Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

blog.soylent.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

571–580 of 665 posts

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

#571

Post by hammock »

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #467
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.

Plenty of naturally-occurring compounds found in various plants and animals are toxic for humans to consume. To say that naturally-occurring foods are inherently better for us to eat requires an awful lot of cherry-picking (no pun intended).

Right, and we don't eat them....what's your point

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

#572

Post by fernly »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #108
johnfn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go to what they've written up on their website, https://www.amplemeal.com/products/ample , you can see they've taken and written about a lot of care in selecting ingredients. Off the top of my head, probiotics are a big thing that you don't see in Soylent. Spirulina is included. Omega 3 fatty acids. The emphasis on whole foods rather than nutrients is another thing important to me. From what they've written it…

Looks good but doesn't list many vitamins or minerals on the label.

The published nutrition panel [1] lists four micros:

Vitamin A 0% (zero percent)

Vitamin C 2%

Calcium 4%

Iron 14%

Since they list no others, one might infer those are not present.

[1] https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1096/7494/products/Ample_4...

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

#573

Post by fernly »

cowpewter wrote: post #308
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…

Thank you for mentioning Ample, as I hadn't heard of it before. I'm a T2 diabetic, so I've been avoiding Soylent because of the carb content. Ample looks like it's made of things I'd actually feel good about putting in my body vs the maltrodextrin/oat base of Soylent. I went ahead and ordered a 12 pack to give it a try.

Soylent does publish their GI info [1].

But if you want a low-carb product with a wide range of flavors, check KetoChow [2].

[1] https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/212769503-Glycemic...

[2] https://www.ketochow.xyz/

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

#574

Post by FaeR »

lancewiggs wrote: post #565
covercash wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nutrition facts for those interested in comparing: Soylent - http://files.soylent.com/pdf/soylent-drink-nutrition-facts-e... Ensure - http://c4.q-assets.com/images/products/p/ab/ab-116_3z.jpg Ample - https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1096/7494/products/Ample_4... https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1096/7494/products/Ample_I... Edit: added Ample info.

How bad does a food system have to be to get to the point where people deliberately choose to eat this? Filtered Water, Soy Protein Isolate, Maltodextrin, High Oleic Algal Oil, Isomaltulose, Canola Oil, Rice Starch, Oat Fiber, Isomaltooligosaccharide, Soy Lecithin, Potassium Chloride, Calcium Phosphate, Magnesium Phosphate, Natural & Artificial Flavors, Dipotassium Phosphate, Salt, Choline Chloride, Gellan Gum, Sodiu…

Allow me to introduce to the ingredient list of an egg. Terrifying isn't it.

https://jameskennedymonash.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/ingre...

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

#575

Post by Chathamization »

maxerickson wrote: post #253
kunaalarya wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not sure where you got the slimfast nutritional info but they have 1g of sugar: http://slimfast.com/advanced-nutrition/#shakes if it had that much sugar, it wouldve never gained a reputation for losing weight.

Original vs Advanced (click the buttons on their website to find Original). The Original I checked had 18 grams of sugar.

And it looks like Advanced was introduced after Soylent.

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

#576

Post by DiThi »

fernly wrote: post #573
cowpewter wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for mentioning Ample, as I hadn't heard of it before. I'm a T2 diabetic, so I've been avoiding Soylent because of the carb content. Ample looks like it's made of things I'd actually feel good about putting in my body vs the maltrodextrin/oat base of Soylent. I went ahead and ordered a 12 pack to give it a try.

Soylent does publish their GI info [1]. But if you want a low-carb product with a wide range of flavors, check KetoChow [2]. [1] https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/212769503-Glycemic... [2] https://www.ketochow.xyz/

Is there a KetoChow equivalent in the EU?

edit: I just found this: https://www.completefoods.co/diy/recipes/keto-chow-150-maste...

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

#577

Post by mod »

tedmiston wrote: post #507
tonydiv wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you will begin to consider alternatives when they are available, and at a lower cost

I'm not so sure — alternatives at a comparable price are already on the market. I could make it myself and save more but it's not worth the tradeoff of time and inconvenience to save $1–2. Personally my price sensitivity for it is pretty low. At $2–3 per meal, it's cheaper than any other meals besides breakfast throughout the week.

There's a lot of DIY recipes and some are supposedly just as complete and a whole lot cheaper: https://www.completefoods.co/diy/recipes/brets-soylent-oat-r...

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

#578

Post by goldenkey »

greenshackle2 wrote: post #492
goldenkey wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A multivitamin. Organic valley protein shakes (already liquid): https://www.organicvalley.coop/products/protein-shakes/ And purple corn meal for carbs: https://www.amazon.com/Z%C3%B3calo-Peru-Organic-Purple-Flour... Organic virgin coconut oil (in glass jar) for fats: https://www.pureformulas.com/nutiva-organic-extravirgin-coco...

OK I'll bite. Soylent is $2.69 / 400 cal and vegan. To get the same macro ratios you don't need the corn meal, the shakes have plenty of carbs, you can do 1 shake @ $3.33 + 15g coconut oil @ $0.55 + a few cents for the multivitamin = ~$4.00 / 400 cal. (You may still want the cornmeal for fibers and slower carbs, since the carbs in the shake are all from milk and cane sugar.) So it's more expensive, requires preparati…

Soy protein has phytoestrogens and lead and whatnot. Proteins from plants grown in metal heavy soil are not a good source for majority of protein supply for a human being.

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

#579

Post by Lazare »

kunaalarya wrote: post #232
jefftk wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slimfast has 4x as much sugar as Soylent (per-calorie). To get 2000 calories from Slimfast you'd be getting 180g sugar, while with Soylent it would be 45g. Now 45g is a little higher than recommended, but 180g is way too high. http://d8m5oga7foiu.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/1... http://files.soylent.com/pdf/soylent-drink-nutrition-facts-e...

not sure where you got the slimfast nutritional info but they have 1g of sugar: http://slimfast.com/advanced-nutrition/#shakes if it had that much sugar, it wouldve never gained a reputation for losing weight.

That's a hilariously naive comment.

Historically, diet shakes/meal replacement shakes/etc have been almost entirely sugar, and slimfast is infamous for exactly that.

> if it had that much sugar, it wouldve never gained a reputation for losing weight.

That's not how advertising works. :)

(There is a new variant of slimfast with low sugar, but that's a very recent exception to the rule. Most slimfast is high sugar, and historically all slimfast was high sugar. It's like arguing "coke doesn't have lots of sugar", and linking the nutritional information to diet coke.)

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

#580

Post by Chathamization »

Lewton wrote: post #266
milquetoastaf wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What advantage does Soylent have over say, other meal replacements e.g. Slimfast, weight watcher shakes, juices etc that have existed for years before it and will continue to do so for years after? All I see is SV hype and marketing. In fact you just showed that Soylent is easily outplayed because you switched to a different drink already.

This is a really weird myth that has started spreading lately. That somehow Soylent was just another meal replacement in a long line of meal replacements. No, none of the products you mentioned is anywhere near as nutritionally balanced as soylent. And those that are, clearly came after

Yeah, I've noticed that. It seems many people simply aren't aware of the state of meal replacement drinks when Soylent came out. People in the Soylent community actually looked at the other options at the time, but they were all fairly bad.
Post reply on HN