8 ms·

I'm probably going to get downvoted for this ... but honestly why do people want to eat Soylent? One of the great joys of life is food, Soylent taste like shit,

• jdavis703 10y ago
  I wake up on many days at 5am to head out for work. I go from butt naked in bed to out the door in ten minutes. Before Soylent I just skipped breakfast, now I can swig it down really quick. My lunches and dinners OTOH tend to be much nicer, but nothing beats the quick rush of nutrients.
  • tluyben2 10y ago
    What a life... you enjoy this?
• api 10y ago
  Soylent doesn't replace good food. It replaces the crappy food we eat when we're in a hurry and just need some fuel.
• nilkn 10y ago
  My SO and I have a stockpile of bottled Soylent. It's great. There's always a nutritious meal available. Sometimes neither of us feels like cooking. Sometimes we don't feel like going out. Sometimes you're hungry, need some reasonably healthy food, but don't care if it's gourmet or tastes great as long as it's acceptable. Soylent does the job really well. I also don't agree that it tastes like shit. The bottled Soylent tastes like soy milk to me, which I find delicious. I'd say I personally only drink one bottle per week, maybe two. My SO uses it for breakfast fairly often (which previously she was in the habit of just skipping).
• jclos 10y ago
  I am as puzzled as you, especially if the taste is as bad as you say. There is one industry that has already been focusing on making "healthy" stuff taste good for the past decades: the fitness industry. Why not just go for a good old protein shake? Or a protein bar? It costs almost nothing (except maybe the protein bars, which are comparable in price to soylent ones) and are nutritious enough.
• darawk 10y ago
  To answer for myself personally, I don't eat it every meal. I tend to eat it for lunch on the weekends, if I don't have any particular lunch plans. It's cheap, reasonable-calorie and doesn't make me feel lethargic after eating it. In fact I feel pretty good after drinking one, usually. The only reason I don't drink them more often is that it leaves me just slightly unsatisfied, and that dissatisfaction is distracting when i'm trying to concentrate on work.
• rjbwork 10y ago
  TBH, i think soylent tastes fine. But it's got what I can only describe as an after-texture that is somewhat unsettling. It's like an extremely fine sand coating your mouth.
• elliottkember 10y ago
  As with most Soylent detractors, you're assuming people are eating this every day, or for every meal. In reality, it's great as a once-in-a-while thing. I bought some from a friend, and it was perfect for when I was hungry but running late for something. I had maybe 3 meals a week like this. Any time I told a friend I had some soylent, I got the exact same response you just gave.
  • dashoffset 10y ago
    Yep. I buy one box of Coffiest (12 bottles) per month. I usually drink them before I go swim early in the morning (2-3 times a week). Then, when I come back I get a regular breakfast. And I really enjoy the taste, so... none of the arguments apply.
    • rilut 10y ago
      I haven't tasted Coffiest before. Does Coffiest taste like coffee + soymilk?
      • dashoffset 10y ago
        I think it tastes like a Mocha flavoured protein shake.
        • tedmiston 10y ago
          I'll second that. I get a lot more mocha than coffee. Though the alertness effect seems to be consistent with having a small cup of coffee in the morning.
  • jclos 10y ago
    But why not go for a protein bar then? Quest bars for instance are delicious (I'd even prefer them to a candy bar), and pack a far more interesting macro profile than the Soylent ones.
    • 10y ago
• tlb 10y ago
  While the early versions had a sort of wet-cardboard taste, the 2.0 (powder) and the bottles taste pleasant to me. You have to compare it to what you'd eat otherwise. It may be possible to eat better, but the default for most people is to eat much worse.
  • M_Grey 10y ago
    Surely people who can afford Soylent can afford to buy decent ingredients, a rice cooker, and a crockpot right?
    • whorleater 10y ago
      I mean a bottle of Soylent 2.0 is a lot less work to me when compared to making breakfast, and it tastes like Cheerios milk anyways.
      • M_Grey 10y ago
        Cereal is expensive, and not a great thing to eat most of the time. Make your own breakfast bars, cookies, or muffins. They'll taste better because you can tailor them precisely to your tastes.
        • maxerickson 10y ago
          Cereal is 1/5 or 1/10 the price of the Soylent 2.0 the GP mentions. Name brand cereal.
      • CuriouslyC 10y ago
        Get a decent blender, and you can turn frozen fruit and yogurt into delicious sherbet. Quick, healthy and _much_ tastier than soylent.
        • M_Grey 10y ago
          Almost certainly much better for you too.
• skybrian 10y ago
  Other people like the taste? I like it fine. The bottled version tastes like alternative milk.
• M_Grey 10y ago
  The arguments I've heard generally come from people who think it's more convenient than alternatives they could make themselves. In my experience, those thoughts are incorrect, but it still explains the reasoning. I think the other reality is that people who don't like to deal with food, or have issues with food such as problems with obesity, or an eating disorder might think it's a solution to the "I can quit smoking, I can't quit eating" issue.
  • geoelectric 10y ago
    So, serious question then, because I've honestly been looking for this as a Soylent alternative. Do you have any pointers to a meal plan that would give me full daily nutrition for say, a time/effort expenditure of around 20 minutes a day in preparation? Let's say I'm totally cool eating the same thing for any given meal each day (though I'd prefer different breakfast/lunch/dinner within same day), and let's say I'm fine buying appliances as long as the maintenance/cleanup is within that time period too. Money isn't a concern here within reason. Since you mention rice cookers and crock pots (and I also have an instant pot) I can also work with set-and-forget as long as I only have to pay attention for 20 minutes or so. The draw of Soylent to me is that I basically have no clue how to feed myself within time allotted, so I eat like crap grazing on what amounts to snacks or ordering out. I know Soylent isn't great but it's better than what I do on my own. I'd love to have a healthier alternative, but I also know from experience that unless I can find something dead easy like described, I won't build the habit.
    • M_Grey 10y ago
      For me? I'm partial to cooking a lot of stuff at once and portioning it out, then freezing it. Pretty much anything with any kind of beans or lentils is easy to make in large quantities, tastes good and lasts a long time in the freezer. Rice cookers are a great multipurpose tool as well, and as a bonus they're great at making (and keeping) rice. Toss in the water and rice in the morning, come back to rice. Protein of your choice on a skillet or toaster oven, or nuke some of your stews, on the rice... boom. I like (again this is my taste, yours of course may vary) oatmeal, coconut and fruit bars (the internet is full of good recipes for energy, protein, fiber, etc bars and snacks). They last a while in the fridge, and basically forever in the freezer. Another case of, "Make it when you have some time, and eat them for the rest of month or quarter". Finally... sandwiches, salads, and soups. I also love granola with yogurt and honey, and eat that as my "I have some time to enjoy this" breakfast; only thing to cook is the granola, again once a month or so.
• baddox 10y ago
  > One of the great joys of life is food The explanation probably starts here. This isn't true for me, and presumably isn't true for some other people as well.
  • CuriouslyC 10y ago
    Eat better food, and eat it mindfully. Really good food lights up every sense but hearing. Think of it like sex - you don't just hurriedly hop on top of each other and rub genitals as fast as possible until orgasm, that would be awful.
    • tedmiston 10y ago
      This is a great argument, and it makes me think of my favorite tea bar / restaurant in SF, Samovar. However there are downsides to eating like that too: it costs more and takes more time (either to prepare yourself, or to wait at a restaurant).
    • baddox 10y ago
      I've had food that is widely considered good, and while I do find it to be good, it's not good enough to be worth the trouble (which is where your analogy breaks down). Really, it's just the day to day inconvenience of having to worry about where and what to eat that bugs me, because I don't enjoy food enough to make it worth the trouble.
• rkho 10y ago
  I enjoy food, but don't budget my time appropriately in the mornings. Soylent is my go-to when I'm leaving for my commute in the mornings and for nighttime if I end up working on my own projects at home too late to remember to make something, since I prefer not to eat solids right before bed. Recently, two friends have given me their own reasons for choosing Soylent. One of them feels that eating is a chore, and the other is convinced that drinking amounts of it will allow their body to take more junk food on the weekend. Not the best reasonings in my opinion, but those are some of the opinions out there.
• delecti 10y ago
  Not every meal is gourmet, sometimes you just need fuel. Additionally, some people don't really care about food as a pleasure to begin with. Personally, I have a bottle of Soylent maybe once a week when I'm too lazy to make anything else, and I have a soylent bar a couple times a week at my desk when I need a snack but don't want to resort to a candy bar from the vending machine. A Soylent bar is 250 calories and has a reasonably good balance of macro and micronutrients, a Snickers bar is 215 calories and has an abundance of sugar. I expect that there are relatively few people who consume Soylent as the majority of their calories. Besides, it's not like most people are eating meticulously balanced diets to begin with, so the "long term effects" point seems fairly moot to me.
• fallinghawks 10y ago
  I love good food as well, both cooking and going to restaurants. But Soylent is fast and convenient for light meals. If I had a big lunch late in the day I might have it for dinner. But I definitely prefer "real" food for dinner with my loved ones. As for the taste, I think it's fine, kind of oatmealy, not oversweetened. If you don't like the flavor, fine, but that's your taste and not other peoples'.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• flycaliguy 10y ago
  I think it's sort of an unspoken fact that this stuff is for people on adderall.
• JohnTHaller 10y ago
  Soylent is an excellent way to control costs and calories while saving time. You don't eat it for every meal. And it makes the meals you do take the time and have the money to prepare more enjoyable. Soylent prepared from powder is $1.93 per meal (500 calories) and is easily mixed from a packet of 4 meals at a time with the included pitcher. My girlfriend and I drink soylent just about every morning for breakfast and then have a cup of coffee. We prepare it at night in about 2 minutes for the next 2 days. It's much better cold from the fridge than faucet temperature but mixes much better with faucet temperature water. It tastes like a mild cereal with a hint of vanilla (they changed the more recent versions' taste). It's helped us lose/maintain weight and keep food costs under control (NYC is expensive).
  • tedmiston 10y ago
    Just curious if you've tried Coffiest? This seems like the use case they were trying to hit.
    • JohnTHaller 10y ago
      I enjoy a hot fresh cup of coffee. I do enjoy the flavor of coffee in other things, but as I work from home, coffeist isn't a necessity for me.
  • semerda 10y ago
    Soylent and coffee is not a good start to a day. Neither provide morning hydration. Sacrificing your health because it's fast and easy is something my younger version used to believe too. And yes I have consumed Soylent in the past up to 3 times a day for months on end.
    • JohnTHaller 10y ago
      I was talking about food, not hydration. I drink 24oz of water with breakfast as part of drinking a gallon a day. I track my daily hydration with an app on my phone. 177 days in a row and counting.
• tedmiston 10y ago
  For me it's convenience. I drink Coffiest a few days per week, especially if I wake up hungry or if I want to save time on breakfast that day. Another aspect is that the nutritional content is better than me making a Pop-Tart or microwave breakfast sandwich. Ease of use is one more. Literally just take it out of the fridge. I'm equally guilty of being a foodie more often than not especially when traveling, but sometimes a simple routine optimization is just nice to have.