)

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#137

Post by bane »

jules wrote: post #104
bane wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't. You just drink it instead of meals when you don't expect to have a a culinary and social experience. Surely not every meal you eat is such a delight. An awful lot of food is just calorie stuffing to maintain energy. Replace those with Soylent and you're also probably getting better nutrition. Then when you want to have a regular old meal experience just don't drink the Soylent. It's not a lifestyle choice,…

> Surely not every meal you eat is such a delight. An awful lot of food is just calorie stuffing to maintain energy. It is? Not really for me and people I know. You can still make calorie stuffing enjoyable. Even if I'm alone I can whip up a 10 minute meal that tastes damn nice compared to what Soylent is supposed to taste like. E.g. heat a wok with a bit of oil, dump in a package of pre sliced wok vegetables and a h…

So you're around your ingredients, kitchen and cooking equipment 3 meals a day and are able to prepare a variety of delightful, completely nutritious and balanced meals from scratch each of those meals, 7 days a week, 365 days a year?

If not, do you stay within driving distance from your home so you can go there to do this?

Then, I envy your meals, but I don't envy the leash you have on your life. Personally, I travel far enough away from my home every day that were I to follow this pattern, I literally would spend all of my day on the road in between meals.

Or do you ever just grab something to fill an empty stomach and get on to what you need to do? Or just out for a full day somewhere far enough from your kitchen that you can't drive back home to make your meal, and your available choices range from dirty water dogs to chain restaurant? Do you do this more than 2 or 3 times a week because of your busy schedule?

Then Soylent is probably for you. I can almost guarantee it will be the superior alternative for whatever you end up eating in those cases.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#138

Post by groby_b »

jules wrote: post #104
bane wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't. You just drink it instead of meals when you don't expect to have a a culinary and social experience. Surely not every meal you eat is such a delight. An awful lot of food is just calorie stuffing to maintain energy. Replace those with Soylent and you're also probably getting better nutrition. Then when you want to have a regular old meal experience just don't drink the Soylent. It's not a lifestyle choice,…

> Surely not every meal you eat is such a delight. An awful lot of food is just calorie stuffing to maintain energy. It is? Not really for me and people I know. You can still make calorie stuffing enjoyable. Even if I'm alone I can whip up a 10 minute meal that tastes damn nice compared to what Soylent is supposed to taste like. E.g. heat a wok with a bit of oil, dump in a package of pre sliced wok vegetables and a h…

Wait, you only soak the noodles, don't cook them? Isn't that... crunchy?

(Sorry for derailing the soylent debate, but having a recipe is more interesting to me than debating nutrient transport vehicles :)

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#139

Post by bane »

tormeh wrote: post #99
bane wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've checked around various forums and I've found a number of reports that indicate drinking lots of Soylent can bring on intense dreams - I wonder how much more common it is.

That's weird. Sounds like someone should take a look at it. Anything interfering with neurotransmitters? Too little or too much of something? 50% of your diet is rather low for such an effect. Are the molecules perhaps different than they are supposed to be, in some way? I'm just thinking of Thalidomide and the chirality problem.

Some people think it might be increased B6, which some people claim can enhance dreaming.

Re: How Soylent Ships a Trillion Calories per Month

#140

Post by rokhayakebe »

nether wrote: post #110
jamii wrote: post #11

I tried soylent for a while and found the experience fairly unpleasant. I switched to http://www.mealsquares.com/ instead. Warmed up, they taste like a dense brownie. The thinking detailed on their website and the level of care that clearly went into choosing a safe recipe gives me a lot more confidence than soylent did eg > First, there's nothing especially risky or unusual in MealSquares; they're made from a broad…

Mealsquares is probably healthier, but it's also much more expensive at $20 for 2,000 calories, vs $9 for Soylent. They're priced like energy bars (Clif bars, probars etc.).

I think it is $6 per 2000 calories. Can you redo the math?
Post reply on HN