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Title: "No, Soylent isn’t Healthy. Here’s Why." Heading of the conclusion: "The Core Problem: We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know" Most sections could be summari

Title: "No, Soylent isn’t Healthy. Here’s Why." Heading of the conclusion: "The Core Problem: We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know" Most sections could be summarized as "We don't know that Soylent is doing things right therefore it might be unhealthy." It's just a FUD piece.

cultus 6y ago
The human body is incredibly complicated and we really don't know what we don't know. It's really not necessarily true that drinking a nutrient rich slurry like Soylent is a good substitute for a conventional healthy diet. It literally is an unknown. There's good prior reason to believe it is not significantly better. It probably isn't a whole lot worse either, certainly better than many people's diets. Thus, unknown benefit or harm which probably isn't huge either way. It's like taking an untested drug that probably isn't dangerous but probably doesn't have a huge effect either. The precautionary principle is the usual rule with such things. To really know, we'd need multi-decade longitudinal studies of large numbers of people. Soylent obviously doesn't have that kind of evidence.
isoskeles 6y ago
I know that when I eat a portion of leafy green vegetables. I am eating something "healthy." Maybe we're going too far into a discussion on epistemology here, but I don't think it is FUD to call out that we cannot clearly say the same thing about Soylent that we say about a serving of cruciferous vegetables. One is healthy and the other is unknown and ambiguous. However, if we still want to call this FUD, I'd argue that maybe FUD is necessary when thinking about what we put into our bodies. I'd also practice FUD when thinking through whether I should approach a mountain lion, and I'd encourage everyone else to do the same.
- m0zg 6y ago
  > I know that when I eat a portion of leafy green vegetables. I am eating something "healthy." There's a difference between _knowing_ and _believing_. You _believe_ this, it's not an absolute truth. It's the same as most people believe they must drink 2L of water a day, where in reality there's zero scientific basis for the assertion. It could be that there is scientific basis that ground up plant material of which Soylent is comprised is not nutritionally similar to "leafy green vegetables", but you don't _know_ that. You merely _believe_ it. I'm not even a soylent fan (although I did try it), but I am a fan of critical thinking.
  - cultus 6y ago
    There's no such thing as absolute proof or "knowing", only degrees of belief. Yet we make decisions based on degrees of belief all the time. There is very good reason to believe leafy vegetables are healthy based on oodles of medical evidence spanning decades. The 2L of water never had evidence behind specifically that quantity, and was only a reasonable general guideline for men, with it well known that the requirements vary enormously from person to person. edit: To put it better, 2L of water a day as a good goal for the average person to shoot for is a public health message, it's not a clinical statement. There is a difference, in that public health advice needs to be easily digestible and not confuse people, even if it is leaving out nuance. From the Mayo Clinic's site[0]: You've probably heard the advice to drink eight glasses of water a day. That's easy to remember, and it's a reasonable goal. Most healthy people can stay hydrated by drinking water and other fluids whenever they feel thirsty. For some people, fewer than eight glasses a day might be enough. But other people might need more. [0] https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/water/art-20044256 https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...
  - isoskeles 6y ago
    Go ahead and address the part of my comment that talks about the use of the term "FUD". I am also a fan of critical thinking, so I'd love to hear your opinion beyond nitpicking over words (knowledge vs. belief). What do you think about how fear and uncertainty should be incorporated into diet or, say, what kind of predatory animals a human being approaches?
BlueTemplar 6y ago
No, most sections could be summarized as "We don't know that Soylent is doing things right therefore it shouldn't be called "healthy"."
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  By that logic, we don't know that any dietary plan is doing things right so nothing should be called healthy. That's what makes it FUD. Haven't tried the stuff in near a decade personally but IMO Soylent is reasonably well researched and a good faith effort to try to create a healthy food, whether it ultimately is or not. "We don't know" doesn't cut it as a counterargument.
  - iamdamian 6y ago
    You say it’s reasonably well researched. What long running randomized trials in humans have shown it to be healthy? I’m legitimately curious.
    - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
      What I mean by reasonably researched is that the nutritional science behind the ingredient choices seems defensible; you're welcome to read Soylent's own material on that. Sorry if I was unclear about that. As for long running randomized trials, sure, there aren't any. However, none of the hidden deleterious effects the author suggests might happen have been observed in consumers over the past three years since the article was published (that I know of), so, if there is a problem, it's really subtle.
      - iamdamian 6y ago
        Having a background in health, I can confidently say that the human body has surprising relationships to the nutrients that go into it. The specific composition and timing of nutrient delivery to various systems in the body can have a dramatic effect on health, and so taking a first principles approach (as opposed to an evidence-based approach) can be very dangerous in the context of human health. IMO the burden of proof for whether something is truly healthy for a human being over the course of their lifetime is on the new product rather than lack of evidence to the contrary. Just my two cents’, and I think reasonable people can disagree.

cultus 6y ago

The human body is incredibly complicated and we really don't know what we don't know. It's really not necessarily true that drinking a nutrient rich slurry like Soylent is a good substitute for a conventional healthy diet. It literally is an unknown. There's good prior reason to believe it is not significantly better. It probably isn't a whole lot worse either, certainly better than many people's diets. Thus, unknown benefit or harm which probably isn't huge either way. It's like taking an untested drug that probably isn't dangerous but probably doesn't have a huge effect either. The precautionary principle is the usual rule with such things. To really know, we'd need multi-decade longitudinal studies of large numbers of people. Soylent obviously doesn't have that kind of evidence.

isoskeles 6y ago

I know that when I eat a portion of leafy green vegetables. I am eating something "healthy." Maybe we're going too far into a discussion on epistemology here, but I don't think it is FUD to call out that we cannot clearly say the same thing about Soylent that we say about a serving of cruciferous vegetables. One is healthy and the other is unknown and ambiguous. However, if we still want to call this FUD, I'd argue that maybe FUD is necessary when thinking about what we put into our bodies. I'd also practice FUD when thinking through whether I should approach a mountain lion, and I'd encourage everyone else to do the same.

m0zg 6y ago
> I know that when I eat a portion of leafy green vegetables. I am eating something "healthy." There's a difference between _knowing_ and _believing_. You _believe_ this, it's not an absolute truth. It's the same as most people believe they must drink 2L of water a day, where in reality there's zero scientific basis for the assertion. It could be that there is scientific basis that ground up plant material of which Soylent is comprised is not nutritionally similar to "leafy green vegetables", but you don't _know_ that. You merely _believe_ it. I'm not even a soylent fan (although I did try it), but I am a fan of critical thinking.
- cultus 6y ago
  There's no such thing as absolute proof or "knowing", only degrees of belief. Yet we make decisions based on degrees of belief all the time. There is very good reason to believe leafy vegetables are healthy based on oodles of medical evidence spanning decades. The 2L of water never had evidence behind specifically that quantity, and was only a reasonable general guideline for men, with it well known that the requirements vary enormously from person to person. edit: To put it better, 2L of water a day as a good goal for the average person to shoot for is a public health message, it's not a clinical statement. There is a difference, in that public health advice needs to be easily digestible and not confuse people, even if it is leaving out nuance. From the Mayo Clinic's site[0]: You've probably heard the advice to drink eight glasses of water a day. That's easy to remember, and it's a reasonable goal. Most healthy people can stay hydrated by drinking water and other fluids whenever they feel thirsty. For some people, fewer than eight glasses a day might be enough. But other people might need more. [0] https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/water/art-20044256 https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...
- isoskeles 6y ago
  Go ahead and address the part of my comment that talks about the use of the term "FUD". I am also a fan of critical thinking, so I'd love to hear your opinion beyond nitpicking over words (knowledge vs. belief). What do you think about how fear and uncertainty should be incorporated into diet or, say, what kind of predatory animals a human being approaches?

BlueTemplar 6y ago

No, most sections could be summarized as "We don't know that Soylent is doing things right therefore it shouldn't be called "healthy"."

ThrowawayR2 6y ago
By that logic, we don't know that any dietary plan is doing things right so nothing should be called healthy. That's what makes it FUD. Haven't tried the stuff in near a decade personally but IMO Soylent is reasonably well researched and a good faith effort to try to create a healthy food, whether it ultimately is or not. "We don't know" doesn't cut it as a counterargument.
- iamdamian 6y ago
  You say it’s reasonably well researched. What long running randomized trials in humans have shown it to be healthy? I’m legitimately curious.
  - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
    What I mean by reasonably researched is that the nutritional science behind the ingredient choices seems defensible; you're welcome to read Soylent's own material on that. Sorry if I was unclear about that. As for long running randomized trials, sure, there aren't any. However, none of the hidden deleterious effects the author suggests might happen have been observed in consumers over the past three years since the article was published (that I know of), so, if there is a problem, it's really subtle.
    - iamdamian 6y ago
      Having a background in health, I can confidently say that the human body has surprising relationships to the nutrients that go into it. The specific composition and timing of nutrient delivery to various systems in the body can have a dramatic effect on health, and so taking a first principles approach (as opposed to an evidence-based approach) can be very dangerous in the context of human health. IMO the burden of proof for whether something is truly healthy for a human being over the course of their lifetime is on the new product rather than lack of evidence to the contrary. Just my two cents’, and I think reasonable people can disagree.