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Although I was initially brought onto the hype train by great marketing and the promises of health and complete nutrition, I realize that my initial reliance on

Although I was initially brought onto the hype train by great marketing and the promises of health and complete nutrition, I realize that my initial reliance on Soylent was actually part of a deeper problem, brought on by problems such as depression and inappropriate time management. When in reality I should have had enough time to eat out or possibly even cook a meal, I found myself relying on Soylent. I didn't leave my room, and had trouble doing anything. I soon began to lose my appetite and had to force myself to gulp it down, attempting to make sure I wouldn't starve myself. Drinking Soylent was ruining my health. I think many people approach Soylent as a way to solve some of their problems, but people should realize it won't be and can't be. Another person I knew had bought a few boxes of Soylent attempting to lose weight. In reality, she did not change her weight appreciably, as all she did was consume the same number of calories she would have otherwise. Lastly I would like to add that there is some debate over the actual nutritional efficacy of the composition of Soylent. If you look at the bioavailability of their calcium supplement, calcium carbonate, it is significantly less than the one found in milk, calcium phosphate. However, Soylent will still claim that it is possible to have 100% D.V. of calcium with 5 bottles. Overall, Soylent is probably not a healthy solution to your problems.

johnfn 10y ago
Very interesting comment. Definitely food for thought. One thing to keep in mind is it's not only depresssion that could cause the poor time management that Soylent benefits from. The whole "gotta be working every minute of every day" ethos of SV can feed into this very easily as well. Which isn't also to say that the two can't be intertwined...
BugsJustFindMe 10y ago
You were depressed so everyone is depressed? I don't think that follows.
- deleted 10y ago
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deedubaya 10y ago
> Drinking Soylent was ruining my health. Was Soylent ruining your health, or enabling you to let your health decline by isolating yourself? If the later, I don't think that's any reflection of the product itself.
- rubatuga 10y ago
  Eating is a complex process, usually intertwined with social interactions, stimulation of multiple sensory organs, and activation of jaw muscles and blood flow. I think by short circuiting many of those processes, along with possibly the negative nutritional aspects of Soylent and my mental state back then, I was suffering as a result.
  - reilly3000 10y ago
    Spot on. I don't know why we would apply reductionism something as pleasurable and healthful as food.
    - Latty 10y ago
      This is you not looking past your own world view. If you have a healthy and pleasurable relationship with food, great, good for you. Some of us like food too much, and replacements can help with that. Some people don't care about food, and replacments are just as good to them, but easier.
    - greenshackle2 10y ago
      > I don't know why we would apply reductionism something as pleasurable and healthful as food. I applaud you for admitting your ignorance. Let me give you some reasons why: I know a guy who doesn't enjoy eating. For him it's always been a chore. He has a poor sense of smell, it's surely related. It works for him. I drink soylent as an alternative to eating out on my own, which is an expensive and unhealthy habit I have. It does not replace 1) eating out with friends or 2) cooking at home.
    - ng12 10y ago
      I drink Soylent because I'm a diabetic. I can have one every morning and know exactly how many carbs I'm getting and exactly how it affects my body. Food being "pleasurable and healthful" is a luxury.
zython 10y ago
Interesting thought, but if I may ask, can you really blame Soylent for that? The only person that I know drinks soylent only to surpess the hunger until lunch, and doesnt plan on drinking only soylent. So far they say its doing its job good enough. What's your opinion on that ?
- frogpelt 10y ago
  Soylent isn't marketed that way. It is marketed as a most-of-the-time meal replacement. Am I wrong?
  - scarlac 10y ago
    Yes. They stopped doing that long ago. From their frontpage video: "While not intended to replace every meal, Soylent can replace any meal". And in text: "If you’ve ever wasted time and energy trying to decide what to eat for lunch, or have been too busy to eat a proper meal" And basically everyone I see in forums will say that they don't advice on a 100% Soylent diet. Disclaimer: I'm a firm believer that we need to change our consumption habits. Soylent is a way to make an impact, even if it is only used once a week.
- deleted 10y ago
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elif 10y ago
I would be inclined to agree that it's a poor solution to lifestyle/mental health issues. otoh i have appetite problems which soylent DOES solve.
mojowo11 10y ago
This comment is kinda silly. Like, the problem here isn't Soylent, it's that you were depressed. And the problem with your friend using Soylent to watch her weight isn't Soylent, it's that she ate more of other crap when she drank Soylent as a meal replacement. I drink Soylent occasionally -- once every two or three weeks, maybe. Normally I use it if I know I'm going to eat a huge dinner, or if I ate a giant lunch and don't need to consume many more calories in the evening. It works great for me. Yes, if you misuse Soylent, it will not be a good thing for you. That goes for, like, everything.
- giaour 10y ago
  The founder of Soylent has repeatedly pushed his product as a solution for world hunger, unhealthy diets in the first world, and poor time management. I think critiquing the product on those terms is fair.
  - deeth_starr_v 10y ago
    Agreed, while the intentions of Soylent are probably sincere, when I first heard about it my response was "nope nope nope". My parents were hippies and we grew/raised most of our food when I was a kid. But my grandparents had embraced the new space-age diet: margarine in place of butter, tang instead of orange juice, kraft instead of cheese, etc. I thought it tasted awful compared to real food. As we have found out, some food choices like trans fats have an impact on health. There's really too much noise in the nutrition related data to draw wide ranging conclusions. But buyer beware. For me I think the safest option is the "whole foods" (Polan) route. For me it would be "eat what your grand-grand parents ate". I was even a vegetarian and eating fake-meats and then realized I was just eating chemicals. So I started eating meat again. Edit: Changed wording on first sentence
    - chaostheory 10y ago
      I agree with you. For everyone else, I just want to add that there is a place for things like Soylent, beyond the marketing. We're most likely not going to be able to continue our current method producing food cheaply. I could be wrong but things like Soylent will probably be the future that mitigates this issue for a lot of people.
Latty 10y ago
> I think many people approach Soylent as a way to solve some of their problems, but people should realize it won't be and can't be. You are saying your case (and that of your friend's) apply to everyone. I've lost a lot of weight using Huel (a similar product made in the UK), because it makes calorie tracking incredibly easy and allows me to avoid thinking about food except when I specifically choose to eat something. Just because it wasn't suitable to you, and your friend didn't find a use for it, doesn't make it bad for everyone. My experience with Huel was that it allowed me to reset my relationship with food to a more healthy one. My analogy is music - in the past I sat down and just listened to music, sometimes with friends. I still do that, but now I have a phone with me all the time, and headphones, and I listen to music almost all of the time. It's a constant, background thing, rather than (only) a special event. Food had become something similar for me - I wanted to be eating all the time, to always have some flavour. For music, that relationship wasn't a problem, but for food, it has meant I'm overweight. So I tried Huel. I don't think about food most days now - I drink, I drink a given number of calories of Huel (helping me lose weight). Then, sometimes, I go out and eat something really nice with friends or family. Or I just feel like something and I make something nice. I still enjoy food, but it isn't a constant thing. Now, you could do a similar thing with a normal calorie controlled diet, and in fact I did by using a calorie tracking app a few years back - but I didn't stick with it because it was hard, because every time you go to make food it's a tempation. Avoiding food entirely made it easier for me. It's definitely not for everyone, but there are plenty of use cases.
- sosodaft 10y ago
  This, exactly. I use Huel to replace the meals I eat at home. As a consequence, it is the only food in my apartment. Removing the possibility of eating junk has helped me improve my diet a lot, and I still get to have a takeaway meal for lunch to sate my cravings for real food.
- baby 10y ago
  Ohhh, I thought I had to give up on these things since I moved away from the US. But now I remember that Europe has a lot of these as well. Have you tried other things than Huel? I might be tempted to give it a try.
delecti 10y ago
Considering how far removed from its "natural" source much of our food is, I don't think Soylent should be looked at with much skepticism. Additionally: > Calcium carbonate is the most common and least expensive calcium supplement. It should be taken with food, and depends on low pH levels (acidic) for proper absorption in the intestine.[26] Some studies suggests that the absorption of calcium from calcium carbonate is similar to the absorption of calcium from milk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_supplement#Types https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_supplement#Types
- dxhdr 10y ago
  > Considering how far removed from its "natural" source much of our food is, I don't think Soylent should be looked at with much skepticism. 1 in 3 Americans are obese and the next 1 in 3 are overweight. We have no idea how to feed ourselves. Skepticism seems appropriate.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    People that go on a strict, regimented diet do well (lose weight, medical indicators improve, etc). We mostly don't know how to deal with abundance, combined with reluctance to utilize tools like taxes to attempt to alter societal eating trends.
  - Scottn1 10y ago
    Because the metric used to categorize is too simpleton (BMI) and unfairly counts more muscular frames into same categories. Muscle weighs more than fat. When this guy goes to get a physical, he will go into database as "overweight" (BMI 26-27): http://ow.ly/KnTx30bsc3d http://ow.ly/KnTx30bsc3d And this is "Obese": http://ow.ly/33ls30bsclV http://ow.ly/33ls30bsclV
  - delecti 10y ago
    Hmm, perhaps I made my point poorly. I don't think Soylent should be looked at with so much more skepticism than other modern processed foods. Nobody would ask if Pop Tarts "are even food" the same way I often see with Soylent.
stupidcar 10y ago
My question is, would you have necessarily eaten better in the absence of Soylent? Or would you have just binged on snacks and junk food instead? Plenty of people seem to do so. I agree that Soylent is overhyped as a quick-fix to diet and nutrition problems that have complex causes, e.g. depression, social isolation, obesity, etc. But, since we aren't going to resolve those causes any time soon, it's probably better, on balance, to have Soylent available as a reasonably healthy option for people.
davycro 10y ago
For medical training, Soylent has been wonderful. On emergency shifts I often won't have 10 or 20 minutes to go to the cafeteria for a meal as there are too many acute patients. I used to rely on energy bars to get me through but I much prefer Soylent. They are quicker to eat and I know that I am drinking a someone balanced meal. I usually drink about three in an eight hour shift. You raise a great point about self reflection and Soylent. To stop cooking entirely is madness, and Soylent can enable antisocial tendencies or depression. They shouldn't brand themselves as a complete dietary replacement for food.
- yourthrowaway2 10y ago
  "I know that I am drinking a __someone__ balanced meal" Freudian?
- Tiksi 10y ago
  >To stop cooking entirely is madness, Does that include takeout/eating out? Because I know tons of people (myself unfortunately included) that have stopped cooking entirely and rely on takeout. It's not ideal but I wouldn't call it madness.
  - sneak 10y ago
    Cooking is an anachronism and it is in no way madness to stop doing it any more than it is madness to use a washing machine instead of a washboard or email instead of the post.
    - magic_beans 10y ago
      Restaurant-cooked food optimizes for taste, not health. Home cooking is often a lot more healthful....
JumpCrisscross 10y ago
N=1 here. After Soylent found its way into my home I started drinking it for lunch (chocolate shake). Previously, I'd have ordered in or run out to grab a salad. With the extra time I found myself, instead of rushing between lunch and work, wandering around listening to audiobooks or podcasts. I started enjoying these walks so much I extended them. On one podcast I heard about Blue Apron. I've never liked cooking, but the release of lunch's tediousness pushed me to give it a try. Dinner is now, three times a week, a home-cooked meal for myself and one other. (Together, Blue Apron and Soylent reduced my daily caloric intake appreciably, at least on weekdays.)
salmonet 10y ago
I guess it depends how you use it. I keep it in my car as a replacement for fast food when I'm short on time and I'm healthier overall
harkain 10y ago
In my case, soylent-like products (specifically what used to be called Joylent) helped me a lot when I was really quite depressed. I could often go without eating several days simply because I couldn't get myself together enough to source any kind of food. Having a stash of Joylent meant I could get a sort-of balanced meal with minimal effort, which really improved my physical health and enabled me to take better care of my mental health too.
cptskippy 10y ago
I tried Soylent v1.2-1.4 for about 6 months thinking I could better regulate my calorie intake and lose some weight. In the end it wasn't for me. I found that it did nothing to satiate my appetite and that I'd be hungry, bloated and gassy all day long. The bloating and gas were incredibly uncomfortable and never really subsided. Eschewing the normal 3 meals a day routine and doing 5 meals didn't seem to help. Despite the fact that I was only consuming 2000 calories, 500 less than recommended for my size/weight/age/sex, I managed to gain weight. The powder was messy and would coat whatever surface I prepared it on with a fine dusting. The liquid smelled unpleasant after a while and eventually I started to smell like it when I sweat. The liquid was basically an oil and solid particulate suspension so if you spilled it on anything it was difficult to clean up because the particles would work their way into fabric. Not such a problem for clothes but more so for furniture or car seats. From a social perspective it really sucked because meals are a time to socialize it was awkward to go out with people and not order anything. I gradually moved to half days which actually curbed the weight gain I was seeing and eventually motivated me to give it up.
- brandonmenc 10y ago
  > Despite the fact that I was only consuming 2000 calories, 500 less than recommended for my size/weight/age/sex, I managed to gain weight. You were eating too many calories. 2500 for maintaining body weight is a lot. Perhaps you were overestimating your activity level?
  - cptskippy 10y ago
    I'm 6'5" and ~220lbs, every calorie calculator I've tried recommends 2400+ calories a day to maintain body weight with a sedentary lifestyle. At the time I tried this experiment I was running close to 30 miles a week and spending 2+ hours a week rock climbing.
    - vidarh 10y ago
      Estimates like 2400kcal might work if you have a physically demanding job 40 hours a week. Running 30 miles a week and spending 2+ hours a week rock climbing will lift cause you to expend only maybe 500kcal a day extra on average, but if you spend the rest of that time being sedentary, you're still unlikely to end up at any more than 2000-2200kcal. Overall I think the typical old advice of 2500kcal for men and 2000 for women are dangerously out of tune with modern lifestyles. As your own results demonstrated, that's often way too high. Measure, weigh, adjust - ultimately the only thing that will tell you what the right amount of calories is for you is to actually adjust your intake and check what happens.
Glyptodon 10y ago
Eh. I think it very much depends on what your problems are. If you want to stop eating fast food, but don't believe you can rely on yourself to food prep, plan, or cook, you can probably do a lot worse. Wanting more than something very straightforward from it probably isn't a recipe for success, though.
- bartmcpherson 10y ago
  That's exactly my use case. I'm targeting 1800 calories of intake per day. I do 1 for breakfast and 1 for lunch. My wife and I then have a balanced dinner. This gives me structure and a plan for each workday. Previously, I would pickup something (probably not healthy and over 400 calories) on the fly for each meal.
jug 10y ago
Huh? I've tried a competing product just for fun to see what it was like and for convenience when I was short on time, not a daily replacement. If you're using this to not get out of bed, I agree with others that the problem is a wholly different one than Soylent or any other product such as home delivered hamburgers that allows you to not leave your home.
nazgulnarsil 10y ago
Soylent has refused to make basic changes to improve their nutritional profile based on widely known and accepted research. Lots of their micronutrients look optimized for cost and not for human health. E.g. Soylent uses D2, when even 30 seconds of googling should have turned up evidence such as: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/84/4/694.full http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/84/4/694.full "ergocalciferol should not be regarded as a nutrient suitable for supplementation or fortification." D2 and D3 are metabolized so differently that they result in the "production of unique biologically active metabolites." Ergocalciferol is the version used in the Soylent powder, while the bottled version doesn't even deign to inform the consumer what they are getting (it just says Vitamin D) The fact that this problem exists and has existed for years with many of their ingredients indicates that they aren't even doing shallow research into nutrition. (https://www.MealSquares.com https://www.MealSquares.com try to provide multiple sources of all micronutrients from different food groups)
- L_Rahman 10y ago
  I skimmed the paper you linked to and if I understood it correctly D2 has lower bioavailability than D3. Is that the primary difference?
  - nazgulnarsil 10y ago
    That's one important takeaway. But we don't actually know what (synthetic) D2 and (food derived) D3 are doing differently in the body. This is exacerbated by: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210929/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210929/ That there's this much nuance just with this one ingredient is a microcosm of the overall flaw in Soylent's approach. Optimizing for just the legible dimensions of a poorly understood domain will not result in good outcomes. For mealsquares we take consilience seriously and combine the inside and outside view (see: reference class forecasting) on human nutrition to try to establish reasonable confidence intervals around nutrition models, and even then we aren't stupid enough to think or claim that mealsquares are just as good as fish, fruit, and vegetables.
    - 10y ago
etherdoc 10y ago
I never understood Soylent. Why not simple, convenient, repetitive meals instead? Why not a protein shake and a banana if occasional liquid meal replacements are needed?
- strictnein 10y ago
  Soylent is a simple, convenient, repetitive meal.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  > Why not simple, convenient, repetitive meals instead? Name one that a) provides a proper amount of needed nutrients and b) is as simple and convenient as Soylent (or equivalents).
  - goldenkey 10y ago
    A multivitamin. Organic valley protein shakes (already liquid): https://www.organicvalley.coop/products/protein-shakes/ https://www.organicvalley.coop/products/protein-shakes/ And purple corn meal for carbs: https://www.amazon.com/Z%C3%B3calo-Peru-Organic-Purple-Flour/dp/B003D0OJ8I https://www.amazon.com/Z%C3%B3calo-Peru-Organic-Purple-Flour... Organic virgin coconut oil (in glass jar) for fats: https://www.pureformulas.com/nutiva-organic-extravirgin-coconut-oil-glass-jar-23-oz-by-nutiva.html https://www.pureformulas.com/nutiva-organic-extravirgin-coco...
    - greenshackle2 10y ago
      OK I'll bite. Soylent is $2.69 / 400 cal and vegan. To get the same macro ratios you don't need the corn meal, the shakes have plenty of carbs, you can do 1 shake @ $3.33 + 15g coconut oil @ $0.55 + a few cents for the multivitamin = ~$4.00 / 400 cal. (You may still want the cornmeal for fibers and slower carbs, since the carbs in the shake are all from milk and cane sugar.) So it's more expensive, requires preparation, is not vegan, and the glycemic load is probably worse. Beautiful.
      - 10y ago
aurelius12 10y ago
Sure it is. My problems that Soylent can solve include having an easy and palatable (I sort of enjoy the plain flavor when chilled enough) snack a couple times a week.
shados 10y ago
Cocoa soylent was just a better alternative to what I had as options for breakfast. Typical breakfast sandwich or cheap cereals were not particularly great. I'm honestly not sure how healthy it is, but I'd be very surprised if it was worse than what I'd do otherwise. Now I agree if you have 5 bottles a day as your only food source, that's probably not great. We don't really understand human food needs as well as we say we do, and we kind of just get by as a kind of coincidence through variety. Having the same thing over and over and over almost garentees you get it wrong, no matter what it is you have.
phantom_package 10y ago
> inappropriate time management This resonates with me. When I tried Soylent, it was because I was working WAY too much, and that "always-on" mindset carried over into other parts of my life. I felt like I didn't have time for food - I needed to be productive instead! Soylent markets to this extremely well, and it worked on me. I stopped using Soylent when I found a healthier work/life balance, started meditating regularly, did a bit of traveling, started exercising more often, and met a new love interest. I wouldn't say that I'm a stellar cook, but I enjoy preparing meals - it's just another thing to try to do well. So Soylent isn't really for me - though there probably are some lifestyles in which it makes sense.
- sneak 10y ago
  I work a lot, I like working a lot, I choose voluntarily to work a lot. I find it fulfilling and productive. It doesn't leave a lot of time for cooking healthy things (or, more accurately, I would rather spend the limited time left over after work for reading and producing music rather than cooking and cleaning my dishes and kitchen) and most packaged/prepared food is pretty unhealthy. Soylent and Joylent and Jake mean I end up healthier.
- andkon 10y ago
  This isn't just something Soylent pushes, either. This is a lifestyle that was crafted really carefully over many years that is at the core of 'startup culture.' It's ironic that we're talking about that "always-on mentality" in the venue that's responsible more than anywhere else for disseminating it, demonizing the 9-5 life as the choice of inferior cubicle-bound minds, and glorifying the startup life as the only alternative acceptable alternative. Otherwise, you're not smart or ambitious. In the same way that "ball is life" gets a lot of kids to pay a lot of money for sneakers and the faint possibility of a future as a pro athlete, you'll get goods that signal your commitment to that lifestyle. Same with startups. Ergo, as startup culture does well, so does Soylent.
loufe 10y ago
I got started on Soylent and Joylent while depressed and it kept me (more than I would be) healthy while I went along. I eventually turned back to cooking when I was out of depression and craved varied, richer taste and more control over the sugar/carb/fat levels in particular meals. I think Soylent was a great crutch during my downtime. I don't think it encouraged depression. In my case I argue it kept my body healthy while my mind wasn't, which is itself a bonus.
tryitnow 10y ago
No, it's not. But it is a convenient solution for when you want a quick, kind of nutritionally complete meal that's convenient. Of course, the founder didn't really position it that way? The hype was all about it being a meal replacement for ALL your meals - which is what caused your problem.

johnfn 10y ago

Very interesting comment. Definitely food for thought. One thing to keep in mind is it's not only depresssion that could cause the poor time management that Soylent benefits from. The whole "gotta be working every minute of every day" ethos of SV can feed into this very easily as well. Which isn't also to say that the two can't be intertwined...

BugsJustFindMe 10y ago

You were depressed so everyone is depressed? I don't think that follows.

deleted 10y ago
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deedubaya 10y ago

> Drinking Soylent was ruining my health. Was Soylent ruining your health, or enabling you to let your health decline by isolating yourself? If the later, I don't think that's any reflection of the product itself.

rubatuga 10y ago
Eating is a complex process, usually intertwined with social interactions, stimulation of multiple sensory organs, and activation of jaw muscles and blood flow. I think by short circuiting many of those processes, along with possibly the negative nutritional aspects of Soylent and my mental state back then, I was suffering as a result.
- reilly3000 10y ago
  Spot on. I don't know why we would apply reductionism something as pleasurable and healthful as food.
  - Latty 10y ago
    This is you not looking past your own world view. If you have a healthy and pleasurable relationship with food, great, good for you. Some of us like food too much, and replacements can help with that. Some people don't care about food, and replacments are just as good to them, but easier.
  - greenshackle2 10y ago
    > I don't know why we would apply reductionism something as pleasurable and healthful as food. I applaud you for admitting your ignorance. Let me give you some reasons why: I know a guy who doesn't enjoy eating. For him it's always been a chore. He has a poor sense of smell, it's surely related. It works for him. I drink soylent as an alternative to eating out on my own, which is an expensive and unhealthy habit I have. It does not replace 1) eating out with friends or 2) cooking at home.
  - ng12 10y ago
    I drink Soylent because I'm a diabetic. I can have one every morning and know exactly how many carbs I'm getting and exactly how it affects my body. Food being "pleasurable and healthful" is a luxury.

zython 10y ago

Interesting thought, but if I may ask, can you really blame Soylent for that? The only person that I know drinks soylent only to surpess the hunger until lunch, and doesnt plan on drinking only soylent. So far they say its doing its job good enough. What's your opinion on that ?

frogpelt 10y ago
Soylent isn't marketed that way. It is marketed as a most-of-the-time meal replacement. Am I wrong?
- scarlac 10y ago
  Yes. They stopped doing that long ago. From their frontpage video: "While not intended to replace every meal, Soylent can replace any meal". And in text: "If you’ve ever wasted time and energy trying to decide what to eat for lunch, or have been too busy to eat a proper meal" And basically everyone I see in forums will say that they don't advice on a 100% Soylent diet. Disclaimer: I'm a firm believer that we need to change our consumption habits. Soylent is a way to make an impact, even if it is only used once a week.
deleted 10y ago
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elif 10y ago

I would be inclined to agree that it's a poor solution to lifestyle/mental health issues. otoh i have appetite problems which soylent DOES solve.

mojowo11 10y ago

This comment is kinda silly. Like, the problem here isn't Soylent, it's that you were depressed. And the problem with your friend using Soylent to watch her weight isn't Soylent, it's that she ate more of other crap when she drank Soylent as a meal replacement. I drink Soylent occasionally -- once every two or three weeks, maybe. Normally I use it if I know I'm going to eat a huge dinner, or if I ate a giant lunch and don't need to consume many more calories in the evening. It works great for me. Yes, if you misuse Soylent, it will not be a good thing for you. That goes for, like, everything.

giaour 10y ago
The founder of Soylent has repeatedly pushed his product as a solution for world hunger, unhealthy diets in the first world, and poor time management. I think critiquing the product on those terms is fair.
- deeth_starr_v 10y ago
  Agreed, while the intentions of Soylent are probably sincere, when I first heard about it my response was "nope nope nope". My parents were hippies and we grew/raised most of our food when I was a kid. But my grandparents had embraced the new space-age diet: margarine in place of butter, tang instead of orange juice, kraft instead of cheese, etc. I thought it tasted awful compared to real food. As we have found out, some food choices like trans fats have an impact on health. There's really too much noise in the nutrition related data to draw wide ranging conclusions. But buyer beware. For me I think the safest option is the "whole foods" (Polan) route. For me it would be "eat what your grand-grand parents ate". I was even a vegetarian and eating fake-meats and then realized I was just eating chemicals. So I started eating meat again. Edit: Changed wording on first sentence
  - chaostheory 10y ago
    I agree with you. For everyone else, I just want to add that there is a place for things like Soylent, beyond the marketing. We're most likely not going to be able to continue our current method producing food cheaply. I could be wrong but things like Soylent will probably be the future that mitigates this issue for a lot of people.

Latty 10y ago

> I think many people approach Soylent as a way to solve some of their problems, but people should realize it won't be and can't be. You are saying your case (and that of your friend's) apply to everyone. I've lost a lot of weight using Huel (a similar product made in the UK), because it makes calorie tracking incredibly easy and allows me to avoid thinking about food except when I specifically choose to eat something. Just because it wasn't suitable to you, and your friend didn't find a use for it, doesn't make it bad for everyone. My experience with Huel was that it allowed me to reset my relationship with food to a more healthy one. My analogy is music - in the past I sat down and just listened to music, sometimes with friends. I still do that, but now I have a phone with me all the time, and headphones, and I listen to music almost all of the time. It's a constant, background thing, rather than (only) a special event. Food had become something similar for me - I wanted to be eating all the time, to always have some flavour. For music, that relationship wasn't a problem, but for food, it has meant I'm overweight. So I tried Huel. I don't think about food most days now - I drink, I drink a given number of calories of Huel (helping me lose weight). Then, sometimes, I go out and eat something really nice with friends or family. Or I just feel like something and I make something nice. I still enjoy food, but it isn't a constant thing. Now, you could do a similar thing with a normal calorie controlled diet, and in fact I did by using a calorie tracking app a few years back - but I didn't stick with it because it was hard, because every time you go to make food it's a tempation. Avoiding food entirely made it easier for me. It's definitely not for everyone, but there are plenty of use cases.

sosodaft 10y ago
This, exactly. I use Huel to replace the meals I eat at home. As a consequence, it is the only food in my apartment. Removing the possibility of eating junk has helped me improve my diet a lot, and I still get to have a takeaway meal for lunch to sate my cravings for real food.
baby 10y ago
Ohhh, I thought I had to give up on these things since I moved away from the US. But now I remember that Europe has a lot of these as well. Have you tried other things than Huel? I might be tempted to give it a try.

delecti 10y ago

Considering how far removed from its "natural" source much of our food is, I don't think Soylent should be looked at with much skepticism. Additionally: > Calcium carbonate is the most common and least expensive calcium supplement. It should be taken with food, and depends on low pH levels (acidic) for proper absorption in the intestine.[26] Some studies suggests that the absorption of calcium from calcium carbonate is similar to the absorption of calcium from milk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_supplement#Types https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_supplement#Types

dxhdr 10y ago
> Considering how far removed from its "natural" source much of our food is, I don't think Soylent should be looked at with much skepticism. 1 in 3 Americans are obese and the next 1 in 3 are overweight. We have no idea how to feed ourselves. Skepticism seems appropriate.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  People that go on a strict, regimented diet do well (lose weight, medical indicators improve, etc). We mostly don't know how to deal with abundance, combined with reluctance to utilize tools like taxes to attempt to alter societal eating trends.
- Scottn1 10y ago
  Because the metric used to categorize is too simpleton (BMI) and unfairly counts more muscular frames into same categories. Muscle weighs more than fat. When this guy goes to get a physical, he will go into database as "overweight" (BMI 26-27): http://ow.ly/KnTx30bsc3d http://ow.ly/KnTx30bsc3d And this is "Obese": http://ow.ly/33ls30bsclV http://ow.ly/33ls30bsclV
- delecti 10y ago
  Hmm, perhaps I made my point poorly. I don't think Soylent should be looked at with so much more skepticism than other modern processed foods. Nobody would ask if Pop Tarts "are even food" the same way I often see with Soylent.

stupidcar 10y ago

My question is, would you have necessarily eaten better in the absence of Soylent? Or would you have just binged on snacks and junk food instead? Plenty of people seem to do so. I agree that Soylent is overhyped as a quick-fix to diet and nutrition problems that have complex causes, e.g. depression, social isolation, obesity, etc. But, since we aren't going to resolve those causes any time soon, it's probably better, on balance, to have Soylent available as a reasonably healthy option for people.

davycro 10y ago

For medical training, Soylent has been wonderful. On emergency shifts I often won't have 10 or 20 minutes to go to the cafeteria for a meal as there are too many acute patients. I used to rely on energy bars to get me through but I much prefer Soylent. They are quicker to eat and I know that I am drinking a someone balanced meal. I usually drink about three in an eight hour shift. You raise a great point about self reflection and Soylent. To stop cooking entirely is madness, and Soylent can enable antisocial tendencies or depression. They shouldn't brand themselves as a complete dietary replacement for food.

yourthrowaway2 10y ago
"I know that I am drinking a __someone__ balanced meal" Freudian?
Tiksi 10y ago
>To stop cooking entirely is madness, Does that include takeout/eating out? Because I know tons of people (myself unfortunately included) that have stopped cooking entirely and rely on takeout. It's not ideal but I wouldn't call it madness.
- sneak 10y ago
  Cooking is an anachronism and it is in no way madness to stop doing it any more than it is madness to use a washing machine instead of a washboard or email instead of the post.
  - magic_beans 10y ago
    Restaurant-cooked food optimizes for taste, not health. Home cooking is often a lot more healthful....

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

N=1 here. After Soylent found its way into my home I started drinking it for lunch (chocolate shake). Previously, I'd have ordered in or run out to grab a salad. With the extra time I found myself, instead of rushing between lunch and work, wandering around listening to audiobooks or podcasts. I started enjoying these walks so much I extended them. On one podcast I heard about Blue Apron. I've never liked cooking, but the release of lunch's tediousness pushed me to give it a try. Dinner is now, three times a week, a home-cooked meal for myself and one other. (Together, Blue Apron and Soylent reduced my daily caloric intake appreciably, at least on weekdays.)

salmonet 10y ago

I guess it depends how you use it. I keep it in my car as a replacement for fast food when I'm short on time and I'm healthier overall

harkain 10y ago

In my case, soylent-like products (specifically what used to be called Joylent) helped me a lot when I was really quite depressed. I could often go without eating several days simply because I couldn't get myself together enough to source any kind of food. Having a stash of Joylent meant I could get a sort-of balanced meal with minimal effort, which really improved my physical health and enabled me to take better care of my mental health too.

cptskippy 10y ago

I tried Soylent v1.2-1.4 for about 6 months thinking I could better regulate my calorie intake and lose some weight. In the end it wasn't for me. I found that it did nothing to satiate my appetite and that I'd be hungry, bloated and gassy all day long. The bloating and gas were incredibly uncomfortable and never really subsided. Eschewing the normal 3 meals a day routine and doing 5 meals didn't seem to help. Despite the fact that I was only consuming 2000 calories, 500 less than recommended for my size/weight/age/sex, I managed to gain weight. The powder was messy and would coat whatever surface I prepared it on with a fine dusting. The liquid smelled unpleasant after a while and eventually I started to smell like it when I sweat. The liquid was basically an oil and solid particulate suspension so if you spilled it on anything it was difficult to clean up because the particles would work their way into fabric. Not such a problem for clothes but more so for furniture or car seats. From a social perspective it really sucked because meals are a time to socialize it was awkward to go out with people and not order anything. I gradually moved to half days which actually curbed the weight gain I was seeing and eventually motivated me to give it up.

brandonmenc 10y ago
> Despite the fact that I was only consuming 2000 calories, 500 less than recommended for my size/weight/age/sex, I managed to gain weight. You were eating too many calories. 2500 for maintaining body weight is a lot. Perhaps you were overestimating your activity level?
- cptskippy 10y ago
  I'm 6'5" and ~220lbs, every calorie calculator I've tried recommends 2400+ calories a day to maintain body weight with a sedentary lifestyle. At the time I tried this experiment I was running close to 30 miles a week and spending 2+ hours a week rock climbing.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    Estimates like 2400kcal might work if you have a physically demanding job 40 hours a week. Running 30 miles a week and spending 2+ hours a week rock climbing will lift cause you to expend only maybe 500kcal a day extra on average, but if you spend the rest of that time being sedentary, you're still unlikely to end up at any more than 2000-2200kcal. Overall I think the typical old advice of 2500kcal for men and 2000 for women are dangerously out of tune with modern lifestyles. As your own results demonstrated, that's often way too high. Measure, weigh, adjust - ultimately the only thing that will tell you what the right amount of calories is for you is to actually adjust your intake and check what happens.

Glyptodon 10y ago

Eh. I think it very much depends on what your problems are. If you want to stop eating fast food, but don't believe you can rely on yourself to food prep, plan, or cook, you can probably do a lot worse. Wanting more than something very straightforward from it probably isn't a recipe for success, though.

bartmcpherson 10y ago
That's exactly my use case. I'm targeting 1800 calories of intake per day. I do 1 for breakfast and 1 for lunch. My wife and I then have a balanced dinner. This gives me structure and a plan for each workday. Previously, I would pickup something (probably not healthy and over 400 calories) on the fly for each meal.

jug 10y ago

Huh? I've tried a competing product just for fun to see what it was like and for convenience when I was short on time, not a daily replacement. If you're using this to not get out of bed, I agree with others that the problem is a wholly different one than Soylent or any other product such as home delivered hamburgers that allows you to not leave your home.

nazgulnarsil 10y ago

Soylent has refused to make basic changes to improve their nutritional profile based on widely known and accepted research. Lots of their micronutrients look optimized for cost and not for human health. E.g. Soylent uses D2, when even 30 seconds of googling should have turned up evidence such as: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/84/4/694.full http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/84/4/694.full "ergocalciferol should not be regarded as a nutrient suitable for supplementation or fortification." D2 and D3 are metabolized so differently that they result in the "production of unique biologically active metabolites." Ergocalciferol is the version used in the Soylent powder, while the bottled version doesn't even deign to inform the consumer what they are getting (it just says Vitamin D) The fact that this problem exists and has existed for years with many of their ingredients indicates that they aren't even doing shallow research into nutrition. (https://www.MealSquares.com https://www.MealSquares.com try to provide multiple sources of all micronutrients from different food groups)

L_Rahman 10y ago
I skimmed the paper you linked to and if I understood it correctly D2 has lower bioavailability than D3. Is that the primary difference?
- nazgulnarsil 10y ago
  That's one important takeaway. But we don't actually know what (synthetic) D2 and (food derived) D3 are doing differently in the body. This is exacerbated by: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210929/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210929/ That there's this much nuance just with this one ingredient is a microcosm of the overall flaw in Soylent's approach. Optimizing for just the legible dimensions of a poorly understood domain will not result in good outcomes. For mealsquares we take consilience seriously and combine the inside and outside view (see: reference class forecasting) on human nutrition to try to establish reasonable confidence intervals around nutrition models, and even then we aren't stupid enough to think or claim that mealsquares are just as good as fish, fruit, and vegetables.
  - 10y ago

etherdoc 10y ago

I never understood Soylent. Why not simple, convenient, repetitive meals instead? Why not a protein shake and a banana if occasional liquid meal replacements are needed?

strictnein 10y ago
Soylent is a simple, convenient, repetitive meal.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
> Why not simple, convenient, repetitive meals instead? Name one that a) provides a proper amount of needed nutrients and b) is as simple and convenient as Soylent (or equivalents).
- goldenkey 10y ago
  A multivitamin. Organic valley protein shakes (already liquid): https://www.organicvalley.coop/products/protein-shakes/ https://www.organicvalley.coop/products/protein-shakes/ And purple corn meal for carbs: https://www.amazon.com/Z%C3%B3calo-Peru-Organic-Purple-Flour/dp/B003D0OJ8I https://www.amazon.com/Z%C3%B3calo-Peru-Organic-Purple-Flour... Organic virgin coconut oil (in glass jar) for fats: https://www.pureformulas.com/nutiva-organic-extravirgin-coconut-oil-glass-jar-23-oz-by-nutiva.html https://www.pureformulas.com/nutiva-organic-extravirgin-coco...
  - greenshackle2 10y ago
    OK I'll bite. Soylent is $2.69 / 400 cal and vegan. To get the same macro ratios you don't need the corn meal, the shakes have plenty of carbs, you can do 1 shake @ $3.33 + 15g coconut oil @ $0.55 + a few cents for the multivitamin = ~$4.00 / 400 cal. (You may still want the cornmeal for fibers and slower carbs, since the carbs in the shake are all from milk and cane sugar.) So it's more expensive, requires preparation, is not vegan, and the glycemic load is probably worse. Beautiful.
    - 10y ago

aurelius12 10y ago

Sure it is. My problems that Soylent can solve include having an easy and palatable (I sort of enjoy the plain flavor when chilled enough) snack a couple times a week.

shados 10y ago

Cocoa soylent was just a better alternative to what I had as options for breakfast. Typical breakfast sandwich or cheap cereals were not particularly great. I'm honestly not sure how healthy it is, but I'd be very surprised if it was worse than what I'd do otherwise. Now I agree if you have 5 bottles a day as your only food source, that's probably not great. We don't really understand human food needs as well as we say we do, and we kind of just get by as a kind of coincidence through variety. Having the same thing over and over and over almost garentees you get it wrong, no matter what it is you have.

phantom_package 10y ago

> inappropriate time management This resonates with me. When I tried Soylent, it was because I was working WAY too much, and that "always-on" mindset carried over into other parts of my life. I felt like I didn't have time for food - I needed to be productive instead! Soylent markets to this extremely well, and it worked on me. I stopped using Soylent when I found a healthier work/life balance, started meditating regularly, did a bit of traveling, started exercising more often, and met a new love interest. I wouldn't say that I'm a stellar cook, but I enjoy preparing meals - it's just another thing to try to do well. So Soylent isn't really for me - though there probably are some lifestyles in which it makes sense.

sneak 10y ago
I work a lot, I like working a lot, I choose voluntarily to work a lot. I find it fulfilling and productive. It doesn't leave a lot of time for cooking healthy things (or, more accurately, I would rather spend the limited time left over after work for reading and producing music rather than cooking and cleaning my dishes and kitchen) and most packaged/prepared food is pretty unhealthy. Soylent and Joylent and Jake mean I end up healthier.
andkon 10y ago
This isn't just something Soylent pushes, either. This is a lifestyle that was crafted really carefully over many years that is at the core of 'startup culture.' It's ironic that we're talking about that "always-on mentality" in the venue that's responsible more than anywhere else for disseminating it, demonizing the 9-5 life as the choice of inferior cubicle-bound minds, and glorifying the startup life as the only alternative acceptable alternative. Otherwise, you're not smart or ambitious. In the same way that "ball is life" gets a lot of kids to pay a lot of money for sneakers and the faint possibility of a future as a pro athlete, you'll get goods that signal your commitment to that lifestyle. Same with startups. Ergo, as startup culture does well, so does Soylent.

loufe 10y ago

I got started on Soylent and Joylent while depressed and it kept me (more than I would be) healthy while I went along. I eventually turned back to cooking when I was out of depression and craved varied, richer taste and more control over the sugar/carb/fat levels in particular meals. I think Soylent was a great crutch during my downtime. I don't think it encouraged depression. In my case I argue it kept my body healthy while my mind wasn't, which is itself a bonus.

tryitnow 10y ago

No, it's not. But it is a convenient solution for when you want a quick, kind of nutritionally complete meal that's convenient. Of course, the founder didn't really position it that way? The hype was all about it being a meal replacement for ALL your meals - which is what caused your problem.