4 ms·

Ah yes...the "McDonald's is bad, so let's feed people glop instead" argument. How about this: let's help people get access to, appreciate, and learn how to pr

by timr 13y ago

Ah yes...the "McDonald's is bad, so let's feed people glop instead" argument. How about this: let's help people get access to, appreciate, and learn how to prepare "real" food, instead of jumping to the lowest common denominator. That's what I'd call "disruption".

Afforess 13y ago
Except the "glop", as you put it, is nutritionally healthy and McDonalds is not.
- JacksonGariety 13y ago
  I will agree with this once I see a study showing consuming nothing but soylent has no effect on a person's happiness or mental well-being. Dehumanization is worse than diabetes.
  - pbreit 13y ago
    The reports so far are that it definitely has an impact on happiness and mental well-being: a positive one.
    - ceejayoz 13y ago
      The reports are mostly involved parties and early adopter types. Not only is there a lot of potential bias involved, but a proper study has all sorts of important elements - double-blindness, valid controls, ethics boards, etc.
      - JacksonGariety 13y ago
        It may have a positive impact on people who eat McDonalds every day, but what about people who eat real food?
      - aianus 13y ago
        I don't think it's possible to do a double-blind study on Soylent. I guess you could blend up normal food and water it down to the same consistency but it would still taste like food so I don't think it would fool anyone.
        ceejayoz 13y ago
        It should be possible to test against something like Ensure, I'd imagine.
- rosser 13y ago
  The only thing we have indicating that this glop is healthy or nutritious is the word of the guy selling it. Ever heard of caveat emptor?
tolmasky 13y ago
My main point was simply that I find it strange that people criticize Soylent for a problem that in my mind already exists in a worse form. I myself am a "real food" advocate -- I just think its silly to think that Soylent will bring about the "food dystopia", and if it does, it will be no worse than our current food dystopia.
- timr 13y ago
  I don't know about "food dystopia", and I don't generally concern myself with other people's poor choices, unless it directly impacts my life. I really, truly don't care what Soylent does. I'm not the target market, and I'll never consume it. That said, Soylent falls in the sort of nerd lifestyle myopia that I find frustrating, and I admit to being genuinely puzzled by the buzz around the thing (I suspect that's where most of the hype comes from, actually -- not genuine interest, so much as curiosity). But when I hear the creator talking about replacing all food or providing cheap nutrition to the poor, I just get depressed: our aim should be higher than this. Disruption that intends to replace our food with flavorless goo is a disruption not worth having.
ebiester 13y ago
The disruption is the prep work and cleanup. I dream of a kitchen in a way that cleanup takes less than three minutes and my veg is uniformly chopped for me while I'm on my way home. (I'm quite capable of doing each, but I'm slow, and getting my mise en place takes far too long.) That leads to me only cooking on weekends when I don't have anything going on. I'm a good cook, but by the time the brussel sprouts are roasted or the vegetable soup is coming together, we've eaten and I've cleaned up, I only have 2 hours before I have to sleep. Disruption would be fixing that problem, not teaching people they should cook for themselves. (And it's similar for working class poor people, but compounded by the realities of working two jobs and raising children on a limited budged.)
- timr 13y ago
  "I dream of a kitchen in a way that cleanup takes less than three minutes and my veg is uniformly chopped for me while I'm on my way home." Um. You can buy most vegetables pre-chopped. They cost less than Soylent. They sell them at Walgreen's!
  - ebiester 13y ago
    I was thinking more of the machine that creates the dice for the sake of freshness, for one. Further,I can keep an onion for weeks, but a chopped onion has a shorter shelf life. For that matter, there are food processors that do a terrible but passable job at the prep, but again, the cleaning is suboptimal.
JoeAltmaier 13y ago
You said that, and its silly. Nobody's 'feeding people glop', Soylent is a choice. Strident complaints are out of place. Go ahead and learn to prepare 'real' food, that's your choice.
- jychang 13y ago
  "Soylent is a choice" So is airlines offering tickets that aren't bound by the lowest denominator of price. Those airlines went out of business. If there's a good chance that Soylent becomes popular and a good percentage of the population uses it on a day to day basis, it's not a "choice" in the same way as avoiding all technology and being Amish is a "choice". Setting good practices like not having mold in your food, and following regulations, would be good before it gets to that point.
  - JoeAltmaier 13y ago
    Pure straw-man hyperbole. Currently its a cool idea being tried; some folks find it helpful.

by timr 13y ago

Afforess 13y ago

Except the "glop", as you put it, is nutritionally healthy and McDonalds is not.

JacksonGariety 13y ago
I will agree with this once I see a study showing consuming nothing but soylent has no effect on a person's happiness or mental well-being. Dehumanization is worse than diabetes.
- pbreit 13y ago
  The reports so far are that it definitely has an impact on happiness and mental well-being: a positive one.
  - ceejayoz 13y ago
    The reports are mostly involved parties and early adopter types. Not only is there a lot of potential bias involved, but a proper study has all sorts of important elements - double-blindness, valid controls, ethics boards, etc.
    - JacksonGariety 13y ago
      It may have a positive impact on people who eat McDonalds every day, but what about people who eat real food?
    - aianus 13y ago
      I don't think it's possible to do a double-blind study on Soylent. I guess you could blend up normal food and water it down to the same consistency but it would still taste like food so I don't think it would fool anyone.
      - ceejayoz 13y ago
        It should be possible to test against something like Ensure, I'd imagine.
rosser 13y ago
The only thing we have indicating that this glop is healthy or nutritious is the word of the guy selling it. Ever heard of caveat emptor?

tolmasky 13y ago

My main point was simply that I find it strange that people criticize Soylent for a problem that in my mind already exists in a worse form. I myself am a "real food" advocate -- I just think its silly to think that Soylent will bring about the "food dystopia", and if it does, it will be no worse than our current food dystopia.

timr 13y ago
I don't know about "food dystopia", and I don't generally concern myself with other people's poor choices, unless it directly impacts my life. I really, truly don't care what Soylent does. I'm not the target market, and I'll never consume it. That said, Soylent falls in the sort of nerd lifestyle myopia that I find frustrating, and I admit to being genuinely puzzled by the buzz around the thing (I suspect that's where most of the hype comes from, actually -- not genuine interest, so much as curiosity). But when I hear the creator talking about replacing all food or providing cheap nutrition to the poor, I just get depressed: our aim should be higher than this. Disruption that intends to replace our food with flavorless goo is a disruption not worth having.

ebiester 13y ago

The disruption is the prep work and cleanup. I dream of a kitchen in a way that cleanup takes less than three minutes and my veg is uniformly chopped for me while I'm on my way home. (I'm quite capable of doing each, but I'm slow, and getting my mise en place takes far too long.) That leads to me only cooking on weekends when I don't have anything going on. I'm a good cook, but by the time the brussel sprouts are roasted or the vegetable soup is coming together, we've eaten and I've cleaned up, I only have 2 hours before I have to sleep. Disruption would be fixing that problem, not teaching people they should cook for themselves. (And it's similar for working class poor people, but compounded by the realities of working two jobs and raising children on a limited budged.)

timr 13y ago
"I dream of a kitchen in a way that cleanup takes less than three minutes and my veg is uniformly chopped for me while I'm on my way home." Um. You can buy most vegetables pre-chopped. They cost less than Soylent. They sell them at Walgreen's!
- ebiester 13y ago
  I was thinking more of the machine that creates the dice for the sake of freshness, for one. Further,I can keep an onion for weeks, but a chopped onion has a shorter shelf life. For that matter, there are food processors that do a terrible but passable job at the prep, but again, the cleaning is suboptimal.

JoeAltmaier 13y ago

You said that, and its silly. Nobody's 'feeding people glop', Soylent is a choice. Strident complaints are out of place. Go ahead and learn to prepare 'real' food, that's your choice.

jychang 13y ago
"Soylent is a choice" So is airlines offering tickets that aren't bound by the lowest denominator of price. Those airlines went out of business. If there's a good chance that Soylent becomes popular and a good percentage of the population uses it on a day to day basis, it's not a "choice" in the same way as avoiding all technology and being Amish is a "choice". Setting good practices like not having mold in your food, and following regulations, would be good before it gets to that point.
- JoeAltmaier 13y ago
  Pure straw-man hyperbole. Currently its a cool idea being tried; some folks find it helpful.