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Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

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

#351

Post by cptskippy »

brandonmenc wrote: post #301
cptskippy wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. You were eating too many calories. 2500 for maintaining body weight is a lot. Perhaps you were overestimating your activity level?

I'm 6'5" and ~220lbs, every calorie calculator I've tried recommends 2400+ calories a day to maintain body weight with a sedentary lifestyle. At the time I tried this experiment I was running close to 30 miles a week and spending 2+ hours a week rock climbing.

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

#352

Post by dreammakr »

johnfn wrote: post #105
macspoofing wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If there are non-diet meal replacements Millions.

Im going to copy a response I made to someone else in this thread: The fact that at least 4 people in this thread have mentioned "meal replacements" but not a single one has named a specific product I would know by name (non dieting!) seems to me a pretty clear indictment that this category is not as established as you are suggesting.

EAS Myoplex.

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

#353

Post by post_break »

Afforess wrote: post #135

The crowds here saying that Soylent is "just" rebranded Ensure/Slimfast/etc sound like the same voices that said Dropbox was rebranded rsync/scp/ftp. The arguments are cookie-cutter and wrong for the same reasons they were with Dropbox.

Yeah because in this world Ensure/Slimfast are Dropbox, and Soylent is rsync. The way they make this stuff scares me. The photos of the plant, the mold, the suppliers they use. It's like the paypal of meal replacements, we deal with money, but we're not a bank, they make "food" but they don't really have much quality control.

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

#355

Post by thraway2016 »

brilliantcode wrote: post #307
mojowo11 wrote: post #189

Earlier 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…

Are you a soylent stakeholder? It's puzzling why you would invalidate someone's experience with such a condescending tone. Soylent is just another hyped up SV junk. The rest of the world does not give a shit about having to cook because they don't have much to eat. I personally wouldn't touch Soylent and leave it up to some 30 year old engineers with no understanding of the food industry. The CEO is super fucking ann…

The unfounded hostility that the mere existence of Soylent brings out of otherwise level-headed people is always a great source of amusement.

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

#356

Post by axlprose »

wdmeldon wrote: post #325
axlprose wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the meal replacement (or "MRP") is extremely well established. Just walk into any nutrition store like GNC or VitaminShoppe and they'll likely have a whole section devoted to MRPs right next to the protein shakes/bars. And as for specific products... - https://www.bodybuilding.com/store/vega/one.html - https://www.bodybuilding.com/store/garden-of-life/raw-organi... - https://www.iherb.com/pr/Madre-Labs-Zenbu-Shake-Me…

The only items in that list that require less than 10 servings to get to 2000 calories are the ones with serving sizes that are twice as large. Not even remotely comparable.

The "Recommended Serving Size" for these products can effectively be considered as just another part of the marketing. Comparing them based on their superficial face value is as useless as comparing apples and oranges, you have to actually calculate the amount of nutrients per quantity of mass if you want to compare them thoroughly.

Right off the bat, it's worth noting that Soylent has an unusually large serving size of 106-142g [0], compared to the products listed above which have an average serving size of 30-40g, and therefore position themselves as being 'better deals' because they can claim to have more "servings". But otherwise the nutrient ratios are quite comparable and it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

[0] https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/204409635-Preparin...

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

#357

Post by DanBC »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #296
mojowo11 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Meal replacement shakes like Ensure are meant to be supplemental to food. Soylent markets their product as ALL you have to eat, if you so desire. That could have a very different outcome on someone's health. The OP was giving his experiences with it.

> Meal replacement shakes like Ensure are meant to be supplemental to food.

I wish people would stop saying this.

There are many products, some are Ensure brands, that can be used as sole source nutrition products.

They don't market themselves like that to the general public because they're big companies with lots of lawyers who are cautious about that kind of claim.

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

#358

Post by cptskippy »

vidarh wrote: post #311
cptskippy wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Every source I've found indicates that my maintenance caloric intake should be 2400+ calories. Where do you get your information from?

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

#359

Post by chaostheory »

deeth_starr_v wrote: post #333
chaostheory wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, meat/food substitutes are likely central to our population growth rate, but let's be intellectually honest. I'm not sure it'll work. I'm really hopeful the meat substitutes will pan out. We haven't figured out cancer yet. You're betting on us figuring out food? Edit: because cancer is complex, the same a food and nutrition

> You're betting on us figuring out food?

Things like Soylent are already here. It's not vaporware. Yes it's not perfect or ideal but it's an answer to really inefficient food production whose water and nutrient needs aren't sustainable for a growing population.

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

#360

Post by humanrebar »

hammock wrote: post #345
refurb wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and then realized I was just eating chemicals You do realize that everything you eat is chemicals, right?

I hate this argument. Usually people are talking about synthetic or non-naturally occurring compounds ancillary to the reason for eating the food. In other words, are you eating processed cheese for the protein, or for the potassium sorbate? Only one of these is a "chemical" is the vernacular.

> Only one of these is a "chemical" is the vernacular.

The vernacular is wrong in this case and encourages ignorance. "Preservatives", "dyes", "perfumes", "thickeners", and "artificial sweeteners" are all words that everyone understands. We can say "artificial ingredients" instead if we want a catch all. The English language is really expressive.

"Chemicals" is a buzzword used a lot by hucksters to push sales through pseudoscience. We must demand better and more specific reasoning than "chemicals" if we want the words "shown by science" to be meaningful as well.

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