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Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

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Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#11

Post by Cerium »

hammock wrote: post #2

>Algal flour is a fairly novel ingredient that serves as a vegan replacement for butter and eggs. Derived from algae grown in fermentation tanks and then dried Reminds me of fungal protein, aka quorn aka mycoprotein. They were advertising it as the next big thing in protein sources. Its also grown by fermentation. If you google it, there are safety concerns.

There are safety concerns, but I think there are differences in product maturity. Quorn products have been available since the 80's, and early 2000's in the USA. Over the last ~15 years there have been a couple thousand complaints over the products, but since these are not incident related I would characterize them more like complaints about specific ingredients. Some people get reactions to peanuts, red wine, etc, but we do not consider that the manufacturer is at fault.

Thanks for getting me to take a look at Quorn safety. I've been eating it for years, and continue to. Even though I am no longer really a vegetarian I enjoy Quorn products more than chicken based products since Quorn has better product consistency (not fat or gristle bits) than animal sources.

Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#12

Post by jobu »

arkitaip wrote: post #6
glenda wrote: post #4

Sounds like they have a bug in their "food stack" and this modification is like printf debugging - if no one gets sick then it was the algae, otherwise they will need to continue poking around to figure out what's wrong. What a silly game to play when people's health is at stake.

That's hilarious and scary. Can you imagine the reactions if any other (non Valley?) food business had this approach to food safety?

Really doesn't seem like a huge deal to me. People are complex and sometimes have allergies or reactions to foods that they don't even know or understand. A neighbor of mine has an allergy to MSG and it took him years to realize it. He's still does trial-and-error on new foods to determine which ones contain MSG as part of their "natural flavors" (sometimes with painful results).

The difference here is that Soylent is a "food replacement". That means it's often the only thing these people eat and a small change to the formulation could be a breaking change for a few of them.

Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#13

Post by harveywi »

glenda wrote: post #4

Sounds like they have a bug in their "food stack" and this modification is like printf debugging - if no one gets sick then it was the algae, otherwise they will need to continue poking around to figure out what's wrong. What a silly game to play when people's health is at stake.

> What a silly game to play when people's health is at stake.

This is an important observation, and one that deserves some serious and deep reflection.

Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#14

Post by dictum »

arkitaip wrote: post #6
glenda wrote: post #4

Sounds like they have a bug in their "food stack" and this modification is like printf debugging - if no one gets sick then it was the algae, otherwise they will need to continue poking around to figure out what's wrong. What a silly game to play when people's health is at stake.

That's hilarious and scary. Can you imagine the reactions if any other (non Valley?) food business had this approach to food safety?

Enteric disruption is a growth market.

Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#15

Post by DanBC »

jobu wrote: post #12
arkitaip wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's hilarious and scary. Can you imagine the reactions if any other (non Valley?) food business had this approach to food safety?

Really doesn't seem like a huge deal to me. People are complex and sometimes have allergies or reactions to foods that they don't even know or understand. A neighbor of mine has an allergy to MSG and it took him years to realize it. He's still does trial-and-error on new foods to determine which ones contain MSG as part of their "natural flavors" (sometimes with painful results). The difference here is that Soylent i…

> People are complex and sometimes have allergies or reactions to foods that they don't even know or understand.

That's fine, but Soylent marketed the product as being suitable for everyone even if they had allergies.

Soylent's words:

> "For anyone that 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."

EDIT: I think this is scumbag behaviour on Soylent's part.

Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#17

Post by JoshTriplett »

hammock wrote: post #2

>Algal flour is a fairly novel ingredient that serves as a vegan replacement for butter and eggs. Derived from algae grown in fermentation tanks and then dried Reminds me of fungal protein, aka quorn aka mycoprotein. They were advertising it as the next big thing in protein sources. Its also grown by fermentation. If you google it, there are safety concerns.

As far as I can tell, the reported "safety concerns" are that if you're allergic to mushrooms, you may be allergic to mushroom-derived protein. That doesn't seem unreasonable, and every product I've seen based on mycoprotein clearly identifies the source as mushroom-based.

Re: Soylent Thinks It Found What Was Making People Sick: Algae

#20

Post by nimish »

binarymax wrote: post #7

Where is the FDA in all of this? I would hope that after the widespread issues with the product, they would have stepped in and blocked shipment until safety studies have been done that comply with regulations.

The supplement industry is big in Utah and Orrin hatch has blocked oversight. The upshot is that supplements are barely regulated if at all. The FDA is very limited in what it can do.
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