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

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

#391

Post by ghostly_s » Thu, May 04, 2017, 6:52 PM UTC

monkmartinez wrote: post #199

thaumaturgy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't go hiking with Slimfast, Weight Watcher shakes, or juices. What I don't understand: the REI market is the one place where Soylent is inarguably better than any other product in its niche, and nobody seems to give a shit about that. I carry a bag of dry Soylent in my SAR pack. When I get sent out on an assignment, I have no idea how long I might be out for. For less weight than any other option, I have dinne…

Yes. Yes, you can go hiking on slimfast or Weight Watchers. I go hiking all the time in Arizona with a Builder Bar or an apple and some water. 6 to 8 mile trail runs with some water (nothing else) is very common for me and my friends. I am not going to mix up Soylent for trail running or hiking, ever. I can almost say that 99% of my friends will not either. I also participate (professionally) in uSAR via a technical…

Sorry, why can't you drink a protein shake on a call?

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

#392

Post by chris_7 » Thu, May 04, 2017, 6:54 PM UTC

greenshackle2 wrote: post #234

scott_s wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither is Ensure a "lose weight" brand. But Ensure is an old-people brand. So Soylent (and Ample, which I learned about in this thread) are basically Ensure for young people.

Ensure is a weight gain brand, which is also incidentally marketed as a meal replacement for everyone and their dog because why not - of course marketing will never tell anyone, "don't eat this, it's not for you". That's why it's an old people brand, it's for people who can't eat enough solid food to maintain their weight. Just compare the nutritional labels: Soylent (400 kcal) 21g fat 37g carbs (9g simple sugars, 3g…

Quest Bars have better much macros (barely any net carbs, plenty of fiber and protons) than that, though you'd need to eat ~two to hit the same calorie count. Any reason it needs to be a drink?

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

#393

Post by Blaaguuu » Thu, May 04, 2017, 6:55 PM UTC

akcreek wrote: post #9

tommynicholas wrote: post #2

The new cacao Soylent is so much tastier than I expected it would be. Despite all the mocking Soylent gets, the product is excellent. Maybe it's groundbreaking and maybe it's not, but it's definitely helpful to my life.

The cacao is pretty good, but the other new flavor, nectar, is terrible IMO. Tastes like liquid pez. I still prefer the original flavor for meals. Cacao tastes more like a treat than a meal.

I don't like any of the flavored versions... Cacao was way too sweet, Nectar tasted like drinking a bottle of Windex, and while I actually kinda liked the Coffeist version, it tasted more like chocolate than coffee to me, and my understanding is that there isn't any actual coffee in it, just artificial flavors... so I would rather have a cup of coffee with my normal Soylent in the morning.

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

#394

Post by chris_7 » Thu, May 04, 2017, 6:55 PM UTC

Danihan wrote: post #25

johnfn wrote: post #5

Soylent 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…

How does it blow away a clif bar?

Clif bars are candy, but this would be a much more interesting comparison with Quest Bars.

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

#395

Post by ng12 » Thu, May 04, 2017, 6:57 PM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #386

ng12 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Soylent of today doesn't claim that though. It says right on bottle that it can replace a meal but it should not replace every meal. In that respect it's not much different than Ensure or other meal supplements.

Their website definitely claims that Soylent is a complete substitute for all food.

Where do you see that? It only claims it's a meal substitute, which it is. The only other recommendation I could find was this:

> As a nutritionally complete food source, Soylent should be considered a food product just like any other. You can include Soylent in your diet for as long as you’d like, in any amount that suits your needs. There is no right or wrong amount of Soylent to eat - the whole idea is to find a balance that works for you.

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

#396

Post by jboggan » Thu, May 04, 2017, 6:57 PM UTC

hammock wrote: post #344

deeth_starr_v wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

>"eat what your grand-grand parents ate" Not possible, unfortunately. Meat and vegetables are so totally different now. For example meats are raised on GM corn and antibiotics, altering their balance of omega 3's, impact on gut health, and other things. While today's vegetables are massively decremented in micronutrients- and may have less arsenic-based pesticide residue than your greatgrandparents', but more of othe…

Learn to hunt. Its rewards go beyond better personal nutrition.

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

#397

Post by artimaeis » Thu, May 04, 2017, 6:57 PM UTC

mks40 wrote: post #32

A question to Soylent customers: Do you use it as the occasional convenient meal replacement or how far do you go into replacing all real food? I suspect there is both, but what I am getting at is how much Soylent's long-term success depends on people seeing eating as a nuisance that should be optimized away versus something that should be savoured and enjoyed. To me this is in the context of the larger question of p…

I've tried Soylent on and off since it was new. Overall, I'm a fan of it.

Currently I have a Coffeeist for breakfast 2-3 times a week, and Soylent 2.0 as a work-lunch 4 days a week.

This current trend is coming in as a replacement for what had become some pretty bad eating habits. Stopping at McDonald's or a coffee shop for breakfast 2-3 times a week. Fast food or restaurants with coworkers several times a week, that sort of thing. The social aspect of lunch with coworkers is great, and I try to set aside at least a day in the week to do just that. But that habit is expensive and unhealthy.

I'm a pretty good cook. I tend to eat home-cooked dinners. I'm fine with preparing a big batch of food and freezing/refrigerating it to eat for many days. But I've never found a food that works for this that's great for breakfast or taking to work as a lunch.

Soylent fulfills my exact needs in this regard - and the other meal replacement options don't fit the macro-nutrient profile I strive for. All over this thread there's references to SlimFast (too much sugar in the regular, too few calories in Advanced), Ensure (too much sugar), or protein powders/shakes. I've tried literally all of these.

Protein powders are always a go-to of mine when I'm trying to bulk up. So is plenty of meats and vegetables.

In the end, I just totally have a use for Soylent - and so long as they're the only ones providing what I want in a form I enjoy, they'll continue to have me as a customer.

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

#398

Post by Latty » Thu, May 04, 2017, 7:00 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #319

Latty wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah. With fruit or coffee I think it's really nice though. Coffee is strong enough to overpower the taste entirely, and with a small amount of fruit it tastes a bit like a smoothie with a digestive biscuit blended into it - or you can add a bit more fruit to get rid of that malty taste entirely.

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

#399

Post by deeth_starr_v » Thu, May 04, 2017, 7:03 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #360

hammock wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, I get that using the word "chemicals" is problematic. I understand that food is made up of the same proteins, fats, etc.

When I hear hucksters marketing organic, GMO, or Soylent. I'm always cautious. Caveat emptor.

Edit: I'm not anti-GMO. Nor the concept of Soylent. But I use a headset rather than hold my phone up to my head. Even though there's no definitive proof we can get cancer from smart phones. I just think there is additional risk here.

Edit: Also, your "chemicals" point is like arguing that Global Warming doesn't exist because it's snowing today. It's true, but not relevant to the discussion.

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

#400

Post by ajmurmann » Thu, May 04, 2017, 7:07 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #360

hammock wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To add to your point, many of these "chemicals" aren't even all that artificial. Some thickeners for example come from algae and gave been in use since centuries just in different countries. Looking at some traditional food like ham they are incredibly processed we just are used to it.