4 ms·

Man, this is a bummer. As much as I hate the concept of Soylent as food, I see it as the only way to scale food production for the growing population, without k

• jasonlaramburu 10y ago
  Isn't Soylent primarily made from rice and soybeans? These are commodity crops that require huge amounts of fossil fuels (chemical fertilizer, fuel for tractors, transportation, processing) and government subsidies in order to be profitably cultivated.
  • Laforet 10y ago
    Still less of a burden compared to meat and vegetables
  • skuhn 10y ago
    Gotta check the latest release notes [1]. No more rice in Soylent Powder version 1.6. I find the concept of release notes for things I eat pretty discomforting. Not that I would ever put Soylent in my food hole. [1] http://files.soylent.com/pdf/soylent-release-notes-1-6-en.pdf http://files.soylent.com/pdf/soylent-release-notes-1-6-en.pd...
  • nnq 10y ago
    > commodity crops that require [...] government subsidies in order to be profitably cultivated Wait, what?! Why would governments need to subsidize such crops? Can't the price be left to increase a bit, and have the market sort this out more "organically"? Only reason I'd see for the US government subsidizing such crops would be to make your food exports more competitive, a pretty "dirty" tactic in a globalized economy, but at leas it would make sense...
• greglindahl 10y ago
  Pretty much any vegan diet is sufficiently efficient, if your goal is avoiding killing the planet. No need to eat powder.
  • deepGem 10y ago
    Am not sure. Pretty much agriculture is eating away vast tracts of forests. Be it in Brazil, India or elsewhere. Now is all agriculture done for food. Not really. Palm oil is an example with a ton of industrial and cosmetic use.
    • greglindahl 10y ago
      Turning 10 calories of corn into 1 calorie of beef is not the way to save the planet. A large fraction of corn and soybeans are fed to animals. If you want to talk about non-food usage, that's a different issue.
      • leshow 10y ago
        Using a computer, having running water, driving a car, etc are all wasteful activities. And yet in every other instance people seem happy to simply reduce their use to "save the planet". But vegans say you can't reduce meat consumption, you must eliminate it. This seems a stark contrast to everything else, if your argument is environmental damage.
        • greglindahl 10y ago
          I'm not a vegan, but I know several vegans who would disagree with your over-generalization. Please don't hijack this sub-thread.
          • leshow 10y ago
            I don't think it's a generalization, and I don't really care that you "know several vegans" that disagree.
• contingencies 10y ago
  It's a fair concern, though many people forget that reducing food wastage is a great way to scale too: Roughly one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally, which amounts to about 1.3 billion tons per year. http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/mb060e/mb060e00.htm http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/mb060e/mb060e00.htm At Infinite Food we are working to offer a broader, home kitchen-like degree of choice in personalized hot meal preparation, but using technology to reduce waste in areas like transport, processing and storage through features such as seasonal ingredient discounts, shared transport infrastructure, electronic monitoring, personalized servings and discounts on reduced packaging/cutlery/napkins. http://8-food.com/ http://8-food.com/
  • mapt 10y ago
    Actually, one-third is a pretty small number in the grand scheme of things. Drop it down to zero (asymptotically difficult) and carrying capacity rises by 50%. Switch the meat eaters over to grain & legumes (with minimal fresh vegetables), and it rises by something in the 200-1000% range.
    • Ygg2 10y ago
      I don't think it does. Land used for feeding cattle != Land used for farming grains/legumes/vegetables. Plants that we eat require higher quality of land, than ordinary grass. Also it's not an easy transition. Essentially it's like saying if everyone keeps same distance between car behind and front of them, then there would be little to no traffic jam. I mean sure, that's true, but requires a tectonic change in human behavior.
      • saalweachter 10y ago
        Yeah, my personal guess is that animals have a place in even the ideal, most efficient agricultural system, even if it is at a lower intensity than in modern American agriculture. Sheep and cattle can graze on land that is not useful for crops. Pigs can eat food waste and reclaim those calories. Chickens can forage in suburban spaces and convert corn quite efficiently. We might be better off feeding less corn to livestock, but keep in mind field corn is one of the most productive crops in modern agriculture -- either we need to start feeding humans a lot more corn meal, or you're stuck planting a less efficient crop in place of corn. Growing corn to feed to pigs and chickens, while supplementing their diet with foraging and food waste, is not that crazy of a prospect, from a land use perspective.
• DanBC 10y ago
  There are already existing nutritional supplements on the market, used by eg World Food Programme. https://www.wfp.org/nutrition/special-nutritional-products https://www.wfp.org/nutrition/special-nutritional-products But WFP doesn't want to push these as sole sources of nutrition, or even regular components of a diet. These are used in emergencies. A lot of WFP's work is around building resilience into communities to prevent hunger. https://www.wfp.org/preventing-hunger https://www.wfp.org/preventing-hunger We currently produce enough food for the entire planet. It's not distributed very well, and there's a lot of waste.