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Yes, I think it might be cheaper for the 'poor' to buy the ingredients separately themselves and prepare the drink (or cook the food) themselves. Since Soylent

by meric 12y ago

Yes, I think it might be cheaper for the 'poor' to buy the ingredients separately themselves and prepare the drink (or cook the food) themselves. Since Soylent must cost as much as it's raw materials plus preparation and transportation costs. To be economical for the 'poor', not only must the Soylent company must be able to acquire the ingredients at a cheaper price than the 'poor' can, the difference must also be greater than the cost of Soylent's preparation and extra leg transportation between where the ingredients are bought and where Soylent is prepared. Until Soylent can be prepared from raw industrial chemicals, of course!

001sky 12y ago
Soylent should be able to get industrial quantity discounts. a poor person is paying retail. And urban retail is no-where near wholesale (rent/overheads). Soylent is economic in the sense mentioned in the article--low time spent shopping and no waste. The scalability limitation on soy-lent is that most people will not be able to eat "something that tastes like cake batter" for 90 meals in a row (one month). There is plenty of evidence for this. So, until they find a way to deal with "palatability" (its more than just variety), the ultimate upside potential will be limited. But there are plenty of people making money off off of niche and novelty consumption specialty retail.
stormbrew 12y ago
The other problem that doesn't tend to get addressed in this sort of discussion of nutritional-supplements-for-the-poor-masses is that you still need to mix it with water. The poorest places have a lot of problems getting water that's safely drinkable and cases of supplement don't really help them (see also the issue of baby formula in the developing world). Honestly, this idea that soylent is a solution to famine strikes me as a bit absurd.
zacinbusiness 12y ago
Besides that, food and the process of eating is not just physical and chemical, it is also psychological and social. Could you meet the bare-bones nutritional requirements of the homeless by replacing soup kitchens with soylent kitchens? Probably. And I'm sure you could even serve them with hot bowls of soylent. But handing someone an actual meal, with food prepared by someone who wants to help them, will, without a doubt, provide much more emotional and and therapeutic benefit than will handing them a pouch of powder and a spoon. The whole concept of soylent smells like a halfassed answer to a barely understood problem from a cut-rate engineer.

by meric 12y ago

001sky 12y ago

Soylent should be able to get industrial quantity discounts. a poor person is paying retail. And urban retail is no-where near wholesale (rent/overheads). Soylent is economic in the sense mentioned in the article--low time spent shopping and no waste. The scalability limitation on soy-lent is that most people will not be able to eat "something that tastes like cake batter" for 90 meals in a row (one month). There is plenty of evidence for this. So, until they find a way to deal with "palatability" (its more than just variety), the ultimate upside potential will be limited. But there are plenty of people making money off off of niche and novelty consumption specialty retail.

stormbrew 12y ago

The other problem that doesn't tend to get addressed in this sort of discussion of nutritional-supplements-for-the-poor-masses is that you still need to mix it with water. The poorest places have a lot of problems getting water that's safely drinkable and cases of supplement don't really help them (see also the issue of baby formula in the developing world). Honestly, this idea that soylent is a solution to famine strikes me as a bit absurd.

zacinbusiness 12y ago

Besides that, food and the process of eating is not just physical and chemical, it is also psychological and social. Could you meet the bare-bones nutritional requirements of the homeless by replacing soup kitchens with soylent kitchens? Probably. And I'm sure you could even serve them with hot bowls of soylent. But handing someone an actual meal, with food prepared by someone who wants to help them, will, without a doubt, provide much more emotional and and therapeutic benefit than will handing them a pouch of powder and a spoon. The whole concept of soylent smells like a halfassed answer to a barely understood problem from a cut-rate engineer.