5 ms·

SupermealX, India’s Soylent

24 points by jagath 11y ago

DanBC 11y ago
> Ever since an American electrical engineer invented a food that abolishes the inconveniences of foraging and cooking, and contains all the nutrition a human body is known to require but is devoid of the substances that harm, there has been talk that it can end not only the problems of the overfed but also the underfed. After all, it is in the tradition of Silicon Valley-blessed projects to invent a solution for the rich that eventually “makes the world a better place,” to borrow an expression used by tech billionaires and comedians. Jesus fucking christ. 1) Soylent didn't invent anything. Complete liquid meals have been around for many years. 2) No one credible suggest soylent is useful to end world hunger. It's too expensive; it has the wrong nutrient balance; it's made in the wrong place; it requires too much clean water; it's worse than the existing emergency food products in many different ways.
- philh 11y ago
  > It's too expensive; it has the wrong nutrient balance; it's made in the wrong place These don't sound like dealbreakers. One assumes that it can be made more cheaply with scale; with adjusted nutrient profiles; and in places where it is not currently being made. If existing products are better, then Soylent will presumably face some problems on this stage, given that world hunger is in fact still a problem. But I don't think they'll be those ones.
- gotrecruit 11y ago
  god, thank you! as an entrepreneur who has been bodybuilding for more than a decade, i have a really weird love-hate relationship with soylent. i really love the idea because its actually something i've done for myself (custom mixing meal replacement powder formulas) and considered marketing and selling, and i really hate that the soylent guy went ahead and just did it. the worst part for me is that this guy started way way behind myself (and many others who are obsessed with bodybuilding and fitness and nutrition) in terms of nutritional and dietary knowledge, which is evident from his early formulas, and yet he managed to drum up enouogh media attention that he is widely considered a pioneer in the space. i mean, meal replacement powders have existed in supplement shops for decades!
  - CuriouslyC 11y ago
    Soylent is a mediocre product with great marketing. That is unfortunately the curse of capitalism - it isn't the best product that wins, rather the best _promoted_ product that is at least barely acceptable. On the plus side, given Soylent is mediocre, I suspect that it can only expand the market for functional foods.
    - kushti 11y ago
      "the curse of capitalism" - I guess it's the curse of the media-driven society.
- lnanek2 11y ago
  You are indeed right. Although I'm surprised HN hasn't ghost banned you for being negative anyway, lol
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    HN does not 'ghost ban' people for being negative.
- nether 11y ago
  I think any Soylent thread would benefit from a summary of typical comments, to make way for new ideas. Pick yours. 1. Liquid diets aren't new 2. Cooking is easy and enjoyable, I don't see why people avoid it 3. Soylent is healthier than fast food even if it's inferior to well-made natural meals 4. It hasn't undergone rigorous, clinical testing 5. It's dystopic, dehumanizing 6. It's a dietary choice of others that makes me inexplicably angry 7. I've been trying it for 50-100% of my calories for X weeks and it's been great/terrible 8. It's based on outdated FDA recommended allowances 9. It ignores the social, cultural aspects of food
  - codingdave 11y ago
    I pick #1. My biggest problem with Soylent is not what they are doing, but that they have an attitude that they invented the idea.
    - bordercases 11y ago
      Like how Apple "invented" the GUI? The results speak for themselves.
      - Crito 11y ago
        > "Apple is successful, therefore your criticism of [unrelated company and their unrelated product] is irrelevant. I see this a lot. It is ridiculous.
        bordercases 11y ago
        It's usually put against the class of arguments that being derivative or being recombinant is in itself a valid criticism of a product. The company isn't going to give up any revenue just because it found a better target market for a similar good; and neither will accepting the existence of predecessors help the predecessors any. Not to falsely represent your point, but do you believe that changing industries makes this any less the case? Plus the extent that Soylent is a substitute for Ensure or Boost or those peanut bars they give to starving earthquake victims isn't total: Soylent is based in consumer feedback while Ensure/Boost have stopped innovating; Soylent is aiming for use in perpetuity while Ensure/Boost are meant to be stopgap measures, etc. I like the product a lot so I'm going to be speaking vehemently about it, but that doesn't mean I'm not open for criticism. I'm wondering what your thoughts are.
- infinotize 11y ago
  There's another thing people forget, too: you're made to chew things. Chewing helps break down food for digestion, and probably more importantly generates saliva, which is also very important for initial digestion as well as oral health.
  - x5n1 11y ago
    Not to mention the gut is a muscle, and muscles need exercise. Eating liquid food is probably not good in the long run for your digestive system and probably causes other problems that will be evident 5-10 years down the line or more. People were not meant to eat liquid supplement.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - darkmighty 11y ago
    If this is the only problem maybe it has a solution too? It shouldn't be too hard to make a nutrient-poor spongy substrate to carry Soylent.
    - discardorama 11y ago
      Or, you know, just spit into the soylent as you're constituting it?
      - darkmighty 11y ago
        Doesn't provide chewing or gut muscle activity.
oneJob 11y ago
That idea that a selection of vitamins and minerals, et al. can replace traditional food has largely been debunked, for the current state of the art at least. Perhaps in the future, but based on our current knowledge base we can not yet replace traditional food with synthesized pills and powder for the majority of one's natural life. We still do not know all of the nutritional elements of some of the most basic fruits we pick up every day in our grocery store. If you don't believe me (I wouldn't, who am I?) check out the book below. The author has been in the field for decades, well published, studied both reductionist and wholistic approaches to nutrition. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/t-colin-campbell/whole-book-excerpt-_b_3308560.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/t-colin-campbell/whole-book-ex...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- ajmurmann 11y ago
  I think the debate around Soylent really suffers from disagreement of what users of Soylent use it for, what others think it is being used for out should be used for and what it is advertised as. I think it's foolish to believe that Soylent will provide a very healthy diet just I its own. As you point out we know way to little about what the body needs. That's why no one I know who uses Soylent eats it exclusively. Unfortunately that's not what is advertised as. If you see it as an alternative to a rushed meal that comes from a fast food chain and our prematr from the freezer in the grocery store, Soylent is the better choice. I eat/drink Soylent for breakfast add weekday lunches. For dinner I usually have streamed vegetables and done lean meat with done fresh fruit later in the evening. I think together that probably makes for a much better diet than most people have. Yes, it could be improved by replacing the Soylent with a more traditional, but healthy meal, but the effort I'm willing to invest I breakfast and weekday lunches prevents that as far as I can see. Especially at the price point that Soylent comes at. I'm certain that most Soylent users see Soylent as a replacement for a crappy sandwich or burger with a side of potato chips and not as a replacement for a wholesome meal.
  - oneJob 11y ago
    Unfortunately Soylent does not market it as such. If they did, I'd be inclined to agree with you. However, on Soylent's website you can find the following: "Soylent is a food product (classified as a food, not a supplement, by the FDA) designed for use as a staple meal by all adults." -https://www.soylent.com/about/ https://www.soylent.com/about/ "Soylent is designed as a simple staple food, and people incorporate it into their lives to varying degrees. Some people use it almost exclusively, while others use it 2-3 times per week. There is no right or wrong amount of Soylent to eat - the whole idea is to find a balance that works for you." -https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/201273045-How-do-I-use-Soylent- https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/201273045-How-do-I... "Our goal at Soylent is to engineer nutritionally-complete food products that are optimized for modern consumers' lifestyles and budgets. Above all, we want to make healthy nutrition easily attainable." -https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/203709619-Soylent-Approach-to-Nutrition https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/203709619-Soylent-... So by using terms or phrases such as 'complete', 'almost exclusively', and 'staple', and going so far as to remark that it is classified by the FDA as a 'food' and not a 'supplement', Soylent is explicitly marketing their product as a primary or complete food and nutrition source. Their words. Not mine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staple_food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staple_food
fsiefken 11y ago
All this talk about liquid food as a holy grail to pursue is intruiging but I wonder, what harm does it do to the teeth, oral flora and digestive system if they have nothing to 'chew' on? Just like our body slowly atrophies when we sit to much and move to little, perhaps our body needs the traditional 'holistic' form of food (not necessarily including raw food)?
- adrianN 11y ago
  We know so little about nutrition that it's risky to deviate too far from traditional cuisines. I would bet that Soylent has some detrimental effect if it's not part of a varied diet.
  - matznerd 11y ago
    Even with a varied diet, it is likely that almost everyone can benefit from supplementation, especially of precursors required for complex processes, such as ubiquinol. Also, for those eating, a safe measurement of food diversity is to try and eat all of the different colors.
- Crito 11y ago
  Probably best for Soylent drinkers to regularly chew gum. It'd be pretty awkward to discover after a few months that your jaw muscles have atrophied so severely that you have trouble chewing even the softest dry foods.
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    Perhaps its counter acted by them telling me all the time how much better it is than solid food :-). But more seriously you do have a valid (if taken to an extreme) point. But similar arguments are made by people on segways losing walking endurance (or cars even). Actual atrophy seems to require complete non-use.
    - jacobolus 11y ago
      People using motor vehicles all the time absolutely causes atrophy. Lack of mobility among the sedentary (especially sedentary and obese) part of the population is a serious problem. There are a substantial number of people who have difficulty walking even a couple of blocks, not through any prior injury or disability, but just through disuse of their legs. My wife and I were at the Biltmore estate in North Carolina a couple years ago. We wandered through the gardens, and we were chatting with a couple of ladies about what we had seen. They were shocked that we had walked a half mile from the parking lot instead of taking the shuttle. “You walked all the way from the house to here?!”
littletimmy 11y ago
For the starving poor - it is too expensive. For the tasteful rich - it is too bland. For the average house - it is too unlike a home-cooked meal. For programmers being used as disposable slaves - it's perfect! Less time eating, more time programming.
mahouse 11y ago
Designated food.
molecule 11y ago
> Also, society is conditioned to believe there is something objectionable about the poor being made to drink a tasteless subsidized potion because they cannot afford the other kind of good food. There are movies in which people consuming tasteless but utilitarian nutrition is depicted as evidence of dystopia. It seems conspicuous that it wasn't mentioned that Soylent is the namesake of one of those movies. Is it assumed that most NYT readers will make / have already made the association?
ChuckMcM 11y ago
I got some Soylent for my earthquake supplies, its shelf stable and nicer than the 3kCal US Coast Guard biscuit rations. Are their disaster kits in India? Something to tide you over until the systems reboot sufficiently ?
- newsignup 11y ago
  > Are their disaster kits in India? The ones in disaster haven't heard the term yet..
- DanBC 11y ago
  (This sounds like an aggressive quibble, but it isn't. I am just interested.) May I ask: how do you know soylent is shelf stable? Is it packed in a protective atmosphere? What testing have they done?
  - enraged_camel 11y ago
    It's dry, and the packages are sealed. For comparison, an unopened and properly sealed tub of protein powder lasts well over two years.
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    The current Soylent packaging comes with a one year shelf expiration date. I don't know the testing they have done to back that up. The USCG rations have a 10 year expiration date but other stuff in my earthquake kit is best rotated/replaced on an annual basis so it works for me.
- Vexs 11y ago
  Good idea! Soylent is probably an excellent disaster food- it's denser than anything else out there, and I'm not terribly worried about gut folia or whatever in such a situation.
frofroggy 11y ago
> Also, society is conditioned to believe there is something objectionable about the poor being made to drink a tasteless subsidized potion because they cannot afford the other kind of good food. Others might object to a mandated government subsidy for a product without relevant prior analysis of the existing market for minimum-cost diets (e.g., determining the cost of the Stigler Diet for the region).

24 points by jagath 11y ago

DanBC 11y ago

> Ever since an American electrical engineer invented a food that abolishes the inconveniences of foraging and cooking, and contains all the nutrition a human body is known to require but is devoid of the substances that harm, there has been talk that it can end not only the problems of the overfed but also the underfed. After all, it is in the tradition of Silicon Valley-blessed projects to invent a solution for the rich that eventually “makes the world a better place,” to borrow an expression used by tech billionaires and comedians. Jesus fucking christ. 1) Soylent didn't invent anything. Complete liquid meals have been around for many years. 2) No one credible suggest soylent is useful to end world hunger. It's too expensive; it has the wrong nutrient balance; it's made in the wrong place; it requires too much clean water; it's worse than the existing emergency food products in many different ways.

philh 11y ago
> It's too expensive; it has the wrong nutrient balance; it's made in the wrong place These don't sound like dealbreakers. One assumes that it can be made more cheaply with scale; with adjusted nutrient profiles; and in places where it is not currently being made. If existing products are better, then Soylent will presumably face some problems on this stage, given that world hunger is in fact still a problem. But I don't think they'll be those ones.
gotrecruit 11y ago
god, thank you! as an entrepreneur who has been bodybuilding for more than a decade, i have a really weird love-hate relationship with soylent. i really love the idea because its actually something i've done for myself (custom mixing meal replacement powder formulas) and considered marketing and selling, and i really hate that the soylent guy went ahead and just did it. the worst part for me is that this guy started way way behind myself (and many others who are obsessed with bodybuilding and fitness and nutrition) in terms of nutritional and dietary knowledge, which is evident from his early formulas, and yet he managed to drum up enouogh media attention that he is widely considered a pioneer in the space. i mean, meal replacement powders have existed in supplement shops for decades!
- CuriouslyC 11y ago
  Soylent is a mediocre product with great marketing. That is unfortunately the curse of capitalism - it isn't the best product that wins, rather the best _promoted_ product that is at least barely acceptable. On the plus side, given Soylent is mediocre, I suspect that it can only expand the market for functional foods.
  - kushti 11y ago
    "the curse of capitalism" - I guess it's the curse of the media-driven society.
lnanek2 11y ago
You are indeed right. Although I'm surprised HN hasn't ghost banned you for being negative anyway, lol
- jacquesm 11y ago
  HN does not 'ghost ban' people for being negative.
nether 11y ago
I think any Soylent thread would benefit from a summary of typical comments, to make way for new ideas. Pick yours. 1. Liquid diets aren't new 2. Cooking is easy and enjoyable, I don't see why people avoid it 3. Soylent is healthier than fast food even if it's inferior to well-made natural meals 4. It hasn't undergone rigorous, clinical testing 5. It's dystopic, dehumanizing 6. It's a dietary choice of others that makes me inexplicably angry 7. I've been trying it for 50-100% of my calories for X weeks and it's been great/terrible 8. It's based on outdated FDA recommended allowances 9. It ignores the social, cultural aspects of food
- codingdave 11y ago
  I pick #1. My biggest problem with Soylent is not what they are doing, but that they have an attitude that they invented the idea.
  - bordercases 11y ago
    Like how Apple "invented" the GUI? The results speak for themselves.
    - Crito 11y ago
      > "Apple is successful, therefore your criticism of [unrelated company and their unrelated product] is irrelevant. I see this a lot. It is ridiculous.
      - bordercases 11y ago
        It's usually put against the class of arguments that being derivative or being recombinant is in itself a valid criticism of a product. The company isn't going to give up any revenue just because it found a better target market for a similar good; and neither will accepting the existence of predecessors help the predecessors any. Not to falsely represent your point, but do you believe that changing industries makes this any less the case? Plus the extent that Soylent is a substitute for Ensure or Boost or those peanut bars they give to starving earthquake victims isn't total: Soylent is based in consumer feedback while Ensure/Boost have stopped innovating; Soylent is aiming for use in perpetuity while Ensure/Boost are meant to be stopgap measures, etc. I like the product a lot so I'm going to be speaking vehemently about it, but that doesn't mean I'm not open for criticism. I'm wondering what your thoughts are.
infinotize 11y ago
There's another thing people forget, too: you're made to chew things. Chewing helps break down food for digestion, and probably more importantly generates saliva, which is also very important for initial digestion as well as oral health.
- x5n1 11y ago
  Not to mention the gut is a muscle, and muscles need exercise. Eating liquid food is probably not good in the long run for your digestive system and probably causes other problems that will be evident 5-10 years down the line or more. People were not meant to eat liquid supplement.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- darkmighty 11y ago
  If this is the only problem maybe it has a solution too? It shouldn't be too hard to make a nutrient-poor spongy substrate to carry Soylent.
  - discardorama 11y ago
    Or, you know, just spit into the soylent as you're constituting it?
    - darkmighty 11y ago
      Doesn't provide chewing or gut muscle activity.

oneJob 11y ago

That idea that a selection of vitamins and minerals, et al. can replace traditional food has largely been debunked, for the current state of the art at least. Perhaps in the future, but based on our current knowledge base we can not yet replace traditional food with synthesized pills and powder for the majority of one's natural life. We still do not know all of the nutritional elements of some of the most basic fruits we pick up every day in our grocery store. If you don't believe me (I wouldn't, who am I?) check out the book below. The author has been in the field for decades, well published, studied both reductionist and wholistic approaches to nutrition. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/t-colin-campbell/whole-book-excerpt-_b_3308560.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/t-colin-campbell/whole-book-ex...

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ajmurmann 11y ago
I think the debate around Soylent really suffers from disagreement of what users of Soylent use it for, what others think it is being used for out should be used for and what it is advertised as. I think it's foolish to believe that Soylent will provide a very healthy diet just I its own. As you point out we know way to little about what the body needs. That's why no one I know who uses Soylent eats it exclusively. Unfortunately that's not what is advertised as. If you see it as an alternative to a rushed meal that comes from a fast food chain and our prematr from the freezer in the grocery store, Soylent is the better choice. I eat/drink Soylent for breakfast add weekday lunches. For dinner I usually have streamed vegetables and done lean meat with done fresh fruit later in the evening. I think together that probably makes for a much better diet than most people have. Yes, it could be improved by replacing the Soylent with a more traditional, but healthy meal, but the effort I'm willing to invest I breakfast and weekday lunches prevents that as far as I can see. Especially at the price point that Soylent comes at. I'm certain that most Soylent users see Soylent as a replacement for a crappy sandwich or burger with a side of potato chips and not as a replacement for a wholesome meal.
- oneJob 11y ago
  Unfortunately Soylent does not market it as such. If they did, I'd be inclined to agree with you. However, on Soylent's website you can find the following: "Soylent is a food product (classified as a food, not a supplement, by the FDA) designed for use as a staple meal by all adults." -https://www.soylent.com/about/ https://www.soylent.com/about/ "Soylent is designed as a simple staple food, and people incorporate it into their lives to varying degrees. Some people use it almost exclusively, while others use it 2-3 times per week. There is no right or wrong amount of Soylent to eat - the whole idea is to find a balance that works for you." -https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/201273045-How-do-I-use-Soylent- https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/201273045-How-do-I... "Our goal at Soylent is to engineer nutritionally-complete food products that are optimized for modern consumers' lifestyles and budgets. Above all, we want to make healthy nutrition easily attainable." -https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/203709619-Soylent-Approach-to-Nutrition https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/203709619-Soylent-... So by using terms or phrases such as 'complete', 'almost exclusively', and 'staple', and going so far as to remark that it is classified by the FDA as a 'food' and not a 'supplement', Soylent is explicitly marketing their product as a primary or complete food and nutrition source. Their words. Not mine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staple_food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staple_food

fsiefken 11y ago

All this talk about liquid food as a holy grail to pursue is intruiging but I wonder, what harm does it do to the teeth, oral flora and digestive system if they have nothing to 'chew' on? Just like our body slowly atrophies when we sit to much and move to little, perhaps our body needs the traditional 'holistic' form of food (not necessarily including raw food)?

adrianN 11y ago
We know so little about nutrition that it's risky to deviate too far from traditional cuisines. I would bet that Soylent has some detrimental effect if it's not part of a varied diet.
- matznerd 11y ago
  Even with a varied diet, it is likely that almost everyone can benefit from supplementation, especially of precursors required for complex processes, such as ubiquinol. Also, for those eating, a safe measurement of food diversity is to try and eat all of the different colors.
Crito 11y ago
Probably best for Soylent drinkers to regularly chew gum. It'd be pretty awkward to discover after a few months that your jaw muscles have atrophied so severely that you have trouble chewing even the softest dry foods.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  Perhaps its counter acted by them telling me all the time how much better it is than solid food :-). But more seriously you do have a valid (if taken to an extreme) point. But similar arguments are made by people on segways losing walking endurance (or cars even). Actual atrophy seems to require complete non-use.
  - jacobolus 11y ago
    People using motor vehicles all the time absolutely causes atrophy. Lack of mobility among the sedentary (especially sedentary and obese) part of the population is a serious problem. There are a substantial number of people who have difficulty walking even a couple of blocks, not through any prior injury or disability, but just through disuse of their legs. My wife and I were at the Biltmore estate in North Carolina a couple years ago. We wandered through the gardens, and we were chatting with a couple of ladies about what we had seen. They were shocked that we had walked a half mile from the parking lot instead of taking the shuttle. “You walked all the way from the house to here?!”

littletimmy 11y ago

For the starving poor - it is too expensive. For the tasteful rich - it is too bland. For the average house - it is too unlike a home-cooked meal. For programmers being used as disposable slaves - it's perfect! Less time eating, more time programming.

mahouse 11y ago

Designated food.

molecule 11y ago

> Also, society is conditioned to believe there is something objectionable about the poor being made to drink a tasteless subsidized potion because they cannot afford the other kind of good food. There are movies in which people consuming tasteless but utilitarian nutrition is depicted as evidence of dystopia. It seems conspicuous that it wasn't mentioned that Soylent is the namesake of one of those movies. Is it assumed that most NYT readers will make / have already made the association?

ChuckMcM 11y ago

I got some Soylent for my earthquake supplies, its shelf stable and nicer than the 3kCal US Coast Guard biscuit rations. Are their disaster kits in India? Something to tide you over until the systems reboot sufficiently ?

newsignup 11y ago
> Are their disaster kits in India? The ones in disaster haven't heard the term yet..
DanBC 11y ago
(This sounds like an aggressive quibble, but it isn't. I am just interested.) May I ask: how do you know soylent is shelf stable? Is it packed in a protective atmosphere? What testing have they done?
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  It's dry, and the packages are sealed. For comparison, an unopened and properly sealed tub of protein powder lasts well over two years.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  The current Soylent packaging comes with a one year shelf expiration date. I don't know the testing they have done to back that up. The USCG rations have a 10 year expiration date but other stuff in my earthquake kit is best rotated/replaced on an annual basis so it works for me.
Vexs 11y ago
Good idea! Soylent is probably an excellent disaster food- it's denser than anything else out there, and I'm not terribly worried about gut folia or whatever in such a situation.

frofroggy 11y ago

> Also, society is conditioned to believe there is something objectionable about the poor being made to drink a tasteless subsidized potion because they cannot afford the other kind of good food. Others might object to a mandated government subsidy for a product without relevant prior analysis of the existing market for minimum-cost diets (e.g., determining the cost of the Stigler Diet for the region).