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Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

blog.soylent.com

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

#531

Post by derefr »

GavinMcG wrote: post #515
derefr wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that everything that enables depression is almost always otherwise an objective good. Internet access enables depression. Having shelter that won't be taken away from you for lack of monthly payment enables depression. A family willing to take care of you enables depression. Remote work enables depression. Etc. Depression, in this way, is kind of a weird bogeyman of an argument: its prevalence would be…

What if it's not a bogeyman, but something that really is pervasive and should be addressed? I don't think the commenter or anyone I've read is saying "eliminate progress". Have you, or are you just making it up for rhetorical effect? Look, it's not crazy to grant that each of those things is a benefit and bring up the fact that there are downsides. It doesn't have to be all good or all bad. We can say "ordering pizz…

Making life hard on people with a problem, doesn't make the problem go away. It just makes people struggle harder, with worse options, that wear them out even more, as they struggle through the same problem.

It's this same attitude that ends up with heroin addicts on the street: these are almost always people who, at one point, had chronic pain; and then became addicted to their (much less scary) pain medications; and then, when someone decided to make it hard to live an easy life while addicted to pain medications by taking the supply away, they "solved" this problem by finding a different opiate to consume that they could access.

A person with depression will be able to have an easier time having depression if they don't have to cook for themselves, yes. But you know what that easier time means for them? More emotional energy left over to maybe try to get over their depression! And you know who's never going to get over their depression? The person stuck spending the little time they feel like getting out of bed each day trying to scrounge up a meal, pay bills, take care of children/parents, etc.

In short: things like Soylent are, at worst, a crutch. Even when misused and relied upon long-term, they're still letting people have the opportunity to get better, in a way that forcing them to "walk it off" would permanently disable.

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

#532

Post by Romanulus »

giaour wrote: post #198
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…

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.

Just because someone is too far gone to get help from a product that _CAN_ help doesn't mean it is the fault of the product.

*edit: clarity.

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

#533

Post by projektfu »

aetherson wrote: post #448
stale2002 wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your grand grand parents probably died of polio or something, so I am not sure if taking their advice on health is a good idea.

Polio is not a disease caused by malnutrition. Also, your ancestors probably did not die of it -- it mostly affected young people, so people who died from it usually didn't have descendants. Quibbling aside, health in general was certainly much worse in our great-grandparents' days, but for those who weren't straight up underfed, nutrition was probably not worse. I'm not sure it was as magically better as some would…

Most of the impetus for Federal nutrition programs in the US was because of the large number of malnourished and unfit to serve draftees in WW1.

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

#534

Post by [deleted] »

zython wrote: post #182
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…

Interesting thought, but if I may ask, can you really blame Soylent for that? The only person that I know drinks soylent only to surpess the hunger until lunch, and doesnt plan on drinking only soylent. So far they say its doing its job good enough. What's your opinion on that ?

[deleted]

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

#535

Post by dxhdr »

delecti wrote: post #196
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…

Considering how far removed from its "natural" source much of our food is, I don't think Soylent should be looked at with much skepticism. Additionally: > Calcium carbonate is the most common and least expensive calcium supplement. It should be taken with food, and depends on low pH levels (acidic) for proper absorption in the intestine.[26] Some studies suggests that the absorption of calcium from calcium carbonate…

> Considering how far removed from its "natural" source much of our food is, I don't think Soylent should be looked at with much skepticism.

1 in 3 Americans are obese and the next 1 in 3 are overweight. We have no idea how to feed ourselves. Skepticism seems appropriate.

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

#536

Post by iopq »

cabinguy wrote: post #465
leshow wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could take an omega-3 supplement and eat normal beef. There isn't much evidence to show that grass-fed beef has any measurable effect on health.

There isn't much evidence to show that supplements do either.

Well, fish oil does have SOME evidence behind it.

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

#537

Post by iopq »

sneak wrote: post #513
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,…

Orange juice, from your example, is pretty bad for you, especially compared to the low glycemic index carbohydrates found in things like Soylent. File under "false dichotomy".

Glycemic index means nothing. Cake has a low glycemic index (someting like 30, depending on fat content). Oatmeal has a higher glycemic index (55). Does that mean we should stop eating oatmeal and substitute it with cake?

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

#538

Post by mtempm »

oatmealsnap wrote: post #522
mtempm wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily have dehydrated meals for under 50cents that don't have the nutritional criticisms of soylent. It does require you to go to the supermarket, quickly buy some ingredients, and mix them together. Here is an example: You can just buy oats, skim milk powder, peanuts (a bit better if you buy them crushed, or crush them), raisens, and dehydrated fruit & berries. I also add almonds, walnuts, chocolate, coconu…

1/4 the price, but how much extra time does that take? Not saying that's a bad option, just different.

Realistically, I need to go to Costco anyways, and I can buy these products in bulk as they have long shelf lives. Perhaps I spend 5-10mins extra at the store every 2 months, and another 5mins pouring everything in a large container together, once a month. So perhaps 10 minutes a month to save, say, 3$ a day, or 90$ a mo, works out to $360/hr tax free value creation rate without including the value of eating healthier, better tasting food. Where I waste my time is on reddit, HN, and video games.

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

#539

Post by iopq »

derefr wrote: post #501
deeth_starr_v wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not calling it vaporware. We don't understand clearly about our gut bio/digestion/food absorption. It'd be great to hear an expert on this chime in, but my guess they would say "we don't know yet". I'm not telling you to not eat Soylent or that it won't potentially be great for the human race. But again, we don't know. Edit: fixed wording Edit: What if they get something wrong like including trans fats? I know th…

People have been eating imperfectly for millenia and keeping on nevertheless. How many billion (trillion?) Chinese peasants, across history, do you think ate only rice their entire lives? Sure, said peasants probably had vitamin A deficiency—but they managed to live long, mostly-healthy lives despite that. Which is my point: we don't need to get "food" perfect in order to ensure that 10x as many people as today can l…

Those peasants also ate a lot of vegetables because they couldn't afford meat. Vegetables that have beta-carotene, like bok choy.

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

#540

Post by thaumaturgy »

irq11 wrote: post #485
fghvbnvbnfe wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. That single pouch is a significant problem when you generate several a day. They are intended to be used for meal prep, which involves hot water. They're fairly heavy and large, and you have to carry them out with you. You can save a significant amount of weight when packaging your own food by using smaller, lesser weight bags with a separate reusable insulator. Remember, we're talking about people that will pay…

Last time I checked, Soylent comes in packages, and requires water to eat. So sure, you can combine your nutrient goo powder into a single sack, and thereby save a tiny fraction of the weight of the food (and water) itself. But you're splitting hairs. I picked a mountain house pouch-based product at random on amazon, and the packaging weight was .06oz on a gross of 5oz, or 1.2%. Which is, of course, nothing. I have h…

Mountain House requires more than water though, it needs to be cooked, and ounce-for-ounce, provides no more or better nutrition than Soylent. Cooking is a hassle sometimes; if I'm just doing a quick 20-miler for the day, I want to eat but not carry a stove.

If I'm carrying a stove, then I'm carrying fuel too. That weight and space adds up. Even if I'm carrying my MSR Windburner, it's still about the size of my first aid kit. My old MSR PocketRocket was smaller by itself, but required a mess kit or a pot of some kind for the hot water. I could go with a soda can alcohol stove, but then if I spill my fuel I'm a bit boned and they aren't always the most reliable or efficient setups to begin with.

Soylent is: remove Soylent package from pack, dump approx 10 oz into Nalgene, add water (cold, filtered from a stream if possible), shake, and continue.

Cooking while backpacking is fun ... sometimes. Once in a while it's nice to take the time to put together some backcountry gourmet stuff.

But for just having the equivalent of emergency rations in my pack, Soylent really is better than the other choices.

Oh, and anecdotally: digestion is a pretty big deal when you get far enough away from civilization. I've had some Mountain House meals do some pretty unhappy things in my gut, and there's only so much cleanup that small wad of "oh-no" TP I carry around can do. Soylent tends to digest really well and not cause post-digestive messes. Unless, of course, you happen to be one of those many people who were allergic to one of their recent formulations.

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