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Soylent 1.5 Has Arrived

blog.soylent.com

21–28 of 28 posts

Re: Soylent 1.5 Has Arrived

#21
Whenever I see articles about Soylent, I can't help but wonder what is wrong with the products that more established companies make? E.g. the old Ross Laboratories, since renamed Abbott Nutrition.[1]

It's like some hipster said "I don't know anything about nutrition ... it can't be hard to do ... so here are my attempt(s) at keeping you alive".

That sounds harsh, but I'd really like to know what makes Soylent better.

Edit: I'm not interested knowing about "potato starch", "trehalose", or "isomaltulose". How about a plain English, big picture explanation.

[1] http://abbottnutrition.com

Re: Soylent 1.5 Has Arrived

#22

It sounds like 1.5 has even more fat and very little protein. 1.4 has a macro breakdown of fat...... 24g x 9 = 216 kcal : 43% carbs.... 51g x 4 = 204 kcal : 40% protein.. 21g x 4 = 84 kcal : 17% which seems crazy. I am trying out Soylent this summer for fun, but I also do P90X. Soylent's macros are not even close to compatible to the P90X nutrition guide. I shoot for fat/carb/protein to be 20%/40%/40% if I am cutting…

Plenty of sources showing that healthy fats are good: try this site http://www.dietdoctor.com/science .

Re: Soylent 1.5 Has Arrived

#23

It sounds like 1.5 has even more fat and very little protein. 1.4 has a macro breakdown of fat...... 24g x 9 = 216 kcal : 43% carbs.... 51g x 4 = 204 kcal : 40% protein.. 21g x 4 = 84 kcal : 17% which seems crazy. I am trying out Soylent this summer for fun, but I also do P90X. Soylent's macros are not even close to compatible to the P90X nutrition guide. I shoot for fat/carb/protein to be 20%/40%/40% if I am cutting…

Plenty of sources showing that healthy fats are good: try this site http://www.dietdoctor.com/science .

Absolutely! But 43%?!?

Re: Soylent 1.5 Has Arrived

#24

Whenever I see articles about Soylent, I can't help but wonder what is wrong with the products that more established companies make? E.g. the old Ross Laboratories, since renamed Abbott Nutrition.[1] It's like some hipster said "I don't know anything about nutrition ... it can't be hard to do ... so here are my attempt(s) at keeping you alive". That sounds harsh, but I'd really like to know what makes Soylent better.…

I think it is similar to the existing products. They have just tweaked it to be a bit less sweet and more neutral in flavor. They also have a slightly different nutrition profile. And they have successfully marketed to tech guys instead of the old people and hospital patients the other products are aimed at. I think they will also arrive at a lower price point.

They also have long and short term goals for the product. Short term, they want to deliver quick, cheap basic meals to techies. Long term, they want to be able to provide a basic staple food for the world's poor populations. Further, I think they want to eventually go to an all chemical product, with no "natural" (e.g., no oat flour) food products as ingredients.

TL;DR It's similar to the existing nutrition drinks, with some flavor and nutrition tweaks, different marketing, and different long and short term business goals.

Re: Soylent 1.5 Has Arrived

#25
post #8

I'm disappointed they haven't fixed the low amount of fiber (16g/day). The Institute of Medicine recommends 38g/day in men [1]. They reduced fiber in v1.4 because it was causing flatulence in some people. This is probably because those people were already eating a very low-fiber (unhealthy) diet; the gut microbiome would adjust given more time. I am very enthusiastic about Soylent and currently use it (with a fiber s…

How about a Soylent, but where you build your own from modules. The modules could have different nutrition profiles and you could mix them how you like. Maybe they'd taste different too.

Re: Soylent 1.5 Has Arrived

#26

Whenever I see articles about Soylent, I can't help but wonder what is wrong with the products that more established companies make? E.g. the old Ross Laboratories, since renamed Abbott Nutrition.[1] It's like some hipster said "I don't know anything about nutrition ... it can't be hard to do ... so here are my attempt(s) at keeping you alive". That sounds harsh, but I'd really like to know what makes Soylent better.…

Abbott Nutrition and other meal replacement drinks DO NOT provide you with a nutritionally complete meal, Soylent does. It is as simple as that.

Re: Soylent 1.5 Has Arrived

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

poligeenan, also known as degraded carrageenan, was shown in some studies to be carcinogenic. Some high profile foods had carrageenan and there was some bad publicity due to it. I am not a doctor, but I do believe that carrageenan has been classified as perfectly safe by the FDA. EDIT: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfCFR/CFRS...

> I am not a doctor, but I do believe that carrageenan has been classified as perfectly safe by the FDA. I am not a doctor (nor, more to the point, a food & drug regulation expert), but I do not believe that FDA has a classification of "perfectly safe" that it applies to ingredients.

True. They do have a classification of Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS). Not the same thing as "perfectly safe", but I'm guessing that's what they probably meant.
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