Soylent 2.0 • Hacker News Board

Re: Soylent 2.0

#41

Post by gnoway » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:13 PM UTC

dandare wrote: post #30

I don't understand the pricing - do I need 12 bottles per month or 96? How much do I need to live only off Soylent?

Their prior formulas were supposed to hit 100% RDA on vitamins/minerals for 2000 kcal. Based on that and their claim that one bottle is 20% RDA, I'd say each bottle is 400kcal.

If true, and you need 2000kcal a day, you're going to need 140 bottles per 4 weeks (~12 cases). At $29/12 that's going to be ~$348, which is about $100/mo more than a 4 week subscription supply is today ($255).

Re: Soylent 2.0

#42

Post by Igglyboo » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:13 PM UTC

mahouse wrote: post #33

coherentpony wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lifestyle? IIRC, the creator of Soylent had a busy lifestyle and as a result barely had time to cook or eat and that's why he created Soylent.

If your lifestyle does not give you time to cook, you should try to change it, instead of inventing that mud.

Why should you waste time cooking if you don't want to and can exist without it?

Re: Soylent 2.0

#43

Post by brainburn » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:13 PM UTC

mahouse wrote: post #33

coherentpony wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lifestyle? IIRC, the creator of Soylent had a busy lifestyle and as a result barely had time to cook or eat and that's why he created Soylent.

If your lifestyle does not give you time to cook, you should try to change it, instead of inventing that mud.

^ is your opinion.

Some people prefer not to spend time on cooking.

Re: Soylent 2.0

#44

Post by Igglyboo » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:14 PM UTC

tom_usher wrote: post #22

Can someone explain to me the appeal of this product? Why would anyone choose to drink a nondescript sludge over the plentiful ways we can get good, enjoyable & healthy food? I can certainly appreciate the science behind it - this would be a great boon to helping feed those that are less fortunate, but from what I can see that doesn't appear to be the aim of the company.

Some people only care about eating as far as subsistence goes, soylent saves you time and money in this regard.

Re: Soylent 2.0

#45

Post by fizzbatter » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:14 PM UTC

tom_usher wrote: post #22

Can someone explain to me the appeal of this product? Why would anyone choose to drink a nondescript sludge over the plentiful ways we can get good, enjoyable & healthy food? I can certainly appreciate the science behind it - this would be a great boon to helping feed those that are less fortunate, but from what I can see that doesn't appear to be the aim of the company.

I feel like i'm in the opposite camp. Every time i see a Soylent post in any non-Soylent corner of the web (HN, non-Soylent Subreddits, etc), there's always 1 (x100) posts of:

"Why would you do this!?"

I feel like i need someone to describe this to me. Why is it so hard to grasp? "Fast food" makes its living off of ease and price. You could argue taste, but many (most?) people feel that a good homecooked meal tastes a lot better than a McBurger - so i'm going to ignore taste.

We have isles and isles of meal replacements and frozen foods. All with the purpose of giving you food on the Go, and food on the quick.

We also have people constantly skipping meals, for reasons other than diet. I myself often skip breakfast or lunch because i'm busy, and eventually 9am turns into 10am turns into 11am turns into "Welp, i may as well just eat lunch".

So it seems blatantly obvious that meal speed, ease and even price is an issue for many, many, many people. So why is it so confusing to see a liquid form of this that aims to be an even healthier meal replacement than existing meal replacements?

We already have meal replacements. We have had them for ages. They're just incredibly unhealthy. .. I just guess i can't fathom why so many people (not you specifically) are so confused at Soylents existence.

Re: Soylent 2.0

#46

Post by xirdstl » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:14 PM UTC

dandare wrote: post #30

I don't understand the pricing - do I need 12 bottles per month or 96? How much do I need to live only off Soylent?

96 won't get you a month. Each bottle is 400 calories, so you'd need five per day, assuming a 2000 calorie diet. You'd need around 150.

Re: Soylent 2.0

#47

Post by algorithmsRcool » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:15 PM UTC

anentropic wrote: post #32

conorh wrote: post #23

I tried Soylent 1.5 for about a month (not as my sole food source, but for maybe one meal a day), but I was unable to adjust to it well, my stomach was just constantly upset and I didn't feel great after eating it. I then tried Nutren 1.5 [1] thinking it might be different, but same effect for me, so I guess it is just me. I'm going to try 2.0 again, maybe I'll do it in smaller doses at first and see if I can adjust…

why? why not just eat good food? !

It's a lot easier thank cooking or preparing most foods and very portable. I doubt many people are trying to live off the stuff exclusively.

Re: Soylent 2.0

#48

Post by mahouse » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:15 PM UTC

brainburn wrote: post #43

mahouse wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your lifestyle does not give you time to cook, you should try to change it, instead of inventing that mud.

^ is your opinion. Some people prefer not to spend time on cooking.

Of course it's my opinion. That is an Internet comment, not a research paper.

Re: Soylent 2.0

#49

Post by noxToken » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:16 PM UTC

ioeu wrote: post #14

"Soylent 2.0 makes complete nutrition accessible to all ..." "All", assuming you're in the USA or Canada.. I actually thought it meant they were gonna start shipping to more countries! Bummer.

There is DIY Soylent.

I have not personally tried any recipe from this website. I did, however, recommend it to a friend who is into this type of stuff. He tried a chocolate recipe for bodybuilding (most likely the the top rated one). If you're that interested in Soylent, you can always try one of these.

https://diy.soylent.com/

Re: Soylent 2.0

#50

Post by Amezarak » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:16 PM UTC

feld wrote: post #13

My first thought whenever I see soylent is that we have studies proving that we can't replace breast milk with baby formula. Some of that is due to immune system being passed on to the infant, but we haven't yet mastered the nutritional content of real food to the point where we can confidently say it's safe to eat Soylent or another similar product regularly. It takes me back to the whole issue with processed dog fo…

> but we haven't yet mastered the nutritional content of real food to the point where we can confidently say it's safe to eat Soylent or another similar product regularly.

I'm not aware of any ill effects from consuming meal-replacement shakes like Ensure regularly, and they've been around for quite some time. In some instances people have been sustained on them for fairly long periods.

Would I want to consume them exclusively for a long period of time? No, like you, I would start becoming concerned about nutrition. But drinking them regularly for long periods of time or even exclusively for short periods of time seems like it would be fine. People eat lots of less nutritious foods just as regularly.

The real question for me is what is Soylent supposed to offer over older equivalents.