Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV • Hacker News Board

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#311

Post by vidarh » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:21 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #280

rubatuga wrote: post #155

Although I was initially brought onto the hype train by great marketing and the promises of health and complete nutrition, I realize that my initial reliance on Soylent was actually part of a deeper problem, brought on by problems such as depression and inappropriate time management. When in reality I should have had enough time to eat out or possibly even cook a meal, I found myself relying on Soylent. I didn't leav…

I tried Soylent v1.2-1.4 for about 6 months thinking I could better regulate my calorie intake and lose some weight. In the end it wasn't for me. I found that it did nothing to satiate my appetite and that I'd be hungry, bloated and gassy all day long. The bloating and gas were incredibly uncomfortable and never really subsided. Eschewing the normal 3 meals a day routine and doing 5 meals didn't seem to help. Despite…

> Despite the fact that I was only consuming 2000 calories, 500 less than recommended for my size/weight/age/sex, I managed to gain weight.

2500kcal is only suitable for people living a very active lifestyle or exercising a lot. Note that going to the gym for 45minutes 3 times a week is not being active.

When I spent an hour lifting heavy weights 5 times a week, my weight was stable at around 2500kcal.

The reality is that unless you work as a construction worker or other type of job that keep you active most of the day and/or exercise a lot (my 5x a week were heavy compound powerlifting lifts), chances are you need to adjust those recommendations down substantially.

Ultimatly the only thing you can do is to gradually lower your intake until you're losing weight. That you were adding weight at 2000kcal is not that surprising.

I've not tried Soylent, but I've trued Huel, and compared to what you described it seems a lot more pleasant, and more importantly, if anything I've found it hard to eat enough on it because it fills me up so much. The biggest problem for me in using it as much as I'd like is that filling me up doesn't stop me craving food - it's a reward thing for me.

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#312

Post by yegle » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:21 PM UTC

Dangeranger wrote: post #96

yegle wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pro GMO: they are not hiding that they used a lot of GMO product, instead of selling you something organic with a huge premium. Glycemic Index/Glycemic Load: a quick search doesn't give me SlimFast's GI/GL info, while Soylent does post the number.

A very quick look at the Slimfast page for their high protein product links the nutritional information. It shows that the mix has ~1g of sugars per serving, but is mixed with milk, so you'll need to account for that in your calculations depending on the type of milk you use for mixing. http://slimfast.com/advanced-nutrition/

GI/GL is not directly related to the carbohydrate number on nutrition fact table. The number must be tested in a controlled environment.

E.g. regular coke has a GI of 63 (source http://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/glycem...), and is considered medium GI, but of course it contains a lot of sugar.

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#313

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:21 PM UTC

ecspike wrote: post #142

zorbadgreek wrote: post #16

I'm trying to understand what Soylent's business moat is. My inclination is economies of scale to drive cost of goods down, like many food companies. To that end, I don't see their product as all that unique or difficult to replicate, and I also foresee headwinds for them if/when they try to market to a broader base of consumers who already have powders, shakes, bars, and hundreds of other meal substitutes to choose…

They don't really have one. If you go to https://www.completefoods.co/ , you can find a bunch of meal replacement recipes many of which are soylent inspired because they couldn't get soylent shipped to them. Some people also ship their custom blends. /r/soylent is a popular place where people talk about meal replacements. I think they are kind of like Kleenex, they will become the common name for the genre. As for ta…

[deleted]

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#314

Post by BugsJustFindMe » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:23 PM UTC

rhblake wrote: post #225

viridian wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

RDA for protein is 0.8g/kg (~0.36/pound), so about 65g in your case if you're sedentary. 1g/pound is an old bodybuilder myth according to this article [0] which goes through various studies: "many review papers have concluded 0.82g/lb is the upper limit at which protein intake benefits body composition". This is for strength athletes and bodybuilders, mind you: most people (even many athletes) need far, far less. [0]…

> 1g/pound is an old bodybuilder myth according to this article

Except that every time I've ever seen/heard it from bodybuilders it has always been 1g per lean pound which fits pretty well with your 0.82 figure accounting for typical bodyfat percentages. So your article is arguing a strawman and they've been right all along.

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#315

Post by brilliantcode » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:23 PM UTC

mojowo11 wrote: post #226

GavinMcG wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Meal replacement shakes have been around for, what, 2+ decades now? Saying that Soylent has come along and now somehow enables depressed people strikes me as insanity. 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…

Except Soylent marketed itself as a replacement. All those shakes you talk about are aimed at supplementing. They weren't stupid enough to tell people to live on it because of the legal liability.

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#316

Post by Glyptodon » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:25 PM UTC

rubatuga wrote: post #155

Although I was initially brought onto the hype train by great marketing and the promises of health and complete nutrition, I realize that my initial reliance on Soylent was actually part of a deeper problem, brought on by problems such as depression and inappropriate time management. When in reality I should have had enough time to eat out or possibly even cook a meal, I found myself relying on Soylent. I didn't leav…

Eh. I think it very much depends on what your problems are. If you want to stop eating fast food, but don't believe you can rely on yourself to food prep, plan, or cook, you can probably do a lot worse. Wanting more than something very straightforward from it probably isn't a recipe for success, though.

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#317

Post by brilliantcode » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:26 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #280

rubatuga wrote: post #155

Although I was initially brought onto the hype train by great marketing and the promises of health and complete nutrition, I realize that my initial reliance on Soylent was actually part of a deeper problem, brought on by problems such as depression and inappropriate time management. When in reality I should have had enough time to eat out or possibly even cook a meal, I found myself relying on Soylent. I didn't leav…

I tried Soylent v1.2-1.4 for about 6 months thinking I could better regulate my calorie intake and lose some weight. In the end it wasn't for me. I found that it did nothing to satiate my appetite and that I'd be hungry, bloated and gassy all day long. The bloating and gas were incredibly uncomfortable and never really subsided. Eschewing the normal 3 meals a day routine and doing 5 meals didn't seem to help. Despite…

I love how people are attacking those who tried Soylent and didn't like it lol. How many of you guys have invested in Soylent and now worried it's not going as you've planned?

It's 2017, and people still prefer to eat food with friends and families. Soylent sure changed the world!

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#318

Post by chaostheory » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:27 PM UTC

deeth_starr_v wrote: post #256

giaour wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founder of Soylent has repeatedly pushed his product as a solution for world hunger, unhealthy diets in the first world, and poor time management. I think critiquing the product on those terms is fair.

Agreed, while the intentions of Soylent are probably sincere, when I first heard about it my response was "nope nope nope". My parents were hippies and we grew/raised most of our food when I was a kid. But my grandparents had embraced the new space-age diet: margarine in place of butter, tang instead of orange juice, kraft instead of cheese, etc. I thought it tasted awful compared to real food. As we have found out,…

I agree with you.

For everyone else, I just want to add that there is a place for things like Soylent, beyond the marketing. We're most likely not going to be able to continue our current method producing food cheaply. I could be wrong but things like Soylent will probably be the future that mitigates this issue for a lot of people.

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#319

Post by vidarh » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:27 PM UTC

Latty wrote: post #293

baby wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ohhh, I thought I had to give up on these things since I moved away from the US. But now I remember that Europe has a lot of these as well. Have you tried other things than Huel? I might be tempted to give it a try.

Huel is the only one I've tried, and I've liked it enough. The flavour is not great by itself (a sweet, malty vanilla flavour for the flavoured one, which is a little weird but fine), but I tend to blend in ice and coffee or fruit (bannas and blueberries, raspberries, all work well). The flavour packs they sell didn't do much for me, they seemed too sweet for my taste (I didn't try them all though). The other big thi…

Same reaction to the taste here, and same reaction to the flavour packs. I threw my flavour packs away.

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#320

Post by elif » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:30 PM UTC

atomical wrote: post #270

frogpelt wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as poverty in America. If anything Americans should get rid of some stuff.

What does that have to do with protein?

It was a sarcastic retort that your perspective is egocentric extrapolation based upon averages. Akin to looking at the highest GDP/capita and deciding that poverty does not exist.