Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick • Hacker News Board

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#641

Post by ceterum_censeo » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 1:58 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #78

mbenjaminsmith wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Deconstructed essence of cuisine"? I couldn't agree more. Food is one of the most accessible luxuries. The most expensive meals, with fine wine, cost less than most business class tickets (to wherever). On the other hand, a soft cooked egg on a piece of toasted bread after a workout can be just as delicious and costs pennies, available to all. Next they're going to tell us they've found a way to eliminate that pesky…

I agree so much! Many chefs, when asked what they love most the answer is simple. It's almost always some form of an egg. Great food doesn't have to be expensive or with win or be complex. In fact, very often the best things are simple and fast. We live in an era where these things are readily available and they're really easy to make and to be delicious thanks to an abundance of spices and endless styles of fats. I…

For me, an omelette roulée. Quick, fun to make, doesn't need much cleanup, and infinite versatility.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#642

Post by georgefrick » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 2:01 PM UTC

dankohn1 wrote: post #633

Just a quick counterargument from a regular Soylent consumer: I drink a coffiest for breakfast every morning and drink two liquid Soylents on days when I don't have time for a nice lunch or dinner. It's convenient, healthy and tastes good. I've never had any intestinal troubles. I use it as a meal replacement, not a complete food replacement. It sucks that they included this ingredient in their powder and bars that h…

I don't drink the coffee version, but I've otherwise had the exact same experience. It's so nice to have times when I can skip the whole "figuring out food" thing and grab a soylent. I keep a case or so of the pre-mixed liquid bottles around at all times now. At my various clients I generally leave one in the fridge. It's the meal I can eat during a meeting, and feel even less guilty about my Sunday night double cheeseburger.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

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Post by kentt » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 2:02 PM UTC

mpg33 wrote: post #590

rl12345 wrote: post #572

Soylent’s product itself has zero novelty in it. Meal Replacement Powders (MRPs) have been around for decades and are popular among the bodybuilding crowd. The only “innovation” Soylent has brought to the table was being the first company to market MRPs to geeks and hipsters -- and that's it. Personally, I've never tried their product because the ingredients they use seemed average/fudged at best (and I tend to avoid…

I'm not even a "foodie" person and the idea of just eating these meal replacements all the time seems like being in "food prison."

I would be more of the foodie bent, but I love Soylent. You don't have to eat it all the time, just when it's the best way to get your next meal.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

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Post by zebraflask » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 2:03 PM UTC

rl12345 wrote: post #572

Soylent’s product itself has zero novelty in it. Meal Replacement Powders (MRPs) have been around for decades and are popular among the bodybuilding crowd. The only “innovation” Soylent has brought to the table was being the first company to market MRPs to geeks and hipsters -- and that's it. Personally, I've never tried their product because the ingredients they use seemed average/fudged at best (and I tend to avoid…

It might just be an irrational perception, but when this first came out and got some media attention, I thought it was a great example of the attitude that some engineers/developers have: "too good to do something normal like eat a sandwich, the only thing that matters is more coding."

It struck me as a fundamentally antisocial product developed by someone who might have some kind of an eating disorder. But, like I said, that might only be a perception.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#645

Post by kaitai » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 2:03 PM UTC

LoSboccacc wrote: post #419

skuhn wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that Soylent will go down as a cautionary tale for anyone who looks at a field they know very little about and thinks "how hard could it be?". Along with Theranos. What Soylent should have built to be worth $100+ million is a way to make a food product tailored to a particular person or group of people that's based on automation and nutritional science. Instead they seem to have a cobbled together amalgam tha…

eh, as the first trying to bring science in food science and use microbiology instead of dietary esoterism I'm willing to give them some slack sure this turn of people getting sick is worrying, because coming late and sudden hints at contamination, and I hope they can mature enough to go past manufacturing problems but the data they're collecting will be extraordinary for bringing down the layers of encrusted myths a…

Total parenteral nutrition (TPN) has been used in medicine for a while; it feeds people directly, bypassing the digestive tract and delivering nutrients via an IV. Enteral nutrition (feeding tubes) have been used for a long time as well. Medicine has thought long & hard about how to keep people alive on a liquid diet. It's not a new thing and Soylent is not even close to a "first".

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#646

Post by oldmanjay » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 2:03 PM UTC

rl12345 wrote: post #572

Soylent’s product itself has zero novelty in it. Meal Replacement Powders (MRPs) have been around for decades and are popular among the bodybuilding crowd. The only “innovation” Soylent has brought to the table was being the first company to market MRPs to geeks and hipsters -- and that's it. Personally, I've never tried their product because the ingredients they use seemed average/fudged at best (and I tend to avoid…

Your dismissal is 100% emotional. Do you have any reasons that I should find it compelling or are you relying entirely on emotional resonance to make your anti-soylent case?

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#647

Post by ajamesm » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 2:03 PM UTC

dankohn1 wrote: post #633

Just a quick counterargument from a regular Soylent consumer: I drink a coffiest for breakfast every morning and drink two liquid Soylents on days when I don't have time for a nice lunch or dinner. It's convenient, healthy and tastes good. I've never had any intestinal troubles. I use it as a meal replacement, not a complete food replacement. It sucks that they included this ingredient in their powder and bars that h…

"doing startups is hard, and we all make mistakes along the way"

I'd love to see a restaurant use that line. Food safety is hard!

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#648

Post by dahart » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 2:05 PM UTC

timv wrote: post #176

dahart wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't judge anyone for making food and drink a footnote in their life. I believe you that you're trying not to be judgemental, but FWIW, your statement equating eating soylent to making food and drink a footnote in life sounds at least presumptuous if not judgemental. I love cooked meals too, but I can easily see the value in a quick, controlled meal with a proper balance of macros, it's not a stretch to understa…

[ I'm not the parent poster ] > * your statement equating eating soylent to making food and drink a footnote in life sounds at least presumptuous if not judgemental.* But that was a core part Rob Rhinehart's original proposition. I totally get that it's not why or how everyone consumes Soylent, but these were the words used to introduce it to the world: In my own life I resented the time, money, and effort the purcha…

> I don't see how equating statements like "I resented the time", "it's just a hassle" and "never have to worry about the stuff" with "a footnote in life" can be called presumptuous.

If either the article this thread is commenting on, or the person I replied to, had quoted any of those things, I'd be inclined to agree.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

#649

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 2:05 PM UTC

dave_sullivan wrote: post #609

anExcitedBeast wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tip: if you care about maximizing the quality of your dietary supplement, research and buy each ingredient individually, and then mix it all up yourself. That defeats my primary use case for MRP: not needing to think about nutrition. I hate cooking, I hate cleaning, and eating out all the time feels wasteful. I just want quick, healthy meals with a decent shelf life.

> not needing to think about nutrition. I hate cooking, I hate cleaning, and eating out all the time feels wasteful. I just want quick, healthy meals with a decent shelf life. As I've come around to thinking of the human body as more of a system than a binary switch (sick/not sick), I've come to appreciate that natural food sources have a lot of nutrients in them that are hard to get with manufactured foods. There's…

> for the "naturalistic fallacy" group, how do you account for the role of evolution as an optimizer for health vs evolution as optimizer for 20th century economic cost?

Human evolution has optimized us for having children early and often and living to 40-50 so they've enough time to grow up and become the next generation of subsistence farmers/breeders.

Re: Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick

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Post by dasboth » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 2:05 PM UTC

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #603

the_duke wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cooking still takes time. For anything decent, you need AT LEAST 30 minutes, usually more like 60+. And then comes the cleaning of pots, pans, filling the dishwasher. That's a WHOLE HOUR I could be wasting my time on HN instead!

Listen to a podcast or audiobook etc. while you cook.

This is underrated advice that applies to any household chore. I like cooking for the sake of cooking but the time spent on it feels wasteful. If I put on an educational podcast I suddenly don't mind the time I spend cooking/washing dishes/whatever.