4 ms·

Seriously? You are unaware of meal replacement bars and drinks? https://www.google.com/search?q=meal+replacement+shakes https://www.google.com/search?q=meal+r

by lsc 13y ago

Seriously? You are unaware of meal replacement bars and drinks? https://www.google.com/search?q=meal+replacement+shakes https://www.google.com/search?q=meal+replacement+shakes Almost all of them are marketed to the diet crowd. There are a bunch of 'atkins' branded bars, too, if you are going the low-carb route. Slim-fast, I know, can be had in giant tubs for relatively little money per serving; I remember as a kid, looking through my grandparent's pantry and finding a giant tub of slim-fast. This is a huge industry. I mean, sure, marketing it to hackers is a new thing, and something I, personally, would have never considered, and the guy is doing a hell of a job of it, but yeah; the product itself is nothing new, even if he's selling to a group that has not yet been targeted.

StavrosK 13y ago
I was indeed unaware of them, they sound good, thank you.
- lsc 13y ago
  Yeah, I can't guarantee they are better than fast food. But, I bet you can find one that is similar to Soylent. It is more convenient than fast food. I actually kinda like the McDonald's salads. I mean, as far as you can like fast food at all. If you go easy on the dressing, (the dressing comes in a package that looks like a giant-size katsup packet, so you get to decide how much you eat.) I think it's probably pretty healthy, I mean, at least when you compare to shakes. I have used meal-replacement shakes in the past as supplemental breakfast; I like to load up on calories in the morning, but eating can be... hard before my system wakes up, so the meal-replacement shakes (with as much breakfast as I can choke down) is a reasonable way to consume as many calories as I can in the morning. Of course, for me? meal-replacement shakes have never quelled hunger like real food, so I'm no longer using them just because I'm trying to reduce the number of calories I consume. If I eat something, it had better make me feel not hungry for a good long time. I'm having the best luck with meat and vegetables... the carbohydrates tend to make me hungry shortly afterwards. On the other hand, I have not lost significant weight. (I vary from 200 to 195#, and that has been true for some time now. As far as I can tell, most of that 5# is either water gain or loss, or inaccuracy of my cheap bathroom scale.) so "you shall know him by his fruits" - don't take my advice on losing weight, as I've not managed to do so myself. Also, a big, sarcastic thanks. after that 'meal replacement shake' query on google, now just about every webpage I load is trying to sell me some sort of 'optimized nutrition' (Google seems to get that I'm male-identified and thus is trying to sell me the shakes targeted at 'building lean muscle' - you know, the stuff with the rippling abs on the can. Google does not seem to be smart enough to notice that I quite often google things I don't intend to buy. Really, books on what I'm searching for are usually more appropriate than products I'm searching for. Not that I often buy books through ads... but it's more likely than me buying nutrition shakes targeted at bodybuilders.)
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    Hmm, thanks. If they don't sate my hunger, there's no reason to them. I'll either keep cooking chicken breasts (you just pop them in the oven for an hour with minimal preparation and are delicious) or have milk with cereal, one cup of which keeps me full for 5-6 hours. Losing weight with that sort of diet has never been a problem, as I feel full all day and still manage to have a nicely-sized dinner. About the targeting, either use incognito mode or opt out of targeted advertising (it's in your Google account preferences).
    - thewordis 13y ago
      I bought a week's worth of Ensure Complete and was unable to sustain any sort of meal replacement plan on it. Each drink only seemed to alter the 'flavor' of my hunger rather than sate it in any way.
      - DanBC 13y ago
        You can add fibre, if you think that's going to help.
      - jacques_chester 13y ago
        Liquids are nowhere near as effective at satiation as solids. Fibre and protein can increase the satiety of a drink, though.
    - lsc 13y ago
      Yeah. I like chicken; cheap and easy. I put dried chopped onions on mine before cooking, but yeah, that's a huge part of my own diet, along with salads, which are good for 'fill you up' bulk. I've also started doing slow-cooker pork. I pan fry it when I'm done, and it comes out kind of somewhere between pulled pork and carnitas. I slow-cooked a bunch of boneless beef short ribs last night, I haven't tried them yet. more expensive per pound, but short ribs are so good. Especially if I cook something in sauce (like chili) I put it in little ziplock baggies and freeze it.
asdasf 13y ago
How about actually clicking the links in those search results. Nothing in the first few pages even attempts to provide a food replacement. None of them provide 100% of known essential nutrients. You will develop a vitamin deficiency consuming any of those exclusively. That is in no way accomplishing what soylent claims to do.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  Does Soylent explicitly and specifically claim to be a total food replacement? Or do we all just think that because of the original blog post?
- lsc 13y ago
  >None of them provide 100% of known essential nutrients. You will develop a vitamin deficiency consuming any of those exclusively. That is in no way accomplishing what soylent claims to do. Personally? I dismiss those claims as marketing fluff. I am not competent to evaluate those claims; I'm not saying that the guy is lying or anything, soylent may in fact be perfect. I don't know. but the claims sound so out there that I don't think they are worth evaluating. I am treating them as marketing fluff until/unless credible people do a credible study. I suspect that none of the other meal replacement drinks make such claims due to fear of legal liability. "A delicious shake for breakfast, lunch, and a sensible dinner" is the standard formula, which is reasonable; I'm sure Soylent would work just fine on a similar plan. (hell, for most of us, water would work just fine.) I bet that as Soylent accumulates money (and lawyers) they will move towards a model where they emphasize 'And a sensible dinner'
  - asdasf 13y ago
    I am not talking about claims, I am talking about the nutrition info required to be provided by law. We know that there are a bunch of chemical compounds we call "vitamins" which are required to maintain our health. Soylent provides 100% of all of them. Meal replacement drinks do not.
    - lsc 13y ago
stcredzero 13y ago
> marketing it to hackers is a new thing, and something I, personally, would have never considered, and the guy is doing a hell of a job of it Really, it's textbook. He's using his ties and understanding of a subculture demographic to market to it specifically.
- lsc 13y ago
  >Really, it's textbook. He's using his ties and understanding of a subculture demographic to market to it specifically. Sure, but the execution (to me) looks good. He is doing a way better job, for example, than I've done at marketing VPSs - a product that is much more natural to this market. Better, I think, than I did even back when I had a compelling price advantage over the competition.

by lsc 13y ago

StavrosK 13y ago

I was indeed unaware of them, they sound good, thank you.

lsc 13y ago
Yeah, I can't guarantee they are better than fast food. But, I bet you can find one that is similar to Soylent. It is more convenient than fast food. I actually kinda like the McDonald's salads. I mean, as far as you can like fast food at all. If you go easy on the dressing, (the dressing comes in a package that looks like a giant-size katsup packet, so you get to decide how much you eat.) I think it's probably pretty healthy, I mean, at least when you compare to shakes. I have used meal-replacement shakes in the past as supplemental breakfast; I like to load up on calories in the morning, but eating can be... hard before my system wakes up, so the meal-replacement shakes (with as much breakfast as I can choke down) is a reasonable way to consume as many calories as I can in the morning. Of course, for me? meal-replacement shakes have never quelled hunger like real food, so I'm no longer using them just because I'm trying to reduce the number of calories I consume. If I eat something, it had better make me feel not hungry for a good long time. I'm having the best luck with meat and vegetables... the carbohydrates tend to make me hungry shortly afterwards. On the other hand, I have not lost significant weight. (I vary from 200 to 195#, and that has been true for some time now. As far as I can tell, most of that 5# is either water gain or loss, or inaccuracy of my cheap bathroom scale.) so "you shall know him by his fruits" - don't take my advice on losing weight, as I've not managed to do so myself. Also, a big, sarcastic thanks. after that 'meal replacement shake' query on google, now just about every webpage I load is trying to sell me some sort of 'optimized nutrition' (Google seems to get that I'm male-identified and thus is trying to sell me the shakes targeted at 'building lean muscle' - you know, the stuff with the rippling abs on the can. Google does not seem to be smart enough to notice that I quite often google things I don't intend to buy. Really, books on what I'm searching for are usually more appropriate than products I'm searching for. Not that I often buy books through ads... but it's more likely than me buying nutrition shakes targeted at bodybuilders.)
- StavrosK 13y ago
  Hmm, thanks. If they don't sate my hunger, there's no reason to them. I'll either keep cooking chicken breasts (you just pop them in the oven for an hour with minimal preparation and are delicious) or have milk with cereal, one cup of which keeps me full for 5-6 hours. Losing weight with that sort of diet has never been a problem, as I feel full all day and still manage to have a nicely-sized dinner. About the targeting, either use incognito mode or opt out of targeted advertising (it's in your Google account preferences).
  - thewordis 13y ago
    I bought a week's worth of Ensure Complete and was unable to sustain any sort of meal replacement plan on it. Each drink only seemed to alter the 'flavor' of my hunger rather than sate it in any way.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      You can add fibre, if you think that's going to help.
    - jacques_chester 13y ago
      Liquids are nowhere near as effective at satiation as solids. Fibre and protein can increase the satiety of a drink, though.
  - lsc 13y ago
    Yeah. I like chicken; cheap and easy. I put dried chopped onions on mine before cooking, but yeah, that's a huge part of my own diet, along with salads, which are good for 'fill you up' bulk. I've also started doing slow-cooker pork. I pan fry it when I'm done, and it comes out kind of somewhere between pulled pork and carnitas. I slow-cooked a bunch of boneless beef short ribs last night, I haven't tried them yet. more expensive per pound, but short ribs are so good. Especially if I cook something in sauce (like chili) I put it in little ziplock baggies and freeze it.

asdasf 13y ago

How about actually clicking the links in those search results. Nothing in the first few pages even attempts to provide a food replacement. None of them provide 100% of known essential nutrients. You will develop a vitamin deficiency consuming any of those exclusively. That is in no way accomplishing what soylent claims to do.

jacques_chester 13y ago
Does Soylent explicitly and specifically claim to be a total food replacement? Or do we all just think that because of the original blog post?
lsc 13y ago
>None of them provide 100% of known essential nutrients. You will develop a vitamin deficiency consuming any of those exclusively. That is in no way accomplishing what soylent claims to do. Personally? I dismiss those claims as marketing fluff. I am not competent to evaluate those claims; I'm not saying that the guy is lying or anything, soylent may in fact be perfect. I don't know. but the claims sound so out there that I don't think they are worth evaluating. I am treating them as marketing fluff until/unless credible people do a credible study. I suspect that none of the other meal replacement drinks make such claims due to fear of legal liability. "A delicious shake for breakfast, lunch, and a sensible dinner" is the standard formula, which is reasonable; I'm sure Soylent would work just fine on a similar plan. (hell, for most of us, water would work just fine.) I bet that as Soylent accumulates money (and lawyers) they will move towards a model where they emphasize 'And a sensible dinner'
- asdasf 13y ago
  I am not talking about claims, I am talking about the nutrition info required to be provided by law. We know that there are a bunch of chemical compounds we call "vitamins" which are required to maintain our health. Soylent provides 100% of all of them. Meal replacement drinks do not.
  - lsc 13y ago

stcredzero 13y ago

> marketing it to hackers is a new thing, and something I, personally, would have never considered, and the guy is doing a hell of a job of it Really, it's textbook. He's using his ties and understanding of a subculture demographic to market to it specifically.

lsc 13y ago
>Really, it's textbook. He's using his ties and understanding of a subculture demographic to market to it specifically. Sure, but the execution (to me) looks good. He is doing a way better job, for example, than I've done at marketing VPSs - a product that is much more natural to this market. Better, I think, than I did even back when I had a compelling price advantage over the competition.