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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

#291
post #9

Soylent better be sure that they are right. They just fingered the problem onto another company (TerraVia). What supplier would work with Soylent if it turns out Soylent is wrong?

Plenty. Food is a cut-throat competitive business.

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

#292

Oh boy, another Soylent discussion. Here is what all the off topic discussion will be: Person1) "What is so hard to understand sheeple?! Soylent isn't for all your meals, just ones that you are too busy to eat. Also, it has all the vitamins you need not like all those thousand other bars/drinks!?" Person2) "I'd rather move to the bottom of the ocean than buy Soylent. Why would you ever skip a meal?! Capitalism is the…

Nice strawman in response to no-one's comment

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

#293
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't you ever seen a commercial for meal replacement shakes before? They've been a staple in the diet industry as long as I've been alive. Liquid diets are also a "thing" in medical settings for patients who are unable to take solid foods. Remember "Carnation Instant Breakfast"? That's been around since the 60s. Its really not an original idea.

People keep saying that, but no one point me to a webpage where I can buy these. (even getting downvoted =) the hate against soylent is strong)

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Da...

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_20?url=search-alia...

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_19?url=search-alia...

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

#294
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say the same thing about the food in any restaurant. I really don't understand the hate that's directed towards this product. Nobody was seriously injured, it was a relatively small number of people that got sick. Soylent is trying to do something more ambitious than other packaged food manufacturers. It's not unreasonable to expect there to be some small hiccups. If you can't tolerate that, then don't buy it…

Sorry for the strong language but bullshit. I am sure it has changed over the years but I still have vivid memories of the rodents that ran around the original warehouse they mixed soylent in. It was a joke. They had a bunch of randos mixing powders haphazardly and no sense of proper food prep/sanitation. It was scarier than some of the operations that supplement manufacturers run. I am sure its changed but it blows…

So, in that Vice Motherboard piece, CEO Rob Rhinehart claims that Grocers don't scale to 7 billion, but he provides nothing to back up that claim or his other claim that engineered food is better than what a standard Grocer offers.

Later, he goes on to claim that no one is lacking clean water around the 12:30 mark, seems like this CEO is just aimlessly spewing bullshit with no facts to back up what he claims.

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

#295

Here's what I don't get... There is all this bad hype about Soylent. Why not just get one of the dozens of other meal replacement shakes in your average health food store?

Wrong subculture. Health foods are marketed for hippies and athletes and dieters. Soylent is for nerds!

/s

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

#296

Soylent's problem is not a seemingly overlooked ingredient. Their biggest problem is inability to run the continuous food processing loop. What's the point of tweaking the recipe if you can't guarantee the execution and your customers get, basically, randomness for lunch? We had a corporate subscription for Soylent 2.0 drink. The taste varied from batch to batch on the scale from "milk in a cereal bowl" to "sewage wa…

To be fair, this statement is something that needs to be followed up with hard evidence. Inconsistent flavour between batches does not necessarily mean you're getting different percentages of ingredients. You can't simply blame them for variation in taste; just look at orange juice companies for the amount of chemical manipulation that goes into making a single brand of orange juice taste exactly the same in every batch even though oranges naturally have varying flavors. That is not the kind of science I want behind my food.

There are thousands of individuals and organizations out there with the equipment to analyze batches to determine whether the mix is consistent. Why haven't we heard from them? I can't imagine risk of lawsuit for defamation is the only reason. The whole appeal of Soylent is that the formula is public; surely they can't be hiding behind "publishing analysis of our product is exposing our corporate secrets".

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

#297

Soylent's problem is not a seemingly overlooked ingredient. Their biggest problem is inability to run the continuous food processing loop. What's the point of tweaking the recipe if you can't guarantee the execution and your customers get, basically, randomness for lunch? We had a corporate subscription for Soylent 2.0 drink. The taste varied from batch to batch on the scale from "milk in a cereal bowl" to "sewage wa…

My main complaint with the 1.5 powder was extreme inconsistency between batches. One batch, which many people were complaining about in the Soylent forums, had a rancid/sour/burnt taste and smell to it. The problem with the formula is that because it has a very bland taste, inconsistency stands out like a sore thumb and your mind works wonders to create an aversion to the whole product. Once I started having the weird tasting Soylent, even the "normal" batches were no longer palatable to me.

Soylent staff dismissed these concerns as "normal variation in a plant based product".

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

#298
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as just "eating food" - you are making diet choices, consciously and/or subconsciously in everything you choose to eat. Your comment is loaded with all sorts of diet judgement (fiber good, salt bad, balanced good, processed bad). We could find out barley causes cancer, or even though you thrive on a meaty diet, it causes heart disease. Or diet doesn't matter and it is all genetic or micro-biome…

The odds of finding out that something like barley and chicken are especially carcinogenic are a lot less than the odds that Soylent or Paleo or some other fad is frankly unhealthy. Ignore the bulk of nutrition "research" which is after all, crap, and focus on the few things that are relatively sound. High fiber, healthy weight, good blood levels, get your nutrients. It's not that hard.

Couldn't it be argued that it's "relatively sound" that as long as you get a good balance of calories and macro and micro nutrients, which is exactly what Soylent provides, that you are on a good path?

FWIW, on the topic of healthy weight, the Soylent forum has many anecdotes of people who have used the product to lose (or gain!) weight because it allows them to easily count calories without having to spend time scanning products into MyFitnessPal every day and weighing all of their food.

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

#299

I'm still amazed people pay for this shit when fully-regulated formulated meal replacements have been around for years.

Maybe it's because you're entirely uninformed about the specific ingredients and macronutrient ratios of new products like Soylent vs old school meal replacements. But enjoy your high fructose corn syrup slop Ensure / Jevity.

I cook and eat real food, but I'll award you 6/10 for effort.

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

#300

I'm still amazed people pay for this shit when fully-regulated formulated meal replacements have been around for years.

Maybe it's because you're entirely uninformed about the specific ingredients and macronutrient ratios of new products like Soylent vs old school meal replacements. But enjoy your high fructose corn syrup slop Ensure / Jevity.

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