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

91–100 of 665 posts

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

#91

Post by snowpanda »

ajmurmann wrote: post #85
moat wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off ingredients on labels are listed in order of most prevalent to least. So what stands out specifically is the unhealthy oils. Sunflower and canola. I'm mobile or I would paste links, but read up on them. Horrible omega ratios, and sketchy by-products are usually found in them (hopefully Soylent at least has quality versions of this). Also maltodextrin is always one of the main ingredients. Super high gi, and…

The maltodextrin is needed to bind the oil into a powder.

It's only needed if you want to drink soylent.

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

#92

Post by sosodaft »

johnfn wrote: post #29
scott_s wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ample which is similar to Soylent but a bit more health conscious with ingredient choice What does that mean? How did you make this judgement?

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 great. I've been using Huel, the British Soylent knockoff, for 1-2 meals per day (much healthier than the 4oz bag of chips it replaced), and now that I'm moving back to America I'm looking for local alternatives.

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

#93

Post by ceejayoz »

VikingCoder wrote: post #54

Soylent was fine. I maintained weight, and was eating better, and the food was easy. But I'm in a medical weight loss program now, and I'm loving it. It's doctor supervised, I started out at 400 pounds, and I'm down to 360 after five weeks. It's medically supervised because I'm in ketosis, which can be very dangerous. So best to have blood drawn regularly, etc. But the food is great. You can also get them as your own…

> Again, this is a dangerous diet, but it's medically supervised.

I'm glad it's working well for you, but I'd just caution that plenty of quackery is "medically supervised", as were fen-phen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenfluramine/phentermine) and the Tuskegee trials.

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

#94

Post by macspoofing »

lnanek2 wrote: post #86
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…

I don't really hate it, but I don't see Soylent as providing anything you haven't been able to get by just walking down to the local drug store and buying a bottle of Ensure or other meal replacement formula. I do think they have brilliant marketing, though. They turned something that was for old, dying people and made it cool. So I see all the "research" stuff they post as kind of a joke or marketing, because it has…

Their initial shtick was that you could replace all meals with Soylent - an idea with appeal to SV engineers.

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

#95

Post by domenicd »

Kattywumpus wrote: post #45

I wonder how long it will be until some VC forces the inevitable rebranding of the Soylent name. "We need to reach out to a larger demographic with a name that communicates the value proposition of the product. Liquid Lunch focus-groups well in the demographic of females 18-30, which is where we see our growth trending in future..." I've always liked the cheekiness of the Soylent name and it's really the only thing t…

Serious question: how many people in that demographic group do you think have ever seen the movie/read the book that it's based on? I'm approaching 30 myself and never heard of the source material before all the news articles/comment threads on this new powder I was buying.

Which is to say, I don't think the name is as problematic for the real-world target audience as some people make it out to be.

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

#96

Post by Dangeranger »

yegle wrote: post #63
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.

Pro GMO: they are not hiding that they used a lot of GMO product, instead of selling you something organic with a huge premium. Glycemic Index/Glycemic Load: a quick search doesn't give me SlimFast's GI/GL info, while Soylent does post the number.

A very quick look at the Slimfast page for their high protein product links the nutritional information. It shows that the mix has ~1g of sugars per serving, but is mixed with milk, so you'll need to account for that in your calculations depending on the type of milk you use for mixing.

http://slimfast.com/advanced-nutrition/

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

#97

Post by johnfn »

arikr wrote: post #71
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…

For other readers, a caution - I found Ample to be inedible, taste wise. I took a few sips of the first bottle, and didn't touch the rest of my order.

That's a really interesting experience. I personally find it to be significantly better tasting than Soylent.

One crucial thing is that the water you mix it with has to be very cold, otherwise I did find it to be difficult to drink. Once you hit that temperature threshold though, it makes a world of difference.

At least for me.

I've never been bothered by the taste of any version of Soylent, even 1.0, so I could just have a unique experience.

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

#98

Post by ceejayoz »

Danihan wrote: post #44
freyir wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You piqued my curiosity. Here are the nutrition facts from their drink product: Calories 400 Total Fat 21g 32% Saturated Fat 2g 10% Polyunsaturated Fat 2.5g Monounsaturated Fat 16g Trans Fat 0g Cholesterol 0mg 0% Sodium 300mg 13% Total Carbohydrate 36g 12% Total Sugars 9g Protein 20g The ratios don't seem that bad. The top ingredients are water, soy protein, maltodextrin (a filler/preservative with a high glycemic in…

It depends how you view nutrition. I'm personally a big proponent of eating lots of cholesterol and saturated (read: stable) fats. One of cholesterol's most important functions is to support learning and memory — the brain is basically made of cholesterol. And statin drugs provably lower cognitive function, for instance. Anyway, it's a real rabbits hole to go down research wise, but I certainly wouldn't advocate a ch…

> One of cholesterol's most important functions is to support learning and memory — the brain is basically made of cholesterol.

I'd be interested in the science on this, particularly how much replenishment cholesterol it needs on a regular basis.

The brain's mostly fat, but that doesn't mean fat people are smarter.

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

#99

Post by icelancer »

johnfn wrote: post #90
macspoofing wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Meal replacements is a well-defined and established category

The fact that at least 3 people in this thread have named the category "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.

While I'd generally agree with you, you can look up any "meal replacement" shakes made for athletes that are used to add calories. They contain a large amount of protein and calories and are fairly well established. MET-Rx Meal Replacement is one of the larger SKUs on the market, but there are many others.

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

#100

Post by dsacco »

enraged_camel wrote: post #73
blueatlas wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine that the creator of Soylent really feels that way, at least from a business perspective. I doubt investors would put their money into a business that was fine with getting beat in the marketplace as long as it helps people.

>>I can't imagine that the creator of Soylent really feels that way, at least from a business perspective. Why not? Elon Musk did the same thing by basically saying Tesla's patents are "open-source" and free to use: https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you

Cynically, I think Musk did that because 1) it buys good will and 2) the patents aren't Tesla's moat.
Post reply on HN