7 ms·

Show HN: MealSquares, our whole food Soylent alternative

51 points by nazgulnarsil 13y ago

nazgulnarsil 13y ago
Hi, this is Romeo Stevens, cofounder of MealSquares. We’re really interested in feedback. Since Soylent is a similar product in our space, I wanted to discuss some points made by Rob Rhinehart in his post "The Fallacy of Whole Foods": http://robrhinehart.com/?p=874 http://robrhinehart.com/?p=874 Rob likes to compare Soylent to medical meal replacements. But medical meal replacements have taken a long time to mature. For example, it took a while for professional nutritionists to realize maybe they shouldn’t pump newborns full of soybean oil [1]. This may sound silly today, but that was the best nutritionists could do based on the science available to them. And that's the problem I see artificially constructed meal replacements running in to--if you do the best you can based on the science available, that still may not be enough. Different forms of the same nutrient do seem to affect the body differently. We see negative health outcomes from substances such as beta-carotene, vitamin E, and folic acid in supplemental form [2], while high levels in whole foods demonstrate no such harms. So bioavailability is complicated, and for whatever reason whole foods seem to have consistently healthier profiles than supplements. Many examples of strong nutrient synergy have been discovered. Vitamin D and calcium, vitamin C and iron, the fat soluble vitamins and dietary fat are some of the most well established. It seems likely that we've still got more to discover. Rob himself seems to acknowledge this in his inclusion of many non-essential nutrients like lycopene. Even given these points, we don’t consider Soylent a bad thing. Rob is right, the average diet is terrible, and anything that improves on that is great. We know MealSquares aren’t perfect. Nutrition science has come up with no substitute for regularly eating fish for example; supplements don’t cut it [3]. But including MealSquares in your diet means you are getting a solid dose of healthy, nutrient dense foods from a variety of sources. We don't think nutrition is settled science, and we look forward to becoming a multi-billion dollar corporation so we can improve the state of knowledge with our research department. :P On the topic of longevity in general, you can read some of my research here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jrt/lifestyle_interventions_that_affect_longevity/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/jrt/lifestyle_interventions_that_aff.... [1] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130814101429.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130814101429.ht... [2] http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=205797 http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=205797 [3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12848287 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12848287
- kenrikm 13y ago
  Hi Romeo, something to keep in mind. Most "Meal replacement" type bars (cliff, power bar) etc.. are super sweet, lots of sugar. I'm actually not a fan of sugar in general and would love an alternative that is more neutral or even on the salty side. I see on your site what look like chocolate chip cookie chunks and that turns me off. Maybe you can come up with something that has flavor but is not sweet?
  - nazgulnarsil 13y ago
    Yes, we ran into this complaint a lot when researching existing options. Our current beta version is very mild, so it's pleasant to eat a lot of it.
  - deleted 13y ago
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  - aashay 13y ago
    This. Although I have a bit of a sweet tooth, for a meal replacement (as opposed to a treat) 25grams (two tablespoons) is quite a bit of sugar. The fiber might offset it a bit but finding a better balance between the two would make me more likely to buy the product.
    - gb_ 13y ago
      This stood out to me the most. 125g of sugar in a day's supply seems really high.
  - freefrancisco 13y ago
    +1 to this. I would be very much in the market for meal replacements like MealSquares or Soylent, but they both have lots of sugar and carbs. I try to follow a paleo diet, I don't always succeed at following it closely, but the most important thing that I try to do is avoid sugar, sugar substitutes, and artificial sweeteners, and second I try to avoid carbs from grains. This pretty much means that I have to buy free range eggs, grass fed beef, grass fed butter, and make my own meals, or I have to eat at restaurants, but buying meal replacements is out of the question. There is nothing out there yet that eliminates sweeteners and carbs. I know that there are people who want the carbs and the sugar, so here is a suggestion. Why not refactor the current MealSquare into two parts, one that is salty and paleo, and one that is vegan and low fat? That way people who like them as they are now can eat one of each and get the same result, but those of us who are paleo can get the sugar/grain free square separately, and people who are vegan can get the animal free square separately as well.
wc- 13y ago
Despite all the controversy, soylent did show there is a market for this. If MealSquare can actually deliver to early adopters in a timely fashion, I'd imagine they could capture a lot of the Soylent market... Looking forward to the crowdfunding and more timeline details!
mikegioia 13y ago
I like this idea a lot, but honestly what are you showing us here? The campaign hasn't started yet and there doesn't appear to be any actual product created.
- nazgulnarsil 13y ago
  MealSquares exist and myself and beta testers are getting significant portions of our calories from them.
  - mikegioia 13y ago
    Ok great, but you posted a "Show HN" pointing to your product's web page. The only thing that web page does is collect emails to notify when your crowd funding campaign starts. I just don't understand what you're showing us.
    - nazgulnarsil 13y ago
      We're looking for feedback both on our website and the core idea.
    - michaelmior 13y ago
      You can see the proposed pricing, ingredients, and a bit of the supporting philosophy. Seems like enough to get some feedback.
    - astrofinch 13y ago
      (Other MealSquares cofounder here) The reason we haven't started our crowdfunding campaign yet is because our following isn't big enough yet. Soylent hit its target within the first 24 hours because the DIY recipe already had a huge following, and the general wisdom for kickstarters seems to be that you need at least 30-40% of your funding nailed down before you hit the "go" button. So in addition to feedback on the product itself, we are curious if HN has any thoughts for things like slogans and other product messaging, and customer verticals that we might be able to market the product to.
wasd 13y ago
Hey Romeo, This is incredible. I love this idea and hope it can come to light. Quick question, I took a look at the price in the FAQ: "We're looking at $12/day as our absolute ceiling and aim to hit significantly lower than that. MealSquares will come down in price as we scale. At $12 a day a MealSquare costs $2.40, which is very competitive with other options." Is this for 1 day worth (2000 calories) of MealSquares? Is this assuming a bulk purchase (1 week or month)?
- nazgulnarsil 13y ago
  2000 calories. We don't really know how bulk pricing will work out once we are in production, our current costs are retail.
- ph0rque 13y ago
  Right now, our family's meals cost ~$3.70/day (plus the "free" labor of preparing it). Until it's within a dollar or two within that price, I won't be able to try it out.
nawitus 13y ago
It's unfortunate to see that the product uses animal-based foods, and eggs at that. Something like Soylent should in my opinion be vegan (for the environment and the animals). If I recall correctly, Soylent was pretty close to vegan.
- jacalata 13y ago
  Unfortunate for you, but I bet most people (like myself) don't think this is a problem.
  - graublau 13y ago
    Not a problem, more an missed opportunity. There are a pretty large market of Veg*n folks, why exclude?
    - deleted 13y ago
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- codelap 13y ago
  I find it unfortunate that it doesn't contain more animal products. I do love me some tasty animals.
- Pxtl 13y ago
  A bit offtopic, but I'm always sad that more research hasn't been done in making eggs/milk cruelty-free - that the "cruely-free science" went straight to synthetic meat. I'd love to see more research in mass-cloning female chickens to avoid the "sexing" problem, or painless alternatives to de-beaking, or hormonally-induced lactation in cows. Even the ideal pastoral rural hobby egg-farmer has intrinsically cruel aspects because of the useless male chicks and occasional violence between chickens... but it feels like these would be lower hurdles to overcome with technology than weaving synthetic beef on a magical meat-loom.
  - teach 13y ago
    I think it's because cruelty-free is already quite easy to get: just buy food from local, organic farms that actually raise animals instead of mass-producing them.
livingparadox 13y ago
Is there any reason that your compare page adds the qualifier "not from soy/rice"? I get the soy part, even if I don't agree about its significance. But why does rice as a source matter?
- nazgulnarsil 13y ago
  bioavailability of plant proteins is much lower than from milk/eggs/whey.
untog 13y ago
I suppose products like these are positive, though I find them profoundly depressing. That eating well has become such an after-thought that no-one takes time to actually make themselves a whole meal, and rather than reprioritise their lives they'll ask a group of people with no discernable nutritional credentials to send them a square of food that they cut into 100 calorie segments, and eat day in, day out. Scarfing down pastries or energy bars when you don't have time to think about food? You can do better. Yeah, you can.
- nazgulnarsil 13y ago
  Actually, my ability to enjoy food hugely increased when I started eating my prototypes. Focusing on one meal a day means that meal can be awesome.
- astrofinch 13y ago
  If you like spending time and effort preparing healthy meals for yourself, more power to you. The MealSquares target user is a busy startup founder whose diet is currently made up of microwavable meals or something like that. You tell someone like this to eat healthier and they say "yeah, I really should", but it's hard to fit in the time for cooking, nutrition research, and meal planning in between all of the other important stuff they're doing. Personally, I like the fact that people are doing important stuff, and I'm hoping that MealSquares will allow people to spend their time doing lots of important stuff and eat healthy while they're at it.
  - untog 13y ago
    Personally, I like the fact that people are doing important stuff But that's exactly my point, eating well is "important stuff". I suppose it reflects the general mentality that crunching away on your mobile photo sharing startup is "important" while eating well, being healthy and being happy are optional extras.
- zyxley 13y ago
  In my case, the general idea draws me because I have a kitchen the size of a shoebox with poor ventilation and a fire alarm that goes off at the drop of a hat. Cooking an even fractionally complicated meal quickly becomes an exercise in frustration.
smacktoward 13y ago
I have the same reaction to this as I did to Soylent: I'd be a lot more inclined to try it if there was somebody involved with it who had some demonstrable background or expertise in nutrition, health or medicine. The human body is a complicated thing, but while it's hard to improve, it's very easy to screw up. And screwing up someone's health can have consequences for them that last for years or decades. It can literally ruin their life. If that happens it won't be much comfort for them that their sad story has led you to pivot to a more promising approach. For all the intellectual firepower of people in the tech community, there is a curious strain of anti-intellectualism that comes forth in projects like this; an eagerness to discount the expertise of people who have studied a subject for their entire lives, just because they weren't CS majors. It's like trying to send a man to the moon without working with any aerospace engineers. I honestly do not understand it.
- nazgulnarsil 13y ago
  Agreed, this is why we went with whole foods. I was already basically eating the ingredient list of MealSquares everyday.
  - baugarten 13y ago
    Just because its whole foods doesn't make it inherently nutritious. Additionally -- just because I eat all of the ingredients in a MealSquare every day, that doesn't mean that I can be health ONLY eating those ingredients every day
    - graublau 13y ago
      You're right about the lack of variety but you shouldn't discount this as a useful backup food.
- throwu444 13y ago
  Rubbish. Firstly, nutrition science is not real science - we don't have a full understanding of how our body processes foods, etc to be able to model it properly. So it's not real science. Secondly, having a balanced nutrition isn't nearly as complicated as you make it out to be. Variety and everything in moderation. Humans would have evolved to be able to live off a variety of different diets and foods. Most of our history involved a food shortage and so a very specific set of nutritional requirements would definitely not have been selected for.
deleted 13y ago
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zhemao 13y ago
I think you guys have an edge over Soylent in that this actually looks somewhat appealing, as opposed to a generic beige liquid.
jonathanjaeger 13y ago
What I love about this is it's less an alternative of Soylent and more an alternative for the terrible meal replacement bars at the convenience store. Those are packed with sugar or sugar alcohols and rarely have oats or other ingredients I prefer. Although MealSquares does have a sizeable amount of sugar, I can't wait to try MealSquares if it's a decent price since I like the ingredient profile otherwise. Edit: Price looks to be fair.
tdees40 13y ago
"Nutrient deficiencies are common, and supplements don't always work." *Citation needed
- teach 13y ago
  My wife has a PhD in nutrition and is also a registered dietitian. She's not on Hacker News, but she would agree with that statement. The vast majority of Americans are chronically deficient in vitamin D, for example. And many "Walmart-quality" supplements are so badly made that you gain no measurable benefit by taking them.
- nazgulnarsil 13y ago
  http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=15672 http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=15672 Magnesium, calcium, potassium, fiber, vitamin C, D, and E. Potassium is a good example, as supplementation is impossible, supplements are limited to 99mg by law. Vitamin E supplements have shown harm in clinical trials.
zyxley 13y ago
It would be good to have more information on what these taste like, what the mouthfeel is, and, possibly most importantly (since it's a prereq in my mind to ever buying any at all), how long they last in the pantry or refrigerator. That said, the idea already appeals to me much more than Soylent, not particularly because of the whole foods part but because the image and info given suggest that a MealSquare will have some chew, crunch, and contrasting textures to it.
- nazgulnarsil 13y ago
  We're still working on shelf life, we're within reach of a month and might be able to do significantly better. Texture/taste wise they are like a cinnamon bran muffin. We were actually surprised we were able to get the prototypes tasting so good.
neilsharma 13y ago
I'm usually on a low carb diet and I jog/weightlift a lot. Normally, I aim for about 4000-5000 calories/day, so I may be atypical of your average American. Also, my nutritional goals are high poly/mono fats, high protein, high fiber, and low sugar/starches. The carb content in these bars bother me (42g/bar x 5 bars a day), and I'd prefer bars with more fiber and significantly less sugar even if that means it'd taste more like bark. Compared to the same weight of almonds, for example, these bars have 25% less protein, ~4x more sugar, 1/3 the fiber, slightly more saturated fat, and significantly less mono/poly. Now I know almonds aren't substitutes for meals, but when I'm lazy to make or buy a meal and am looking for convenient finger food, this is what you'd be up against. I understand that meal replacements that look and taste like chocolate chip cookies are appealing. These bars seem like a tastier version of your typical chalk-like protein bar. I think if you cut back the carbs, you might be able to stand out in that market.
- nazgulnarsil 13y ago
  we're at a 40/40/20 macro split C/F/P for our V1, a low carb version might happen in the future.
  - teach 13y ago
    40/40/20 is a very good macronutrient target. Kudos.
rpedela 13y ago
I like the concept, but unfortunately people like me cannot eat it because of food allergies (eggs and tree nuts). Why is <50% of carbs listed as an advantage?
- nazgulnarsil 13y ago
  While it's true that studies have repeatedly shown that macro splits don't matter much for body composition, we felt that the existing options were way too sweet. So much so that eating more than one was actually unpleasant. Also, quite a lot of people try to limit their carbs to something reasonable.
frakkingcylons 13y ago
Very interested. If there is a way for me to buy some early samples for beta testing, I would love to know.
jack-r-abbit 13y ago
These have quite a lot of sugar and cholesterol. And are a bit higher on sodium than Soylent. Maybe I've not been following the recent recommendations but aren't these things we're supposed to avoid?
bbayer 13y ago
I can understand the effort and I can support it if the main idea is to prevent people from starving. But I cannot understand people reacting whole foods as it is invented couple of years ago. My 4 years old kid don't consume food other than PediaSure[1] for two years. He really did well until this time and blood, urine test suggest everything is normal. So food replacement is not miracle and works under some circumstances. [1] http://abbottnutrition.com/brands/pediasure http://abbottnutrition.com/brands/pediasure
SyncTheory13 13y ago
This looks great! I'm currently vegan and have known for a while that it is not the best I could be doing nutritionally or morally. Rather than make my diet more complicated, I've been looking toward a primarily whole foods diet, sans animal products. With all the convenience, sugar, etc. of processed foods, making the jump has been much harder than I expected. I'm excited about Soylent, but I'm not fully sold on the ingredients being primarily from supplements. I very much look forward to a vegan version. Please continue researching, and try to gain the volunteer support of some nutritionists, then be quick to hire one when your Kickstarter succeeds! Thanks for bringing your idea to everyone! P.S. I also think this idea will be great for those who cannot afford the luxury of researching and buying healthy foods. Convenience is a huge reason the junk food industry is so large, especially in low-income areas. The price of $12/day is a nice starting point, and the lower it becomes, along with the more in-store availability - the healthier our population will become.
paragraft 13y ago
There's a product in the Australia and NZ market called One Square Meal which seems exactly this (which would seem to raise the spectre of trademark conflict). http://www.onesquaremeal.com/productinfo.html http://www.onesquaremeal.com/productinfo.html For something that's 1/3 DI, it's pleasant enough, though a can get a bit tiring on the jaw if you're trying to wolf it down, which you often are if you're in a situation where you need a meal substitute...
conductr 13y ago
Feedback on the website. It's too much text and the "action" is not well defined or prominent. Do a video. Give just links to the extra info, prominent not hidden in the link list (mobile). Make your call to action the focus. The images look stock, need improvement. I'd be glad to elaborate on any of these points. Email me

51 points by nazgulnarsil 13y ago

Hi, this is Romeo Stevens, cofounder of MealSquares. We’re really interested in feedback. Since Soylent is a similar product in our space, I wanted to discuss some points made by Rob Rhinehart in his post "The Fallacy of Whole Foods": http://robrhinehart.com/?p=874 http://robrhinehart.com/?p=874 Rob likes to compare Soylent to medical meal replacements. But medical meal replacements have taken a long time to mature. For example, it took a while for professional nutritionists to realize maybe they shouldn’t pump newborns full of soybean oil [1]. This may sound silly today, but that was the best nutritionists could do based on the science available to them. And that's the problem I see artificially constructed meal replacements running in to--if you do the best you can based on the science available, that still may not be enough. Different forms of the same nutrient do seem to affect the body differently. We see negative health outcomes from substances such as beta-carotene, vitamin E, and folic acid in supplemental form [2], while high levels in whole foods demonstrate no such harms. So bioavailability is complicated, and for whatever reason whole foods seem to have consistently healthier profiles than supplements. Many examples of strong nutrient synergy have been discovered. Vitamin D and calcium, vitamin C and iron, the fat soluble vitamins and dietary fat are some of the most well established. It seems likely that we've still got more to discover. Rob himself seems to acknowledge this in his inclusion of many non-essential nutrients like lycopene. Even given these points, we don’t consider Soylent a bad thing. Rob is right, the average diet is terrible, and anything that improves on that is great. We know MealSquares aren’t perfect. Nutrition science has come up with no substitute for regularly eating fish for example; supplements don’t cut it [3]. But including MealSquares in your diet means you are getting a solid dose of healthy, nutrient dense foods from a variety of sources. We don't think nutrition is settled science, and we look forward to becoming a multi-billion dollar corporation so we can improve the state of knowledge with our research department. :P On the topic of longevity in general, you can read some of my research here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jrt/lifestyle_interventions_that_affect_longevity/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/jrt/lifestyle_interventions_that_aff.... [1] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130814101429.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130814101429.ht... [2] http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=205797 http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=205797 [3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12848287 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12848287

kenrikm 13y ago
Hi Romeo, something to keep in mind. Most "Meal replacement" type bars (cliff, power bar) etc.. are super sweet, lots of sugar. I'm actually not a fan of sugar in general and would love an alternative that is more neutral or even on the salty side. I see on your site what look like chocolate chip cookie chunks and that turns me off. Maybe you can come up with something that has flavor but is not sweet?
- nazgulnarsil 13y ago
  Yes, we ran into this complaint a lot when researching existing options. Our current beta version is very mild, so it's pleasant to eat a lot of it.
- deleted 13y ago
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- aashay 13y ago
  This. Although I have a bit of a sweet tooth, for a meal replacement (as opposed to a treat) 25grams (two tablespoons) is quite a bit of sugar. The fiber might offset it a bit but finding a better balance between the two would make me more likely to buy the product.
  - gb_ 13y ago
    This stood out to me the most. 125g of sugar in a day's supply seems really high.
- freefrancisco 13y ago
  +1 to this. I would be very much in the market for meal replacements like MealSquares or Soylent, but they both have lots of sugar and carbs. I try to follow a paleo diet, I don't always succeed at following it closely, but the most important thing that I try to do is avoid sugar, sugar substitutes, and artificial sweeteners, and second I try to avoid carbs from grains. This pretty much means that I have to buy free range eggs, grass fed beef, grass fed butter, and make my own meals, or I have to eat at restaurants, but buying meal replacements is out of the question. There is nothing out there yet that eliminates sweeteners and carbs. I know that there are people who want the carbs and the sugar, so here is a suggestion. Why not refactor the current MealSquare into two parts, one that is salty and paleo, and one that is vegan and low fat? That way people who like them as they are now can eat one of each and get the same result, but those of us who are paleo can get the sugar/grain free square separately, and people who are vegan can get the animal free square separately as well.

wc- 13y ago

Despite all the controversy, soylent did show there is a market for this. If MealSquare can actually deliver to early adopters in a timely fashion, I'd imagine they could capture a lot of the Soylent market... Looking forward to the crowdfunding and more timeline details!

mikegioia 13y ago

I like this idea a lot, but honestly what are you showing us here? The campaign hasn't started yet and there doesn't appear to be any actual product created.

nazgulnarsil 13y ago
MealSquares exist and myself and beta testers are getting significant portions of our calories from them.
- mikegioia 13y ago
  Ok great, but you posted a "Show HN" pointing to your product's web page. The only thing that web page does is collect emails to notify when your crowd funding campaign starts. I just don't understand what you're showing us.
  - nazgulnarsil 13y ago
    We're looking for feedback both on our website and the core idea.
  - michaelmior 13y ago
    You can see the proposed pricing, ingredients, and a bit of the supporting philosophy. Seems like enough to get some feedback.
  - astrofinch 13y ago
    (Other MealSquares cofounder here) The reason we haven't started our crowdfunding campaign yet is because our following isn't big enough yet. Soylent hit its target within the first 24 hours because the DIY recipe already had a huge following, and the general wisdom for kickstarters seems to be that you need at least 30-40% of your funding nailed down before you hit the "go" button. So in addition to feedback on the product itself, we are curious if HN has any thoughts for things like slogans and other product messaging, and customer verticals that we might be able to market the product to.

wasd 13y ago

Hey Romeo, This is incredible. I love this idea and hope it can come to light. Quick question, I took a look at the price in the FAQ: "We're looking at $12/day as our absolute ceiling and aim to hit significantly lower than that. MealSquares will come down in price as we scale. At $12 a day a MealSquare costs $2.40, which is very competitive with other options." Is this for 1 day worth (2000 calories) of MealSquares? Is this assuming a bulk purchase (1 week or month)?

nazgulnarsil 13y ago
2000 calories. We don't really know how bulk pricing will work out once we are in production, our current costs are retail.
ph0rque 13y ago
Right now, our family's meals cost ~$3.70/day (plus the "free" labor of preparing it). Until it's within a dollar or two within that price, I won't be able to try it out.

nawitus 13y ago

It's unfortunate to see that the product uses animal-based foods, and eggs at that. Something like Soylent should in my opinion be vegan (for the environment and the animals). If I recall correctly, Soylent was pretty close to vegan.

jacalata 13y ago
Unfortunate for you, but I bet most people (like myself) don't think this is a problem.
- graublau 13y ago
  Not a problem, more an missed opportunity. There are a pretty large market of Veg*n folks, why exclude?
  - deleted 13y ago
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codelap 13y ago
I find it unfortunate that it doesn't contain more animal products. I do love me some tasty animals.
Pxtl 13y ago
A bit offtopic, but I'm always sad that more research hasn't been done in making eggs/milk cruelty-free - that the "cruely-free science" went straight to synthetic meat. I'd love to see more research in mass-cloning female chickens to avoid the "sexing" problem, or painless alternatives to de-beaking, or hormonally-induced lactation in cows. Even the ideal pastoral rural hobby egg-farmer has intrinsically cruel aspects because of the useless male chicks and occasional violence between chickens... but it feels like these would be lower hurdles to overcome with technology than weaving synthetic beef on a magical meat-loom.
- teach 13y ago
  I think it's because cruelty-free is already quite easy to get: just buy food from local, organic farms that actually raise animals instead of mass-producing them.

livingparadox 13y ago

Is there any reason that your compare page adds the qualifier "not from soy/rice"? I get the soy part, even if I don't agree about its significance. But why does rice as a source matter?

nazgulnarsil 13y ago
bioavailability of plant proteins is much lower than from milk/eggs/whey.

untog 13y ago

I suppose products like these are positive, though I find them profoundly depressing. That eating well has become such an after-thought that no-one takes time to actually make themselves a whole meal, and rather than reprioritise their lives they'll ask a group of people with no discernable nutritional credentials to send them a square of food that they cut into 100 calorie segments, and eat day in, day out. Scarfing down pastries or energy bars when you don't have time to think about food? You can do better. Yeah, you can.

nazgulnarsil 13y ago
Actually, my ability to enjoy food hugely increased when I started eating my prototypes. Focusing on one meal a day means that meal can be awesome.
astrofinch 13y ago
If you like spending time and effort preparing healthy meals for yourself, more power to you. The MealSquares target user is a busy startup founder whose diet is currently made up of microwavable meals or something like that. You tell someone like this to eat healthier and they say "yeah, I really should", but it's hard to fit in the time for cooking, nutrition research, and meal planning in between all of the other important stuff they're doing. Personally, I like the fact that people are doing important stuff, and I'm hoping that MealSquares will allow people to spend their time doing lots of important stuff and eat healthy while they're at it.
- untog 13y ago
  Personally, I like the fact that people are doing important stuff But that's exactly my point, eating well is "important stuff". I suppose it reflects the general mentality that crunching away on your mobile photo sharing startup is "important" while eating well, being healthy and being happy are optional extras.
zyxley 13y ago
In my case, the general idea draws me because I have a kitchen the size of a shoebox with poor ventilation and a fire alarm that goes off at the drop of a hat. Cooking an even fractionally complicated meal quickly becomes an exercise in frustration.

smacktoward 13y ago

I have the same reaction to this as I did to Soylent: I'd be a lot more inclined to try it if there was somebody involved with it who had some demonstrable background or expertise in nutrition, health or medicine. The human body is a complicated thing, but while it's hard to improve, it's very easy to screw up. And screwing up someone's health can have consequences for them that last for years or decades. It can literally ruin their life. If that happens it won't be much comfort for them that their sad story has led you to pivot to a more promising approach. For all the intellectual firepower of people in the tech community, there is a curious strain of anti-intellectualism that comes forth in projects like this; an eagerness to discount the expertise of people who have studied a subject for their entire lives, just because they weren't CS majors. It's like trying to send a man to the moon without working with any aerospace engineers. I honestly do not understand it.

nazgulnarsil 13y ago
Agreed, this is why we went with whole foods. I was already basically eating the ingredient list of MealSquares everyday.
- baugarten 13y ago
  Just because its whole foods doesn't make it inherently nutritious. Additionally -- just because I eat all of the ingredients in a MealSquare every day, that doesn't mean that I can be health ONLY eating those ingredients every day
  - graublau 13y ago
    You're right about the lack of variety but you shouldn't discount this as a useful backup food.
throwu444 13y ago
Rubbish. Firstly, nutrition science is not real science - we don't have a full understanding of how our body processes foods, etc to be able to model it properly. So it's not real science. Secondly, having a balanced nutrition isn't nearly as complicated as you make it out to be. Variety and everything in moderation. Humans would have evolved to be able to live off a variety of different diets and foods. Most of our history involved a food shortage and so a very specific set of nutritional requirements would definitely not have been selected for.

deleted 13y ago

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zhemao 13y ago

I think you guys have an edge over Soylent in that this actually looks somewhat appealing, as opposed to a generic beige liquid.

jonathanjaeger 13y ago

What I love about this is it's less an alternative of Soylent and more an alternative for the terrible meal replacement bars at the convenience store. Those are packed with sugar or sugar alcohols and rarely have oats or other ingredients I prefer. Although MealSquares does have a sizeable amount of sugar, I can't wait to try MealSquares if it's a decent price since I like the ingredient profile otherwise. Edit: Price looks to be fair.

tdees40 13y ago

"Nutrient deficiencies are common, and supplements don't always work." *Citation needed

teach 13y ago
My wife has a PhD in nutrition and is also a registered dietitian. She's not on Hacker News, but she would agree with that statement. The vast majority of Americans are chronically deficient in vitamin D, for example. And many "Walmart-quality" supplements are so badly made that you gain no measurable benefit by taking them.
nazgulnarsil 13y ago
http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=15672 http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=15672 Magnesium, calcium, potassium, fiber, vitamin C, D, and E. Potassium is a good example, as supplementation is impossible, supplements are limited to 99mg by law. Vitamin E supplements have shown harm in clinical trials.

zyxley 13y ago

It would be good to have more information on what these taste like, what the mouthfeel is, and, possibly most importantly (since it's a prereq in my mind to ever buying any at all), how long they last in the pantry or refrigerator. That said, the idea already appeals to me much more than Soylent, not particularly because of the whole foods part but because the image and info given suggest that a MealSquare will have some chew, crunch, and contrasting textures to it.

nazgulnarsil 13y ago
We're still working on shelf life, we're within reach of a month and might be able to do significantly better. Texture/taste wise they are like a cinnamon bran muffin. We were actually surprised we were able to get the prototypes tasting so good.

neilsharma 13y ago

I'm usually on a low carb diet and I jog/weightlift a lot. Normally, I aim for about 4000-5000 calories/day, so I may be atypical of your average American. Also, my nutritional goals are high poly/mono fats, high protein, high fiber, and low sugar/starches. The carb content in these bars bother me (42g/bar x 5 bars a day), and I'd prefer bars with more fiber and significantly less sugar even if that means it'd taste more like bark. Compared to the same weight of almonds, for example, these bars have 25% less protein, ~4x more sugar, 1/3 the fiber, slightly more saturated fat, and significantly less mono/poly. Now I know almonds aren't substitutes for meals, but when I'm lazy to make or buy a meal and am looking for convenient finger food, this is what you'd be up against. I understand that meal replacements that look and taste like chocolate chip cookies are appealing. These bars seem like a tastier version of your typical chalk-like protein bar. I think if you cut back the carbs, you might be able to stand out in that market.

nazgulnarsil 13y ago
we're at a 40/40/20 macro split C/F/P for our V1, a low carb version might happen in the future.
- teach 13y ago
  40/40/20 is a very good macronutrient target. Kudos.

rpedela 13y ago

I like the concept, but unfortunately people like me cannot eat it because of food allergies (eggs and tree nuts). Why is <50% of carbs listed as an advantage?

nazgulnarsil 13y ago
While it's true that studies have repeatedly shown that macro splits don't matter much for body composition, we felt that the existing options were way too sweet. So much so that eating more than one was actually unpleasant. Also, quite a lot of people try to limit their carbs to something reasonable.

frakkingcylons 13y ago

Very interested. If there is a way for me to buy some early samples for beta testing, I would love to know.

jack-r-abbit 13y ago

These have quite a lot of sugar and cholesterol. And are a bit higher on sodium than Soylent. Maybe I've not been following the recent recommendations but aren't these things we're supposed to avoid?

bbayer 13y ago

I can understand the effort and I can support it if the main idea is to prevent people from starving. But I cannot understand people reacting whole foods as it is invented couple of years ago. My 4 years old kid don't consume food other than PediaSure[1] for two years. He really did well until this time and blood, urine test suggest everything is normal. So food replacement is not miracle and works under some circumstances. [1] http://abbottnutrition.com/brands/pediasure http://abbottnutrition.com/brands/pediasure

SyncTheory13 13y ago

This looks great! I'm currently vegan and have known for a while that it is not the best I could be doing nutritionally or morally. Rather than make my diet more complicated, I've been looking toward a primarily whole foods diet, sans animal products. With all the convenience, sugar, etc. of processed foods, making the jump has been much harder than I expected. I'm excited about Soylent, but I'm not fully sold on the ingredients being primarily from supplements. I very much look forward to a vegan version. Please continue researching, and try to gain the volunteer support of some nutritionists, then be quick to hire one when your Kickstarter succeeds! Thanks for bringing your idea to everyone! P.S. I also think this idea will be great for those who cannot afford the luxury of researching and buying healthy foods. Convenience is a huge reason the junk food industry is so large, especially in low-income areas. The price of $12/day is a nice starting point, and the lower it becomes, along with the more in-store availability - the healthier our population will become.

paragraft 13y ago

There's a product in the Australia and NZ market called One Square Meal which seems exactly this (which would seem to raise the spectre of trademark conflict). http://www.onesquaremeal.com/productinfo.html http://www.onesquaremeal.com/productinfo.html For something that's 1/3 DI, it's pleasant enough, though a can get a bit tiring on the jaw if you're trying to wolf it down, which you often are if you're in a situation where you need a meal substitute...

conductr 13y ago

Feedback on the website. It's too much text and the "action" is not well defined or prominent. Do a video. Give just links to the extra info, prominent not hidden in the link list (mobile). Make your call to action the focus. The images look stock, need improvement. I'd be glad to elaborate on any of these points. Email me