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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

• 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."
      • enraged_camel 10y ago
        >>You seem convinced that subsisting on Soylent is the best idea I never said that.
• jandrese 10y ago
  Maybe they'll come out with a new version that actually has flavor? Maybe even a little rebranding? https://breakingbelgium.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/bachelorchow.jpg https://breakingbelgium.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/bachelor...
  • lightbyte 10y ago
    Flavor isn't the end-all be-all goal of food. I regularly drink soylent, and I could care less that it is basically tasteless. I drink it because it's cheap and takes ~15 seconds to open and finish. No grocery shopping for it, no cooking/meal prep required. When I'm eating alone, that is all I care about.
    • Jtsummers 10y ago
      What's the current cost per meal of Soylent?
      • Blaaguuu 10y ago
        $2.69 per 400 kcal. bottle
      • pmlamotte 10y ago
        Powder is the cheapest option, which comes out to $1.93 per 500 kcal
      • striking 10y ago
        Depends on what you consider a "meal." Soylent 1.6 (powder) is "$1.93 per 500 kcal" where 2000kcal is what most people eat a day. If a meal to you is one third of 2000kcal, it costs 1.93 * ((2000/500) / 3) == $2.57 per "meal." Soylent 2.0 (drink, bought because it's "more convenient") is "$2.69 per 400 kcal." If a meal to you is one third of 2000kcal, it costs 2.69 * ((2000/400) / 3) == $4.48 per "meal." So compare either of those to either your dinner or snack expenditures. To me it seems that 1.6 can save you money on dinner, while 2.0 is intended to help you save money on "snack time".
• icebraining 10y ago
  But isn't Soylent the ultimate "same meal over and over"?
  • lucb1e 10y ago
    The same meal over and over does not sound appealing to anyone I think. Even I would not want to eat pizza 7 days a week. But even putting your feelings aside, the issue with the same meal over and over is that it does not provide your body with what it needs. Soylent solves that: have Soylent and you don't have to worry about varying your meals, or about how much salt, sugar or fat you are eating. And going back to the feelings side, Soylent feels different. It's supposed to be like that, and that somehow makes it feel much more okay. There are also variants that add flavors (making me worry about sugars again, but not as much as with normal food), for example I usually order a week's worth of food which comes in 5 different flavors (so you have two duplicates). I take about a year to consume them though, it's not like I run on Soylent full-time.
    • wlesieutre 10y ago
      > The same meal over and over does not sound appealing to anyone I think. Even I would not want to eat pizza 7 days a week. I eat exactly the same breakfast and lunch 5-7 days a week. It's easy, relatively cheap, and the routine keeps me from screwing up my calorie counts. Dinner has some more variety, but I'd be up for pizza every day if it weren't for the cost and health issues. Not a totally fair comparison here, since our neighborhood pizza places routinely show up on "best pizza in the US" lists...
  • ccostes 10y ago
    Somehow the same meal of neutral-tasing Soylent is more appealing than the same meal of some prepared food. Maybe it's because drinking some Soylent isn't an 'activity' like eating a prepared meal is, but rather just something I do while doing something else, so I don't notice it as much (which I think is part of why it's designed to be neutral tasting).
  • ben_jones 10y ago
    I did soylent for a bit but reverted back to eating out for the majority of my meals. Theirs a lot of ways to mix soylent to mix up the flavor, my personal favorite was peanut butter, milk, and chocolate protein powder, that do a little bit to mix hinder the monotony.
• enraged_camel 10y ago
  Bread is super annoying in this regard. I eat a single slice every morning for breakfast, which means I can't go through a whole loaf before it starts getting moldy, or at least stale.
  • untog 10y ago
    Freeze it. If you eat toast in the morning you can toast from frozen.
  • pygy_ 10y ago
    Bread remains fresh longer if you slice it on demand rather than in advance. Keep it resting on the sliced side for maximal freshness.
  • MPSimmons 10y ago
    If you go to a supermarket where they bake bread, and they have whole loafs of in-store baked bread, they'll often be happy to sell you a half-loaf. Just take it to the bakery counter and ask if you can buy half the loaf.
    • cylinder 10y ago
      Yep, Whole Foods does half-loaves.
  • nartsbtaa 10y ago
    Bread freezes very well. It also thaws out really quickly. Or you can just stick the frozen slice in the toaster.
  • RandomInteger4 10y ago
    Then maybe double it and eat 2 slices; problem solved.
• CydeWeys 10y ago
  > bread/buns before they grow stale or mold. Bread keeps for months if you freeze it immediately after buying it (slice it first if it doesn't come pre-sliced). Then, just pop it into the toaster whenever you want to eat some, and it comes right back to life, not stale-tasting at all. I don't eat food at home that often, but I haven't had to throw away any bread from mold or staleness since I started freezing it.
  • dawnerd 10y ago
    Sourdough already lasts for a while and freezes quite nicely. Works out great for grilled cheese.
• paulcole 10y ago
  > disinterest in cooking and a desire to avoid the time spent during food preparation You say this like it's a feature not a bug. > Grocery shopping for one is frustrating Like other valuable skills, you can get better at it.
  • x1798DE 10y ago
    > You say this like it's a feature not a bug. I think it sounds more like they are saying that it's a preference. Preferences are generally neither features nor bugs (though they can be useful in some situations and frustrating in others).
    • M_Grey 10y ago
      It sounds like a borderline disability, not a preference, in the same way that someone with agoraphobia prefers to be indoors.
      • 59nadir 10y ago
        Do you realize how ridiculous it sounds when you equate not wanting to cook because you'd rather do something else with a socially crippling disorder?
        • M_Grey 10y ago
          Not wanting to cook, and eating slurry which may or may not actually be healthy in the long run is hardly comparable. Lots of people don't want to cook, it is presumably a much smaller subset which would prefer the slurry.
          • 59nadir 10y ago
            We were discussing whether or not it's a "feature" that you don't have to cook and the rationale for that thinking is simply that some people don't want to cook. Whatever you replace the act of cooking with in that example is entirely up to you. But it's undeniably a feature to some people and were I not married I would very likely replace a few meals with something like this, if it was available to me where I live. I find it interesting that there are so many of you that take offense to what other people choose to do with their own time and energy, as well as what they eat. Have you noticed a lot of people dislike people who try to force their lifestyles and/or dietary choices on other people? Do you see any similarities between those people and your own comments, perhaps?
• galdosdi 10y ago
  Great point, suburban supermarkets do seem to be very bulk oriented. Look into freezing. Way more things than you'd think handle freezing well. Cheese, bread (toast or even just warm it briefly before consuming for maximum tastiness), and milk for example. Not eggs unfortunately (yeah, I tried). And some things are in between, eg bananas without skins can be frozen and eaten frozen, if you like the taste and texture, but you can't defrost them and get back a banana like you had before you froze it, it'll just be nasty goop. So, if in doubt, just try freezing it and see what happens. Also, turning the temperature on your fridge down may extend the life of some things (but will also waste more energy, so experiment to see if it's a good tradeoff)
  • liveoneggs 10y ago
    > eg bananas without skins can be frozen and eaten frozen, if you like the taste and texture, but you can't defrost them and get back a banana like you had before you froze it, it'll just be nasty goop. http://www.thatrecipe.com/blog/2014/03/06/daniel-tiger-banana-swirl/ http://www.thatrecipe.com/blog/2014/03/06/daniel-tiger-banan...
• gambiting 10y ago
  Does US not have UHT milk? I buy 24 or even 48 cartons at costco and I'm sorted for milk for a very long time.
  • matt4077 10y ago
    It's one of these foodstuffs where I'm pretty sure I can taste the difference when I get it fresh. And at a liter for 50cents, I really don't care about any savings in bulk.
  • blacksmith_tb 10y ago
    It is very uncommon in the US, though available (however I rarely see large tetrapacs of it, generally just single-serving boxes).
• deleted 10y ago
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• colechristensen 10y ago
  These cheese bags will make your cheese last drastically longer. Plastic wrap condensation makes mold happen much faster. I buy Costco blocks of sharp cheddar and finish them myself, though I'll admit a certain fondness of cheese. But also, most cheese mold is a surface only phenomenon. Remove what you can see and continue eating (doesn't apply to soft cheeses) https://www.amazon.com/Formaticum-Cheese-Storage-Bags-Count/dp/B00BEDW76W https://www.amazon.com/Formaticum-Cheese-Storage-Bags-Count/... There are various other storage techniques for making food last longer which you might try.
• kafkaesq 10y ago
  Soylent, on the other hand, has a shelf-life of 1 year. With a taste and mouth-feel to match. Bon appetit!
• deleted 10y ago
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• Oletros 10y ago
  I'm really surprised, can't you buy half dozen eggs, 200 gr butter or 100 gr ham in an US supermarket?
  • kbenson 10y ago
    You might have an easier time finding that in a market, or corner store, than a supermarket, but you might not find everything you are looking for, and it might all be a bit more expensive than a supermarket. Depending on how many placed you go to show (taking more time), buying smaller portions at smaller stores may end up taking more time and cost close to the same amount as the larger portion. There's not a lot of incentive in that besides not being wasteful. Also, you're probably unlikely to find much measured to 100 or 200 grams in any US supermarket. It's all ounces (both fluid and otherwise!) here. ;)
    • Oletros 10y ago
      Then it is different than here in Spain (or in France an Italy), in every supermarket you can find half or a dozen eggs packs and the smaller butter pack is 4.4 ounces.
  • burkaman 10y ago
    I've never seen half dozen egg cartons or single sticks of butter sold in supermarkets, but my experience is somewhat limited. Eggs and butter last for a while so I don't think this is really a big deal. And you can generally get as much meat as you want in the deli/butcher section of a supermarket.
    • krisdol 10y ago
      >I've never seen half dozen egg cartons or single sticks of butter sold in supermarkets, but my experience is somewhat limited. Just want to counter so the parent poster knows that yes, it is very common to find single sticks of butter or half-dozen egg cartons in many grocery stores. I can't think of any that don't have these things.
  • cylinder 10y ago
• deleted 10y ago
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• anexprogrammer 10y ago
  Eggs keep for months just fine. When I was single I'd make family portion, eat 1/3, freeze the others. Bread freezes perfectly too. Other than that I shared your frustration of stores - buy a thing for £1, get three of them for £1.30. So choice of hugely overpay or risk waste. Milk prices are especially offensive under half gallon.
  • astockwell 10y ago
    In the US it's not advised to keep eggs that long, which speaks to a whole other issue.
    • logfromblammo 10y ago
      In the US, eggs are prepared for consumer sales differently. Most notably, the cuticle is removed. If you sterilize the shells and dip them in mineral oil or cheese wax, they can be kept at room temperature for much longer.
  • bmpafa 10y ago
    If you keep bread in the fridge, it'll keep for quite awhile & be available to eat (unlike freezing it). I used to live in a country with giant, mean roaches, so I got in the habit of refrigerating everything. Surprised it's not more common to do so w/ bread.
    • deepsun 10y ago
      On my experience, bread spoils faster in the fridge. By the way, scientists still cannot describe chemical reactions in bread staleness. Contrary to popular belief, staleness is not really dryness, it's a complex chemical process.
• jedberg 10y ago
  Lactose free milk lasts about 6 weeks, or about 3 times longer. It costs about 25% more, but it's totally worth it. We buy 1.5 gallons at Costco for the two of us and never had it go bad.
  • curtis 10y ago
    I can confirm that lactose free milk never seems to go bad. And I don't know what the situation is in other cities, but in Seattle, it's ubiquitous, and it's not even specialized brands (e.g. Lactaid) any more.
    • jedberg 10y ago
      Yeah here in the Bay Area there are multiple store brands that have lactose free, and they are almost all cheaper than Lactaid (although Lactaid seems to go on sale here a lot bringing it in line with the store brands).
  • kbenson 10y ago
    I had noticed that as well. I wonder if it's because the lactose contributes to the process that makes it go bad, or because they treat it to make it last longer assuming it will move slower with a limited consumer base. ... Ah, a little googling, and it turns out it's a byproduct of the procedure to remove the lactose, Ultra Pasteurization (UP) or Ultra High Temperature (UHT) pasteurization. [1] 1: http://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/34884/why-does-lactose-free-milk-last-so-much-longer-than-regular-milk http://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/34884/why-does-...
  • Spooky23 10y ago
    A lot of organic milk is like this too. They pasteurize it differently because it sells more slowly.
• nix0n 10y ago
  Try going to a convenience store or drugstore. You probably won't find 6 eggs but you probably will find quarts of milk.
• lucaspiller 10y ago
  > forever spoil cheese and milk I guess the quality of the food you have in the US is very different to what we have in Europe (or we just have lots of preservatives). Fresh milk usually lasts a week (I usually get the smallest 250ml pack), where as I can have 1 litre of UHT milk last a month without any noticeable difference. Cheese... well it lasts until it's eaten, it just goes a bit hard. I've had a packet of grated parmesan in the fridge for nearly a month, and a wedge of pecorino uncovered for two months, and both are still good.
  • HelloMcFly 10y ago
    In the US here. I bought milk a week ago that expires on Nov. 26th. Nearly every gallon I buy is good for at least 1.5 months. I don't buy the cheap store-brand gallon jug. I buy the nearly-cheap organic store-brand milk cartons.
  • Tobani 10y ago
    It lasts as about the same. You can get the UHT most places i've been to, but it is not particular popular. The problem is more about purchasable quantity. 1/2 gallon (~2 liters) is the smallest "normal" size for Milk, you can definitely buy pints, and liters as well. The cost-per-unit definitely goes up below 1/2 gallon.
  • evgen 10y ago
    It is the same quality as you get in the EU. Milk lasts a week or so in the US as well. UHT is mostly unheard of in the US because people actually like the taste of milk... ;) Someone who is buying real cheese in the US is not really in the wheelhouse for soylent, we are probably talking about a big block of mass-produced yellow cheddar here. Most likely it is being stored improperly in a ziploc bag or similar and the retained moisture is causing premature mold growth.
    • Tobani 10y ago
      Cheddar, hah I think you mean 'merican cheese
• protomyth 10y ago
  "I still have not found any reliable way of buying small enough quantities of bread/buns before they grow stale or mold." The local bakery sells half loaves of bread which does a pretty good job of it. If that's a problem, I have friends who have bought bread makers which allow for the making of smaller portions. As to milk, if you don't mind the taste of ultra-pasteurized milk, Fairlife[1] is pretty good and lasts a lot longer in the fridge. Their chocolate milk is really chocolatey. 1) technically fa!rlife
• jaimebuelta 10y ago
  That seems to be a very American problem. Portions of everything are just HUGE there, compared with other countries where there are more reasonable sized packages for a single person.
• saddestcatever 10y ago
  I agree. I'll never understand how people get so defensive in regards to SOMEONE ELSE's decision to change their diet. Soylent is a great solution for some. It's not for everyone (nothing is, not even food :P) - and I'm glad it works.
• kafkaesq 10y ago
  Grocery shopping for one is frustrating... Less sarcastically -- I've come to find that learning how to not just cope with, but enjoy the food acquisition process, end-to-end -- from procurement, to cooking and prep, and yes, even washing dishes and maintaining a decent kitchen; but most of all, preparing delicious meals for friends, now and then (and all of this, on a shoestring budget, if necessary) -- to be one of the most valuable life skills one can acquire. So if you're currently finding it "frustrating" -- that's a good thing, because it means that your body is correctly signaling you to the fact that there's not just an opportunity to learn, but to make great efficiency gains but just a modest investment in just... figuring out how food works. Taking milk as an example -- you're absolutely right that the chains are wrongly optimized in a lot of their offerings; the quart- (or gallon-!) sized milk offerings being a great example. At the end of the day, "milk", as such, is just not a great item to have in one's list of staples -- yogurt and kefir provide very much the same nutritive value (and overall "milk-experience", in my view) with much better shelf life, and much better value per unit cost, overall. Or if you must have "milk", as such, just a small bottle of raw (or appropriately pasteurized) milk from a high quality dairy (this is crucial), which you'll find you'll need to drink only about 1/3 the amount of compared to the usual chain-offered "big dairy" milk, will do just fine. But the thing about Soylent -- the really "real sickness" about it, in my view -- is that rather than address this frustration by getting to its root cause (lack of awareness of how food works, on a basic level; and how awesome things can be when you get your food supply right, or at least working for you, rather than against you) -- it simply masks it. And on top of that, rather insidiously promotes dependence (on a brand) -- rather than independence and self-sufficiency -- as a way of addressing the problem.
  • dmix 10y ago
    Your solution seems to be invest more time into learning how to grocery shop and prep food better, which supports the OPs argument that it is a real investment to make. Whereas the whole point of Soylent is the chance to skip this whole time investment and optimization process. Some people would rather trade the highs/lows of grocery shopping and cooking for simple, healthy meals, but mostly bland meals. I don't think Soylent is the answer for everyone, it's a niche the same way Whole Foods is a niche. But they do have a real value prop that is easily overlooked if you only look at the food part of it, instead of all of the other processes around it.
• marincounty 10y ago
  Bread=wrap in foil, then in plastic bag, and freeze. Milk=buy nonfat. Personally, I feel if your not going through a 1/2 gallon a week, you should drink more of the "poison". (Yea--it got a bad rap--I don't want to debate it.) You got me on eggs. I just know most resturants don't refrigerate eggs. My eggs will last a few weeks on the frig. My point is I get it. When I was in my twenties, I honestly didn't like eating. It was kinda a chore. I still only eat when I'm hunger, or feel weird. I do believe in caloric restriction. If anyone want to spend their money on, essentially a marketing ploy, fine. My best friend lived, basically unless we were out to dinner, or I was cooking for him, on Ensure for two years. We got it at Costco. He just got tired of putting stuff in microwaves. Yea--he was lazy, but he got a pass. He truly had a horrible chilhood/life. And he, honestly couldn't cook. He was born in the 40's. In a home where men don't cook. Flour, beans, and rice will last a long time. Learning how to cook was a given in my childhood. It started out as a feminist thing in our household. The more my dad protested me cooking; the more my mom said it was fine. It got to the point, I could cook much better than my sister, and mother. Later on, I became a cook on a resturant. We didn't call them Chefs. We were just cooks, and were taught in the kitchen. Basically, cooking is easy. Every person should know how to cook up small meals. If you can learn programming, cooking is a breeze. In relationships, I've done all the cooking. I told them, "My girlfriend/wife don't cook--we have evolved!". Yes--I was lying. They couldn't cook. The women in my generation, were so afraid they would be stuck home slaving over a hot stove, they really didn't know how to make anything other than a sandwich, or at least my girlfriends? So just learn how to cook. It will make your life easier. It will save you money. And honestly, most resturant food tastes better because of two ingredients: fat, and salt. Or buy a marketing ploy? I just don't like to see money wasted. (Oh, yea, buy a cheap small rice steamer. They are under $20. They are fool proof.)
• jly 10y ago
  I think the article actually does highlight a valid growing trend away from industrial processed foods and towards getting closer to the source for natural foods. The meal replacement industry seems to be large enough to support this product and others, but it's still a niche, overall. It's fighting against a prevailing trend towards spending more time on food and not less, and understanding more about where our food comes from and how it's produced.