A popular argument seems to be "I don't have time eat something proper". To me, that just replaces the lack of one resource (the ones in the movie) with another (time).
Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV
221–230 of 665 posts
Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does it blow away a clif bar?
As I recall, Clif Bars are predominantly carbs and some fat. Soylent has a reasonable balance of protein and more emphasis on vitamins and minerals. To be clear, I'm not a nutritional expert. But I've had people who know more than me tell me clif bars are basically non-nutritious.
Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV
#223It's a food company, and its product is fully baked. Why aren't they bootstrapping? Are they not profitable? If so, how do they have a business? If I sold ketchup at a loss, would I be able to close a $50M financing round?
Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV
#224Soylent gets a lot of hate (I'm looking forward to skipping out on this thread before the inevitable negative comments from people who assume that Soylent consumers will eat nothing but Soylent for the rest of their lives), but to me, it's solved a large problem in my life: what to eat when I'm hungry but I don't have enough time to prepare a full meal. It can happen every now and then when I'm rushing around, and so…
Soylent gets a lot of hype, and invariably the hype follows a predictable pattern- "Geez, you don't eat only Soylent! It's just an occasional meal replacement!" "Okay, then how is it interesting when there are dozens of competing products in the meal replacement category?" "Because those aren't a full dietary replacement. You can't live on only Ensure (insert many other products here)." "Okay....but you just said..."…
Care to elaborate? I can cook and know how to eat a balanced set of macro-nutrients, but I find it quite difficult to be consistently health concious when eating out all the time and cooking regularly is anything but minimal effort and time.
Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
Protein isn't a panacea. Eating 2,000 calories of Soylent a day would mean consuming 100 grams of protein. That's unnecessary for the average person.
Man, I wish I needed 100g of protein a day. I try to be very conservative on my intake, and I still need 142g minimum at 180 pounds.
[0] http://bayesianbodybuilding.com/the-myth-of-1glb-optimal-pro...
Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
This comment is kinda silly. Like, the problem here isn't Soylent, it's that you were depressed. And the problem with your friend using Soylent to watch her weight isn't Soylent, it's that she ate more of other crap when she drank Soylent as a meal replacement. I drink Soylent occasionally -- once every two or three weeks, maybe. Normally I use it if I know I'm going to eat a huge dinner, or if I ate a giant lunch an…
Sure, the underlying problem is depression. We can still have a reasonable discussion about things that enable that depression, or extend it. That's not at all a silly concern.
Depressed people misuse all kinds of perfectly valid products and services. Being mad at Soylent, or pizza delivery, or the internet, or beds, or any other thing that depressed people might end up leaning on in an unhealthy way seems pretty silly to me.
Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV
#227It's a food company, and its product is fully baked. Why aren't they bootstrapping? Are they not profitable? If so, how do they have a business? If I sold ketchup at a loss, would I be able to close a $50M financing round?
Speeding up is useful for many reasons. Just to name a few: you have a lead and want to maintain it; you suspect the window for product adoption is limited; you want to grow the business and sell it so you can move on.
They could grow slowly for the next 10 years, or throw lighter fluid on it and grow more aggressively, giving investors a cut along the way.
Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
Soylent has a very high glycemic index, and isn't far off of eating a bowl of sugar. From that angle alone I would categorize it as an extremely poor choice (and indeed this whole discussion is a little surreal -- Soylent would be categorized as garbage, ultra-processed junk food if it didn't have the VC/valley aura around it). I've never bought into the super-food fantasy, because there is utterly nothing qualifying…
>Soylent has a very high glycemic index This is false, particularly for Soylent 2.0. https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/212769503-Glycemic... I'm not saying Soylent is a super-food, but it is a food that isn't horrible for you (at least not as horrible as you're letting on!)
Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
This comment is kinda silly. Like, the problem here isn't Soylent, it's that you were depressed. And the problem with your friend using Soylent to watch her weight isn't Soylent, it's that she ate more of other crap when she drank Soylent as a meal replacement. I drink Soylent occasionally -- once every two or three weeks, maybe. Normally I use it if I know I'm going to eat a huge dinner, or if I ate a giant lunch an…
Sure, but some things are more likely to be misused than others. For instance, Facebook. It's obviously a wildly popular and profitable product, but studies show that the more you use it the more likely you are to be depressed - but Facebook has a financial incentive to addict those users regardless. Anyway, I'm not really a fan of Soylent. I disagree with its health benefits. I think the company is pushing it as a f…
Other than maybe giving the reader some perspective on their life. Anything used in a poor context, for example not combined with the right attitude, environment, etc can cause issues.
Often we just fall into negative cycles and need to be kicked in the butt to change them. We often fixate on one specific thing, like I quit smoking and suddenly became healthy (but I also worked out, started eating better, spent less time/money on a neutral/negative activity, etc, etc). There are always so many moving parts.
At most you could critique Solyent if they advertised as the solution to your health problems. Rather than something to replace 1-2 daily meals when you're on a tight schedule. The former is a complicated multi-faceted lifestyle thing that no company could offer with a single product but that won't stop them from positioning the product that way. But we should be smart enough to know it will only ever (potentially) be a component of it.
Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV
#230Aside from brand, how does soylent differ from ensure?
Soylent Drink: 400cal, 21g fat, 20g protein, 36g total carb. 9g sugar.
Ensure Plus: 350cal, 11g fat, 13g protein, 57g carb. 22g sugar.
Ensure Enlive: 250cal, 11g fat, 20g protein, 45g carb. 22g sugar.
As you can see, Soylent has more fat, which provides 9 cal/gram compared to 4cal/gram from carb/protein. This allows it to hit its calorie goal without adding nearly as many carbs and sugars.