15 ms·

The real Soylent sickness

70 points by triplesec 10y ago

detaro 10y ago
some comments yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12731059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12731059
dahdum 10y ago
"You can now buy reasonably priced organic foods at many supermarkets across North America" I think this is only true if you are upper middle class or above.
- mordocai 10y ago
  Not to mention that "organic" doesn't mean what most consumers think it does.
  - mjevans 10y ago
    Probably true. Organic is 'a way of farming that is more traditional' is a good way of phrasing it. If you're looking for higher /quality control/ Kosher might be a good term to look for. I know that when I buy ketchup I just go for the 'simple' variants, the ones that use the more traditional recipe and thus avoid HFCS (which I get too much of from other sources).
    - mschuster91 10y ago
      > If you're looking for higher /quality control/ Kosher might be a good term to look for. Meh. Kosher slaughtering forbids the use of stunning (or otherwise incapaciting) an animal before slaughtering, so you're trading quality for animal cruelty in my opinion. Edit: looks like at least some Islamic communities allow for stunning the animal prior to slaughter in order to qualify as "halal" meat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhabihah#Stunning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhabihah#Stunning). Depending on how many Jewish vs Muslim markets you have access to, a Muslim supermarket might be the better choice then.
jorjordandan 10y ago
Predictable reactionary article. Did they claim there was something wrong with the philosophy of people who produce spinach when that caused massive outbreaks of e-coli? Or blame the modernity of beef producers when mad-cow disease broke out? Our culture is full of manufactured food that doesn't even attempt to provide nutrition. While it would be lovely if we could all eat out of our own private gardens and vineyards, something like soylent seems like a step in the right direction.
- fdgdasfadsf 10y ago
  > Or blame the modernity of beef producers when mad-cow disease broke out? The absolutely (and rightly) did blame modern beef production methods for this. It is one of the reasons that EU beef is better quality than US beef today.
ursus_bonum 10y ago
Why is this written as though all of Silicon valley is behind Soylent? It's mildly insulting.
minitech 10y ago
> What Soylent and the latest batch of food-tech startups are aiming for takes us back to the days of astronaut ice cream. What? > Remember that stuff? It was developed as part of the space program in the nineteen-sixties, and you bought it in the sort of science stores that were toy stores for nerds. It was sweet. It came in ice-cream flavors. But it wasn’t ice cream, it was a simulation of ice cream, and no one in their right mind would chose it over the cold, creamy stuff on a hot day. Not even an astronaut. Soylent isn’t a simulation of food. I’m pretty sure it explicitly chooses not to simulate food. And people are choosing to eat it. As others have said, speak for yourself.
- splawn 10y ago
  Whats even more funny is that astronaut ice cream was never actually used by astronauts. It always has only been sold in the mentioned science stores. However I love the stuff, although I am probably not in my right mind. I have been skeptical of Soylent in the past, but if its like astronaut ice cream then sign me up! (yeah... i know... its nothing like astronaut ice cream)
  - whamlastxmas 10y ago
    I love freeze dried ice cream! Sold at camping supply stores too with all the other freeze dried stuff.
corysama 10y ago
The "End of Food" narrative for Soylent is artificial controversy created by the media to grab clicks. It's encouraged by the Soylent company because coverage -> sales. But, it was never the goal of the product and I don't think a large minority of the products users intend to use it as such. Soylent is a great option to have when you want it. Slowly enjoying traditional food is still very nice. It's going to be OK.
- DanBC 10y ago
  > The "End of Food" narrative for Soylent is artificial controversy created by the media to grab clicks. That's how Soylent marketed it before and during the kickstarter.
mmastrac 10y ago
> Rob Rhinehart, to compress all the nutrition the human body needs to live into one single, easily digestible formula, like the twenty-first-century version of manna. But that is fundamentally the opposite of the way we increasingly want to eat in America and in much of the developed world. Uh, speak for yourself. I order Soylent from time-to-time. It's a nice way to simplify about 75% of my meal prep, while remaining healthy and helping me avoid constant snacking. If I was on my own I'd consider 100% Soylent. You don't need three gourmet meals a day. Food is a convenient social activity, but it's not the only one. So many issues with this article, but this one... > the persistent effect that progress in food processing has had on our taste buds, as we amp up artificial flavors in an attempt regain the natural flavor we have stripped from our food with technology If you'd ever had Soylent, you'd realize that it's entirely the opposite of an "amped-up, artificial flavour". It's not bland - it has a light flavour that isn't offensive no matter how much you drink.
- connoredel 10y ago
  To take it a step further: Is it immoral to eat whole foods for all 3 meals a day? Research has shown we get most of the nutrients we need from our first meal (of whole foods) each day. We only need calories from that point on. Shouldn't we then just try to get the most efficient form of calories, so long as those calories don't do harm? Leave the other 2 nutrient-rich meals for the rest of the world. He frames it as "this is not what Americans want." But just because we can increasingly eat 3 nutrient-rich meals doesn't mean we should. In fact, it means the opposite -- that we should give those meals away because we can.
  - burkaman 10y ago
    But starvation and malnutrition are generally not caused by lack of production, right? I think distribution and economic issues are usually at fault. So eating less doesn't help anyone, except maybe yourself.
  - ccallebs 10y ago
    > Research has shown we get most of the nutrients we need from our first meal (of whole foods) each day. Not disagreeing but this is the first I've heard of this. Do you have any sources on hand?
rubidium 10y ago
"Time spent at table doesn't age you" is one of my favorite sayings. The real soylent sickness isn't replacing locally sourced, farm-to-table food with disgusting "food", as the author claims. The real soylent sickness is the culture of "meals are just input so I can keep working".
- sotojuan 10y ago
  In most cases that's true, though by "working" I don't mean just actually working for someone else but rather doing anything I like. I don't really care about food but I gotta eat it to do stuff I enjoy. Soylent helps out in that case because it fills me up, is healthy, and is quick. I already have my nice dinner with girlfriend once a day, not every meal has to be like that. I'm not sure why anti-Soylent people believe Soylent users only drink Soylent.
- fernandotakai 10y ago
  i feel like this comes from the idea that "time spent not working is time wasted" -- as in, if elon musk works 90h weeks, everybody should too. and if you are not, you are wasting your life (startups in particular are full of those people). i honestly feels like people forgot that there's more to life than working or making money or disrupting an industry. go lay down on a park and watch the sunset for goodness sake, it's good for you! (in my case, i 1000% love cooking. it's a whole experience, even if it's just for me. cooking for myself is "me time", when i do things for myself, so i can enjoy)
  - shuntress 10y ago
    Is something stopping you from going to a park _right now_ and sleeping in the grass until you wake up to watch the sunset? What, you would get hungry if you don't go home and cook dinner? If only there was some convenient food you could pack with you that takes no time to prepare, little time to consume, and is easily transportable...
    - fernandotakai 10y ago
      honestly? no. i work remotely for a company that has flexible hours. i did that a lot -- or even, go to the pool and enjoy a couple of hours of doing nothing by the pool. i specifically chose a job that allows me to enjoy my life and my family. > If only there was some convenient food you could pack with you that takes no time to prepare, little time to consume, and is easily transportable... like sandwich? it takes me 10min to prepare a really tasty BLT that i can take anywhere.
Afforess 10y ago
Not terribly novel or interesting; the article entirely ignores that Soylent culture is driven by a disinterest in cooking and a desire to avoid the time spent during food preparation, cleanup, grocery shopping, etc. Grocery shopping for one is frustrating; either I buy portions I know I can not eat before they spoil, wasting money and food, or I buy only a few ingredients and cycle through the same meals over and over. Last week I was annoyed to discover Kroger discontinued its half-dozen egg cartons, and I still have not found any reliable way of buying small enough quantities of bread/buns before they grow stale or mold. I'm fairly confident I am doomed to forever spoil cheese and milk. It seems that grocery chains market portions to target a household size of four, exclusively. Soylent, on the other hand, has a shelf-life of 1 year.
- liveoneggs 10y ago
  You may be interested to learn about freezing foods.
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    Freezing means you then have to thaw them, which is a process in and of itself - which sucks if the goal is to reduce food planning/prep time. Besides, most people's freezers aren't big enough to store an entire grocery shopping's worth of goods.
    - lfowles 10y ago
      I've been freezing for the past several months and in practice thawing just means "Set the mac and cheese/chicken fingers/chili in the fridge so it's ready tomorrow". I have about half a months worth of meals for 2 in the freezer, plus some months worth in a deep freeze in the garage. Prep and planning isn't reduced that much except for overhead like driving to/from the store, most of it is just shifted to one big cooking night.
    - sushid 10y ago
      You seem convinced that subsisting on Soylent is the best idea. What about minimal preparation of meals + freezer bags + sous vide? That way you really don't have to worry about thawing. And prepping things like cuts of steak is really just salt/pepper/buttering it before freezing. And for what it's worth, I thaw my meat in the fridge. Just throw it in there and it's taken care of in a safe, hygienic environment. Not really "a process in and of itself."
herge 10y ago
I think the root of these articles is that people don't understand what Soylent is. It's not meant to replace your home made salad, or "Fish pulled from a river and grilled over wood coals", but the frozen pizza you have when you come home late, or the "fuck it, I forgot to bring my lunch to work, let's just go to Arby's". Do people complain that showers are meant to displace baths?
- jedberg 10y ago
  > Do people complain that showers are meant to displace baths? They did when showers first started replacing baths in the 1800's.
  - shuntress 10y ago
    Exactly, those people were wrong then and these people are wrong now.
    - jedberg 10y ago
      Sorry, yes that was my point. :)
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- andreyk 10y ago
  Good point, that is definitely part of the problem. Though granted I am a person who has it for lunch every day, so there is some wiggle room as to what it is for. Still, it is clearly not meant to replace all food consumption or even most of it.
- paulcole 10y ago
  Does Soylent not understand what Soylent is? >Soylent is a simple, efficient and affordable food that possesses what a body needs to be healthy. Soylent is a new option for maintaining a balanced state of ideal nutrition, just like traditional food. Source: https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/212767043-What-is-Soylent- https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/212767043-What-is-...
nemo1618 10y ago
If the author's assertion is true -- that "the most significant food movement is the purposeful pushback against the postwar industrial food system" -- then where is the demand for Soylent coming from? People clearly want it. The real mistake here is the implication that everyone who consumes Soylent replaces 100% of their meals with it. That isn't the use case, and this has been explained many times. Soylent serves a specific purpose, just like astronaut ice cream, Tang, and TV dinners. The author says: "no one in their right mind would chose [astronaut ice cream] over the cold, creamy stuff on a hot day," but he's wrong. Many people did for the novelty, and many people prefer Soylent for its convenience.
L_Rahman 10y ago
I love the New Yorker. I have a subscription and I read it regularly. I'm also a hedonistic participant in the "recent arc of food culture" that embraces locally grown ingredients prepared lovingly by chefs with a creative vision. Gramercy Tavern, the New York restaurant that most embodies this recent arc, takes a bite out of my paycheck multiple times a month. But what the New Yorker assumes is that this kind of food, and the time and money to consume it is equally available to everyone at all times. That is absolutely not the case. There are three key demographics for Soylent in my mind: 1. The efficiency obsessed engineer who will use Soylent as a primary food source. 2. Someone who has limited access to nutritious food due to geography or income and frequently prefers Soylent to the alternatives. 3. Someone who has the income and ability to enjoy well-prepared meals, and does so frequent,ly but occasionally finds themself unable to do so because of time or geography. I'm in the last camp as are a number of my friends. Not enough time to get a proper breakfast - Soylent/Coffiest. Commuting to a client office for lunch and no good options nearby - Soylent. It is possible to make those choices and then enjoy a dinner where you relish the flavor and texture of the tomatillos in your salad.
- greenshackle2 10y ago
  I know people in a fourth category: 4. Does not really enjoy eating food. Spending time/money/energy on good food is completely pointless for some people (e.g. friend with anosmia).
- ghaff 10y ago
  Honestly, I don't think anyone can especially fault Soylent for scenario 3 in particular. It's not really much different from eating a yogurt or making a smoothie in the morning--or eating a trail bar of some sort mid-day. No one is accusing Cliff Bars of killing the leisurely lunch. The bad press comes from the handful(?) of people who will tell anyone who will listen that their work is too important to do mundane things like cooking a meal.
dasil003 10y ago
The thing which Soylent gets right is trying to come at it from a nutrition standpoint first. That's definitely a much better starting place than the rest of the industrialized food world. That said, I think the idea of a single optimal meal replacement is fundamentally flawed. Our understanding of nutrition and metabolism is still very rudimentary. My opinion is that it's dangerous to move away from whole foods today, not because of some natural food fallacy, but simply because we don't know everything that's going on with digestive and nutritional health. It may very well be the case that no single food is optimal to eat all the time, and that the body needs different rhythms of food intake over time to create baseline stresses for the organism to respond to metabolically.
rb2k_ 10y ago
I don't have a lot of insight into the science behind it, but one thing that always makes my partner (PhD in Epidemiolgy) slightly angry is that while Soylent does tick all of the "amount and type" boxes for what people consider to be part of a healthy nutrition, the real long term effects are basically untested. Even in "naturally grown regular foods", the field is still pretty young and we can barely make good recommendations for those. They just happen to be what we eat and as long as they're not crazy processed, we have a few thousand years of experience with them not necessarily killing us immediately. Areas of research like Metabolomics or Proteomics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omics) are still in their infancy, so while Soylent does mix a bunch of ingredients that all fall into the right areas, the long term effects are basically unknown. And that doesn't even take personalized medicine into consideration where your gene markup might actually have a lot to do with what might or might not be good for your personally. Again, I don't have any insight besides some armchair quarterback knowledge about nutrition, but it seems like most people that do don't think it's a particularly great idea to eat it more than 'every now and then'. That being said, when compared to twinkies and sugary sodas it might still be better for you. Having it as part of a daily diet though might not be a good idea.
- shuntress 10y ago
  So what, are they supposed to run a 100-year multi-generational clinical trial before they can sell Soylent? If you don't think it will work, you don't have to eat it. I'll keep eating Soylent (or whatever the current best whole-food is) every day and get back to you from my deathbed (to let you know if I blame Soylent)
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    Perhaps there's a difference between marketing a meal replacement and a diet replacement.
- andreyk 10y ago
  The "That being said, when compared to twinkies and sugary sodas it might still be better for you. " part is how I justified regularly consuming it to myself despite there being so little science on the long term effects. Even with a typical fairly stocked Big Company cafeteria, I feel that it is easier for me to eat healthy every lunch by drinking Soylent rather than by getting food. But the lack of science is also why I only have it for lunch, which somehow feels like a fairly safe way to go about it. Hopefully we'll get some better science about it soon...
kafkaesq 10y ago
The various receptive components of your taste and olfactory system that have gradually figured out, over millions of years, how to not just detect spoiled or weak food sources, but to optimize for high-value sources also: by pinging your brain stem in just the right way, probably initiating signals within around 100 milliseconds or so of detecting threshold quantities of whatever awesome stuff your body has decided it needs (so it, in turn can deliver a more or less immediate, perfectly proportioned neurohormone cascade throughout both your brain and your upper torso, well before you've managed to actually digest and metabolize any portion of what you're consumed; "paying it forward", as it were) -- and not only that, but to literally train your brain stem into getting more and more of that awesome stuff, on as regular a basis as possible -- are really, really, super fiendishly clever at what they do. In other words -- taste and smell (and texture, and the overall pleasure-centric aspects of the eating experience) matter a lot. And the primates over at companies like Soylent would have to be very cocky to think they throw all of that to the side, and replace it with a chemical formula or two.
k_sh 10y ago
The article mentions "Silicon Valley" five times. Soylent is based in Los Angeles.
ubercore 10y ago
This article is total FUD in my book. I drink soylent every day for at-work meals. I really appreciate the time savings, and having a zero effort/compromise way to go vegan (which I believe in both for ethical and environment reasons, but I haven't been able to commit to sustainably, personally). Now here's why I disagree with this article so much: Besides programming, I'm an award winning BBQ chef that's cooking for a local food truck and soon a brick-and-mortar location. I am _very_ familiar with spending a lot of time on food. A longer cook might take 13 or 14 hours. I do this every week. And I _love_ that. Understanding and enjoying the value of Soylent isn't an either/or thing. I love cooking at home, I spend lots of time in front of an oven or a smoker. I also appreciate Soylent as a healthy and inexpensive way to keep myself nourished when I don't want to think about food. I wonder why the author would write this article without even making an attempt to understand how real people, not his hypothetical straw-man of a Soylent consumer, use the product.
- and0 10y ago
  > I wonder why the author would write this article without even making an attempt to understand how real people, not his hypothetical straw-man of a Soylent consumer, use the product. That article wouldn't generate as many clicks :/
greenshackle2 10y ago
> the quackery of Dr. Oz-approved “superfoods” and the idea that you can live forever if you just eat enough pomegranate seeds Have they even read the ingredients list of soylent? It just has the basic macros, vitamins and minerals. It's less new age superfood than fortified flour. > that is fundamentally the opposite of the way we increasingly want to eat in America That's for the market to decide, not you, little New Yorker writer. > When you look at the recent arc of food culture, the most significant food movement is the purposeful pushback against the postwar industrial food system Funny, I thought the main trend was the death of family farms at the hands of Smithfield, Tyson et al. The real sickness is modern animal agriculture, the rest is a rounding error in comparison.
99_00 10y ago
The idea behind Soylent is a logical fallacy. On the one hand, Soylent relies on nutrition experts for the nutritional makeup of their food. On the other hand, no nutrition expert thinks it's a good idea eat Soylent instead of food. So either you want to listen to nutrition experts or you don't. You can't have it both ways.
- paulcole 10y ago
  The really great thing about nutrition experts is that if you look hard enough you'll find one that agrees with the viewpoint you want to believe in.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  The number of scientifically rigorous and repeatable studies on human nutrition is shockingly small. The majority of the research that is done for the purposes of dietary recommendations involves survey or diary data. I am aware of one controlled diet study--I think it was from the 1960s--where the participants were fed a semi-liquid diet which contained all the chemical components of what was then suspected to be complete human nutrition. The results could not be used, because too many of the subjects quit, or ate foods smuggled in from outside. Knowing of that study, I have never feared that anyone would suffer some deficiency disease from eating nothing but Soylent. Because I think no one could accomplish such a feat for a long enough duration for any symptom to appear. I guarantee that unless the person is strapped down to a table for 23 hours a day and violently kept away from edible items for the 24th, they are, in fact, eating other things besides just Soylent from time to time. So when nutritionists recommend against eating Soylent as a replacement for food, I have to wonder why they even think that is even plausible enough to say anything about it. I understand completely why Cypher from The Matrix would sell out all of humanity for some virtual medium-rare tenderloin, instead of the nutrient slurry they have no choice about eating in the real world.
- kazagistar 10y ago
  Nutrition experts recommending a different diet isn't very useful information. Most people probably don't eat a diet any given nutrition expert would approve. But more practically: if a nutrition expert can point to hard scientific evidence that Soylent is missing something specific, then it can be added. If they can't, then they are just talking out of their ass.
6stringmerc 10y ago
Naming this product Soylent and watching the market accept it never ceases to amaze me; it's a lot like hearing Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" on a Carnival Cruise commercial but getting flashbacks to Mark Renton on heroin.
- kazagistar 10y ago
  The target market is full of hipsters. The naming is perfect.
DickingAround 10y ago
The author seems to miss a critical part of why Soylent is a good options for many people; it is all the benefits of a low-work food product that strives not to be one that makes you fat or otherwise unhealthy. If anything, the industrial food system let down a lot of people who liked the 'easy' but didn't like the 'loaded with sugar' part. Also, of course, if you don't like it don't buy it. "When you look at the recent arc of food culture, the most significant food movement is the purposeful pushback against the postwar industrial food system, a system that was the food futurism of its day. This industry brought us preservatives, Wonder Bread, Tang, and microwavable frozen TV dinners. It lowered the price of food tremendously and increased convenience in innumerable ways, but it also made us fatter and sicker, and robbed our meals of their original flavors,replacing them with addictive but unhealthy substances."
overcast 10y ago
The only value I see in these Soylent type products, is for quick meals that someone would otherwise eat trashy food for. Breakfast comes to mind, and it what I use 100% Food mix for. It's quick and nutritional before I race off to the office. For every other meal, normal food.
jly 10y ago
What is the fascination with soylent? It's basically a supplement food bar / meal replacement. There are a million of these things on the market, already, right, in some kind of bar or powder form?
- kazagistar 10y ago
  Supplement foods either don't have a good balance of nutrition, or are overly expensive in relation, in my experience.
jasonkostempski 10y ago
They should just change the name to Bob and sell it to Walking Dead fans.
- saddestcatever 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure there's a film about this...
sebastianconcpt 10y ago
Would be eating processed food nutritionally illiterate?
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
I never really "got" the Soylent craze. Maybe it's because I'm outside the workforce (I'm in highschool), or maybe it's because I'm on the east coast (where we're less on the cutting edge in general), or maybe it's because I live in a house where we eat ~1 homemade meal every day (dinners, and sometimes breakfasts on the weekends), and even I can make a half-decent meal (sausage, spaghetti, and maybe a salad on the side) in about 10/20 minutes, provided we've got the ingredients. Maybe it's because I'm hesitant towards putting anything made by software engineers into my body (software failure rates in a food product are unacceptable). Nope, it's none of those: it's because I watch movies. Lots of movies. And I live in a house with people who watch more movies than I do. So whenever I hear the name "Soylent" there's a nagging voice in the back of my head: it's people, isn't it? Seriously, they need to change the name.
- misingnoglic 10y ago
  If you're in high school, you have the privilege of a mom who would probably rather die than have you drink soylent ;) (At least if your mom is anything like mine).
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    ...there is that.
pesenti 10y ago
The article makes a very simple point: some things are not worth disrupting - as in fundamentally changing/optimizing/modernizing - and sometime the disruption can make things much worse. Food is an example of that. The 50-80s saw huge disruption of the food business and it had dramatically bad side effects (e.g., obesity in the US). Perpetuating that today doesn't sound like a great benefit to society. I believe it's a worthwhile subject, simply illustrated by the article. The overwhelming "The author doesn't get the point of Soylent" reaction here tells me that most people actually don't get the gist of the article itself: it's not about Soylent in particular, it's about (food) disruption.
- kazagistar 10y ago
  This seems like a really abusive use of the word "disruption". The only food industry suffering disruption here is delivery pizza and microwave dinners.
  - pesenti 10y ago
    I am not following Soylent closely but the message/vision it marketed initially was to replace all our food needs with Soylent. If that's not disruption, what is?
ared38 10y ago
Where to even begin on an article this bad? 0. The author doesn't bother to try a sip of soylent, but feels empowered to judge its flavor based on the opinions of other reviewers. This itself is meaningless, but it's representative of the amount of original thought in the rest of the article. 1. Implying the recall is due to reckless startup culture with no evidence and ignoring recalls from traditional players. 2. Telling people their every meal must be heirloom, artisan, and slowly eaten reeks of aspirational privilege. Has the author never grabbed a burger running late to a party? Can he really afford nothing but the finest ingredients on a writer's salary? 3. Most of the arguments are generic anti industrialized food and have nothing to do with contemporary food startups. Not only is soylent a reaction against those artificially flavored and unhealthy products from long established companies, it completely ignores startups like blue apron that promote slower food.

70 points by triplesec 10y ago

some comments yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12731059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12731059

"You can now buy reasonably priced organic foods at many supermarkets across North America" I think this is only true if you are upper middle class or above.

mordocai 10y ago
Not to mention that "organic" doesn't mean what most consumers think it does.
- mjevans 10y ago
  Probably true. Organic is 'a way of farming that is more traditional' is a good way of phrasing it. If you're looking for higher /quality control/ Kosher might be a good term to look for. I know that when I buy ketchup I just go for the 'simple' variants, the ones that use the more traditional recipe and thus avoid HFCS (which I get too much of from other sources).
  - mschuster91 10y ago
    > If you're looking for higher /quality control/ Kosher might be a good term to look for. Meh. Kosher slaughtering forbids the use of stunning (or otherwise incapaciting) an animal before slaughtering, so you're trading quality for animal cruelty in my opinion. Edit: looks like at least some Islamic communities allow for stunning the animal prior to slaughter in order to qualify as "halal" meat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhabihah#Stunning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhabihah#Stunning). Depending on how many Jewish vs Muslim markets you have access to, a Muslim supermarket might be the better choice then.

jorjordandan 10y ago

Predictable reactionary article. Did they claim there was something wrong with the philosophy of people who produce spinach when that caused massive outbreaks of e-coli? Or blame the modernity of beef producers when mad-cow disease broke out? Our culture is full of manufactured food that doesn't even attempt to provide nutrition. While it would be lovely if we could all eat out of our own private gardens and vineyards, something like soylent seems like a step in the right direction.

fdgdasfadsf 10y ago
> Or blame the modernity of beef producers when mad-cow disease broke out? The absolutely (and rightly) did blame modern beef production methods for this. It is one of the reasons that EU beef is better quality than US beef today.

ursus_bonum 10y ago

Why is this written as though all of Silicon valley is behind Soylent? It's mildly insulting.

minitech 10y ago

> What Soylent and the latest batch of food-tech startups are aiming for takes us back to the days of astronaut ice cream. What? > Remember that stuff? It was developed as part of the space program in the nineteen-sixties, and you bought it in the sort of science stores that were toy stores for nerds. It was sweet. It came in ice-cream flavors. But it wasn’t ice cream, it was a simulation of ice cream, and no one in their right mind would chose it over the cold, creamy stuff on a hot day. Not even an astronaut. Soylent isn’t a simulation of food. I’m pretty sure it explicitly chooses not to simulate food. And people are choosing to eat it. As others have said, speak for yourself.

splawn 10y ago
Whats even more funny is that astronaut ice cream was never actually used by astronauts. It always has only been sold in the mentioned science stores. However I love the stuff, although I am probably not in my right mind. I have been skeptical of Soylent in the past, but if its like astronaut ice cream then sign me up! (yeah... i know... its nothing like astronaut ice cream)
- whamlastxmas 10y ago
  I love freeze dried ice cream! Sold at camping supply stores too with all the other freeze dried stuff.

corysama 10y ago

The "End of Food" narrative for Soylent is artificial controversy created by the media to grab clicks. It's encouraged by the Soylent company because coverage -> sales. But, it was never the goal of the product and I don't think a large minority of the products users intend to use it as such. Soylent is a great option to have when you want it. Slowly enjoying traditional food is still very nice. It's going to be OK.

DanBC 10y ago
> The "End of Food" narrative for Soylent is artificial controversy created by the media to grab clicks. That's how Soylent marketed it before and during the kickstarter.

mmastrac 10y ago

> Rob Rhinehart, to compress all the nutrition the human body needs to live into one single, easily digestible formula, like the twenty-first-century version of manna. But that is fundamentally the opposite of the way we increasingly want to eat in America and in much of the developed world. Uh, speak for yourself. I order Soylent from time-to-time. It's a nice way to simplify about 75% of my meal prep, while remaining healthy and helping me avoid constant snacking. If I was on my own I'd consider 100% Soylent. You don't need three gourmet meals a day. Food is a convenient social activity, but it's not the only one. So many issues with this article, but this one... > the persistent effect that progress in food processing has had on our taste buds, as we amp up artificial flavors in an attempt regain the natural flavor we have stripped from our food with technology If you'd ever had Soylent, you'd realize that it's entirely the opposite of an "amped-up, artificial flavour". It's not bland - it has a light flavour that isn't offensive no matter how much you drink.

connoredel 10y ago
To take it a step further: Is it immoral to eat whole foods for all 3 meals a day? Research has shown we get most of the nutrients we need from our first meal (of whole foods) each day. We only need calories from that point on. Shouldn't we then just try to get the most efficient form of calories, so long as those calories don't do harm? Leave the other 2 nutrient-rich meals for the rest of the world. He frames it as "this is not what Americans want." But just because we can increasingly eat 3 nutrient-rich meals doesn't mean we should. In fact, it means the opposite -- that we should give those meals away because we can.
- burkaman 10y ago
  But starvation and malnutrition are generally not caused by lack of production, right? I think distribution and economic issues are usually at fault. So eating less doesn't help anyone, except maybe yourself.
- ccallebs 10y ago
  > Research has shown we get most of the nutrients we need from our first meal (of whole foods) each day. Not disagreeing but this is the first I've heard of this. Do you have any sources on hand?

rubidium 10y ago

"Time spent at table doesn't age you" is one of my favorite sayings. The real soylent sickness isn't replacing locally sourced, farm-to-table food with disgusting "food", as the author claims. The real soylent sickness is the culture of "meals are just input so I can keep working".

sotojuan 10y ago
In most cases that's true, though by "working" I don't mean just actually working for someone else but rather doing anything I like. I don't really care about food but I gotta eat it to do stuff I enjoy. Soylent helps out in that case because it fills me up, is healthy, and is quick. I already have my nice dinner with girlfriend once a day, not every meal has to be like that. I'm not sure why anti-Soylent people believe Soylent users only drink Soylent.
fernandotakai 10y ago
i feel like this comes from the idea that "time spent not working is time wasted" -- as in, if elon musk works 90h weeks, everybody should too. and if you are not, you are wasting your life (startups in particular are full of those people). i honestly feels like people forgot that there's more to life than working or making money or disrupting an industry. go lay down on a park and watch the sunset for goodness sake, it's good for you! (in my case, i 1000% love cooking. it's a whole experience, even if it's just for me. cooking for myself is "me time", when i do things for myself, so i can enjoy)
- shuntress 10y ago
  Is something stopping you from going to a park _right now_ and sleeping in the grass until you wake up to watch the sunset? What, you would get hungry if you don't go home and cook dinner? If only there was some convenient food you could pack with you that takes no time to prepare, little time to consume, and is easily transportable...
  - fernandotakai 10y ago
    honestly? no. i work remotely for a company that has flexible hours. i did that a lot -- or even, go to the pool and enjoy a couple of hours of doing nothing by the pool. i specifically chose a job that allows me to enjoy my life and my family. > If only there was some convenient food you could pack with you that takes no time to prepare, little time to consume, and is easily transportable... like sandwich? it takes me 10min to prepare a really tasty BLT that i can take anywhere.

Afforess 10y ago

Not terribly novel or interesting; the article entirely ignores that Soylent culture is driven by a disinterest in cooking and a desire to avoid the time spent during food preparation, cleanup, grocery shopping, etc. Grocery shopping for one is frustrating; either I buy portions I know I can not eat before they spoil, wasting money and food, or I buy only a few ingredients and cycle through the same meals over and over. Last week I was annoyed to discover Kroger discontinued its half-dozen egg cartons, and I still have not found any reliable way of buying small enough quantities of bread/buns before they grow stale or mold. I'm fairly confident I am doomed to forever spoil cheese and milk. It seems that grocery chains market portions to target a household size of four, exclusively. Soylent, on the other hand, has a shelf-life of 1 year.

liveoneggs 10y ago
You may be interested to learn about freezing foods.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  Freezing means you then have to thaw them, which is a process in and of itself - which sucks if the goal is to reduce food planning/prep time. Besides, most people's freezers aren't big enough to store an entire grocery shopping's worth of goods.
  - lfowles 10y ago
    I've been freezing for the past several months and in practice thawing just means "Set the mac and cheese/chicken fingers/chili in the fridge so it's ready tomorrow". I have about half a months worth of meals for 2 in the freezer, plus some months worth in a deep freeze in the garage. Prep and planning isn't reduced that much except for overhead like driving to/from the store, most of it is just shifted to one big cooking night.
  - sushid 10y ago
    You seem convinced that subsisting on Soylent is the best idea. What about minimal preparation of meals + freezer bags + sous vide? That way you really don't have to worry about thawing. And prepping things like cuts of steak is really just salt/pepper/buttering it before freezing. And for what it's worth, I thaw my meat in the fridge. Just throw it in there and it's taken care of in a safe, hygienic environment. Not really "a process in and of itself."

herge 10y ago

I think the root of these articles is that people don't understand what Soylent is. It's not meant to replace your home made salad, or "Fish pulled from a river and grilled over wood coals", but the frozen pizza you have when you come home late, or the "fuck it, I forgot to bring my lunch to work, let's just go to Arby's". Do people complain that showers are meant to displace baths?

jedberg 10y ago
> Do people complain that showers are meant to displace baths? They did when showers first started replacing baths in the 1800's.
- shuntress 10y ago
  Exactly, those people were wrong then and these people are wrong now.
  - jedberg 10y ago
    Sorry, yes that was my point. :)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
andreyk 10y ago
Good point, that is definitely part of the problem. Though granted I am a person who has it for lunch every day, so there is some wiggle room as to what it is for. Still, it is clearly not meant to replace all food consumption or even most of it.
paulcole 10y ago
Does Soylent not understand what Soylent is? >Soylent is a simple, efficient and affordable food that possesses what a body needs to be healthy. Soylent is a new option for maintaining a balanced state of ideal nutrition, just like traditional food. Source: https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/212767043-What-is-Soylent- https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/212767043-What-is-...

nemo1618 10y ago

If the author's assertion is true -- that "the most significant food movement is the purposeful pushback against the postwar industrial food system" -- then where is the demand for Soylent coming from? People clearly want it. The real mistake here is the implication that everyone who consumes Soylent replaces 100% of their meals with it. That isn't the use case, and this has been explained many times. Soylent serves a specific purpose, just like astronaut ice cream, Tang, and TV dinners. The author says: "no one in their right mind would chose [astronaut ice cream] over the cold, creamy stuff on a hot day," but he's wrong. Many people did for the novelty, and many people prefer Soylent for its convenience.

L_Rahman 10y ago

I love the New Yorker. I have a subscription and I read it regularly. I'm also a hedonistic participant in the "recent arc of food culture" that embraces locally grown ingredients prepared lovingly by chefs with a creative vision. Gramercy Tavern, the New York restaurant that most embodies this recent arc, takes a bite out of my paycheck multiple times a month. But what the New Yorker assumes is that this kind of food, and the time and money to consume it is equally available to everyone at all times. That is absolutely not the case. There are three key demographics for Soylent in my mind: 1. The efficiency obsessed engineer who will use Soylent as a primary food source. 2. Someone who has limited access to nutritious food due to geography or income and frequently prefers Soylent to the alternatives. 3. Someone who has the income and ability to enjoy well-prepared meals, and does so frequent,ly but occasionally finds themself unable to do so because of time or geography. I'm in the last camp as are a number of my friends. Not enough time to get a proper breakfast - Soylent/Coffiest. Commuting to a client office for lunch and no good options nearby - Soylent. It is possible to make those choices and then enjoy a dinner where you relish the flavor and texture of the tomatillos in your salad.

greenshackle2 10y ago
I know people in a fourth category: 4. Does not really enjoy eating food. Spending time/money/energy on good food is completely pointless for some people (e.g. friend with anosmia).
ghaff 10y ago
Honestly, I don't think anyone can especially fault Soylent for scenario 3 in particular. It's not really much different from eating a yogurt or making a smoothie in the morning--or eating a trail bar of some sort mid-day. No one is accusing Cliff Bars of killing the leisurely lunch. The bad press comes from the handful(?) of people who will tell anyone who will listen that their work is too important to do mundane things like cooking a meal.

dasil003 10y ago

The thing which Soylent gets right is trying to come at it from a nutrition standpoint first. That's definitely a much better starting place than the rest of the industrialized food world. That said, I think the idea of a single optimal meal replacement is fundamentally flawed. Our understanding of nutrition and metabolism is still very rudimentary. My opinion is that it's dangerous to move away from whole foods today, not because of some natural food fallacy, but simply because we don't know everything that's going on with digestive and nutritional health. It may very well be the case that no single food is optimal to eat all the time, and that the body needs different rhythms of food intake over time to create baseline stresses for the organism to respond to metabolically.

rb2k_ 10y ago

I don't have a lot of insight into the science behind it, but one thing that always makes my partner (PhD in Epidemiolgy) slightly angry is that while Soylent does tick all of the "amount and type" boxes for what people consider to be part of a healthy nutrition, the real long term effects are basically untested. Even in "naturally grown regular foods", the field is still pretty young and we can barely make good recommendations for those. They just happen to be what we eat and as long as they're not crazy processed, we have a few thousand years of experience with them not necessarily killing us immediately. Areas of research like Metabolomics or Proteomics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omics) are still in their infancy, so while Soylent does mix a bunch of ingredients that all fall into the right areas, the long term effects are basically unknown. And that doesn't even take personalized medicine into consideration where your gene markup might actually have a lot to do with what might or might not be good for your personally. Again, I don't have any insight besides some armchair quarterback knowledge about nutrition, but it seems like most people that do don't think it's a particularly great idea to eat it more than 'every now and then'. That being said, when compared to twinkies and sugary sodas it might still be better for you. Having it as part of a daily diet though might not be a good idea.

shuntress 10y ago
So what, are they supposed to run a 100-year multi-generational clinical trial before they can sell Soylent? If you don't think it will work, you don't have to eat it. I'll keep eating Soylent (or whatever the current best whole-food is) every day and get back to you from my deathbed (to let you know if I blame Soylent)
- tedunangst 10y ago
  Perhaps there's a difference between marketing a meal replacement and a diet replacement.
andreyk 10y ago
The "That being said, when compared to twinkies and sugary sodas it might still be better for you. " part is how I justified regularly consuming it to myself despite there being so little science on the long term effects. Even with a typical fairly stocked Big Company cafeteria, I feel that it is easier for me to eat healthy every lunch by drinking Soylent rather than by getting food. But the lack of science is also why I only have it for lunch, which somehow feels like a fairly safe way to go about it. Hopefully we'll get some better science about it soon...

kafkaesq 10y ago

The various receptive components of your taste and olfactory system that have gradually figured out, over millions of years, how to not just detect spoiled or weak food sources, but to optimize for high-value sources also: by pinging your brain stem in just the right way, probably initiating signals within around 100 milliseconds or so of detecting threshold quantities of whatever awesome stuff your body has decided it needs (so it, in turn can deliver a more or less immediate, perfectly proportioned neurohormone cascade throughout both your brain and your upper torso, well before you've managed to actually digest and metabolize any portion of what you're consumed; "paying it forward", as it were) -- and not only that, but to literally train your brain stem into getting more and more of that awesome stuff, on as regular a basis as possible -- are really, really, super fiendishly clever at what they do. In other words -- taste and smell (and texture, and the overall pleasure-centric aspects of the eating experience) matter a lot. And the primates over at companies like Soylent would have to be very cocky to think they throw all of that to the side, and replace it with a chemical formula or two.

k_sh 10y ago

The article mentions "Silicon Valley" five times. Soylent is based in Los Angeles.

ubercore 10y ago

This article is total FUD in my book. I drink soylent every day for at-work meals. I really appreciate the time savings, and having a zero effort/compromise way to go vegan (which I believe in both for ethical and environment reasons, but I haven't been able to commit to sustainably, personally). Now here's why I disagree with this article so much: Besides programming, I'm an award winning BBQ chef that's cooking for a local food truck and soon a brick-and-mortar location. I am _very_ familiar with spending a lot of time on food. A longer cook might take 13 or 14 hours. I do this every week. And I _love_ that. Understanding and enjoying the value of Soylent isn't an either/or thing. I love cooking at home, I spend lots of time in front of an oven or a smoker. I also appreciate Soylent as a healthy and inexpensive way to keep myself nourished when I don't want to think about food. I wonder why the author would write this article without even making an attempt to understand how real people, not his hypothetical straw-man of a Soylent consumer, use the product.

and0 10y ago
> I wonder why the author would write this article without even making an attempt to understand how real people, not his hypothetical straw-man of a Soylent consumer, use the product. That article wouldn't generate as many clicks :/

greenshackle2 10y ago

> the quackery of Dr. Oz-approved “superfoods” and the idea that you can live forever if you just eat enough pomegranate seeds Have they even read the ingredients list of soylent? It just has the basic macros, vitamins and minerals. It's less new age superfood than fortified flour. > that is fundamentally the opposite of the way we increasingly want to eat in America That's for the market to decide, not you, little New Yorker writer. > When you look at the recent arc of food culture, the most significant food movement is the purposeful pushback against the postwar industrial food system Funny, I thought the main trend was the death of family farms at the hands of Smithfield, Tyson et al. The real sickness is modern animal agriculture, the rest is a rounding error in comparison.

99_00 10y ago

The idea behind Soylent is a logical fallacy. On the one hand, Soylent relies on nutrition experts for the nutritional makeup of their food. On the other hand, no nutrition expert thinks it's a good idea eat Soylent instead of food. So either you want to listen to nutrition experts or you don't. You can't have it both ways.

paulcole 10y ago
The really great thing about nutrition experts is that if you look hard enough you'll find one that agrees with the viewpoint you want to believe in.
logfromblammo 10y ago
The number of scientifically rigorous and repeatable studies on human nutrition is shockingly small. The majority of the research that is done for the purposes of dietary recommendations involves survey or diary data. I am aware of one controlled diet study--I think it was from the 1960s--where the participants were fed a semi-liquid diet which contained all the chemical components of what was then suspected to be complete human nutrition. The results could not be used, because too many of the subjects quit, or ate foods smuggled in from outside. Knowing of that study, I have never feared that anyone would suffer some deficiency disease from eating nothing but Soylent. Because I think no one could accomplish such a feat for a long enough duration for any symptom to appear. I guarantee that unless the person is strapped down to a table for 23 hours a day and violently kept away from edible items for the 24th, they are, in fact, eating other things besides just Soylent from time to time. So when nutritionists recommend against eating Soylent as a replacement for food, I have to wonder why they even think that is even plausible enough to say anything about it. I understand completely why Cypher from The Matrix would sell out all of humanity for some virtual medium-rare tenderloin, instead of the nutrient slurry they have no choice about eating in the real world.
kazagistar 10y ago
Nutrition experts recommending a different diet isn't very useful information. Most people probably don't eat a diet any given nutrition expert would approve. But more practically: if a nutrition expert can point to hard scientific evidence that Soylent is missing something specific, then it can be added. If they can't, then they are just talking out of their ass.

6stringmerc 10y ago

Naming this product Soylent and watching the market accept it never ceases to amaze me; it's a lot like hearing Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" on a Carnival Cruise commercial but getting flashbacks to Mark Renton on heroin.

kazagistar 10y ago
The target market is full of hipsters. The naming is perfect.

DickingAround 10y ago

The author seems to miss a critical part of why Soylent is a good options for many people; it is all the benefits of a low-work food product that strives not to be one that makes you fat or otherwise unhealthy. If anything, the industrial food system let down a lot of people who liked the 'easy' but didn't like the 'loaded with sugar' part. Also, of course, if you don't like it don't buy it. "When you look at the recent arc of food culture, the most significant food movement is the purposeful pushback against the postwar industrial food system, a system that was the food futurism of its day. This industry brought us preservatives, Wonder Bread, Tang, and microwavable frozen TV dinners. It lowered the price of food tremendously and increased convenience in innumerable ways, but it also made us fatter and sicker, and robbed our meals of their original flavors,replacing them with addictive but unhealthy substances."

overcast 10y ago

The only value I see in these Soylent type products, is for quick meals that someone would otherwise eat trashy food for. Breakfast comes to mind, and it what I use 100% Food mix for. It's quick and nutritional before I race off to the office. For every other meal, normal food.

jly 10y ago

What is the fascination with soylent? It's basically a supplement food bar / meal replacement. There are a million of these things on the market, already, right, in some kind of bar or powder form?

kazagistar 10y ago
Supplement foods either don't have a good balance of nutrition, or are overly expensive in relation, in my experience.

jasonkostempski 10y ago

They should just change the name to Bob and sell it to Walking Dead fans.

saddestcatever 10y ago
I'm pretty sure there's a film about this...

sebastianconcpt 10y ago

Would be eating processed food nutritionally illiterate?

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

I never really "got" the Soylent craze. Maybe it's because I'm outside the workforce (I'm in highschool), or maybe it's because I'm on the east coast (where we're less on the cutting edge in general), or maybe it's because I live in a house where we eat ~1 homemade meal every day (dinners, and sometimes breakfasts on the weekends), and even I can make a half-decent meal (sausage, spaghetti, and maybe a salad on the side) in about 10/20 minutes, provided we've got the ingredients. Maybe it's because I'm hesitant towards putting anything made by software engineers into my body (software failure rates in a food product are unacceptable). Nope, it's none of those: it's because I watch movies. Lots of movies. And I live in a house with people who watch more movies than I do. So whenever I hear the name "Soylent" there's a nagging voice in the back of my head: it's people, isn't it? Seriously, they need to change the name.

misingnoglic 10y ago
If you're in high school, you have the privilege of a mom who would probably rather die than have you drink soylent ;) (At least if your mom is anything like mine).
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  ...there is that.

pesenti 10y ago

The article makes a very simple point: some things are not worth disrupting - as in fundamentally changing/optimizing/modernizing - and sometime the disruption can make things much worse. Food is an example of that. The 50-80s saw huge disruption of the food business and it had dramatically bad side effects (e.g., obesity in the US). Perpetuating that today doesn't sound like a great benefit to society. I believe it's a worthwhile subject, simply illustrated by the article. The overwhelming "The author doesn't get the point of Soylent" reaction here tells me that most people actually don't get the gist of the article itself: it's not about Soylent in particular, it's about (food) disruption.

kazagistar 10y ago
This seems like a really abusive use of the word "disruption". The only food industry suffering disruption here is delivery pizza and microwave dinners.
- pesenti 10y ago
  I am not following Soylent closely but the message/vision it marketed initially was to replace all our food needs with Soylent. If that's not disruption, what is?

ared38 10y ago

Where to even begin on an article this bad? 0. The author doesn't bother to try a sip of soylent, but feels empowered to judge its flavor based on the opinions of other reviewers. This itself is meaningless, but it's representative of the amount of original thought in the rest of the article. 1. Implying the recall is due to reckless startup culture with no evidence and ignoring recalls from traditional players. 2. Telling people their every meal must be heirloom, artisan, and slowly eaten reeks of aspirational privilege. Has the author never grabbed a burger running late to a party? Can he really afford nothing but the finest ingredients on a writer's salary? 3. Most of the arguments are generic anti industrialized food and have nothing to do with contemporary food startups. Not only is soylent a reaction against those artificially flavored and unhealthy products from long established companies, it completely ignores startups like blue apron that promote slower food.