3 ms·

I find the "soylent is cheap and $10 a day" message very weird too. $10 per person per day (in multi-month bulk, it $12.15 per day for a weekly supply) is on t

by netcan 12y ago

I find the "soylent is cheap and $10 a day" message very weird too. $10 per person per day (in multi-month bulk, it $12.15 per day for a weekly supply) is on the expensive side for grocery shopping. If your goal is nutritious thriftiness, $2-5 per day is a very achievable goal. If you want cheap on a global "nutrition-crisis" level, $0.30-$2 is the goal. I've hear soylent mentioned in that context too. It's only "cheap" when compared to eating out which seems like a very disingenuous comparison. I'm not dismissing soylent. I'd be interested in trying it. But, calling it cheap is crazy.

DanBC 12y ago
I agree. About 20% of the world lives on less than 1.25USD per day. About one billion people do not have access to clean drinking water. Here's what the World Food Programme does. https://www.wfp.org/nutrition/how-wfp-fights-malnutrition https://www.wfp.org/nutrition/how-wfp-fights-malnutrition This page includes some pricing information for the products they use. https://www.wfp.org/nutrition/special-nutritional-products https://www.wfp.org/nutrition/special-nutritional-products I feel that Soylent making claims about World Hunger is just another claim they pulled from the air, with very little knowledge of the work needed, but which sounds good to supporters. http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/home http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/home http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/mdg1/en/ http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/mdg1/en/
vidarh 12y ago
I spend more than $10/day on lunch alone. Without eating out. "Cheap" varies greatly by location, and expectation, and how much time you're willing to put into cutting cost. And if you're considering Soylent, presumably spending lots of time planning out your meal is probably not high on your list of desirable activities (I could probably easily cut my lunch cost, but I value the time it'd take at more than my potential savings)..
- netcan 12y ago
  Sure. $100 is a lot less than some other people spend on lunch. Bench pressing 100kg is easy for some people. I wouldn't call it light. When you say something is "cheap" it's always relative. But, there is within the bounds of regular conversation there are some assumptions you make about things. If you say this jar of powdered chocolate beverage is cheap, I will assume you mean relative to coffee, tea or something else I'm likely to make at home and not relative to a barrister coffee or a martini in bar. Here I think the logical comparison is other powdered foods (slim fast, protein shakes, weight gainers, etc) or grocery shopping.
  - vidarh 12y ago
    > Here I think the logical comparison is other powdered foods (slim fast, protein shakes, weight gainers, etc) or grocery shopping. Then, let me repeat myself: I spend $10/day on lunch based on grocery shopping. Easily. There are certainly many parts of the world where $10/day for Soylent would not be competitive at all. And it certainly would be less competitive for people who value their time low enough to spend time keeping the cost down (I could probably cut 1/3 of my lunch bill by going to the cheaper grocery store 5-10 minutes away rather than the one downstairs from the office; and I could cut quite a bit off the bill by spending time finding the cheapest lunch meat, and the cheapest bread etc., but I won't). But the point remains, that while $10/day may sound expensive, in many locations it is not, and even less so when comparing with "shopping as quickly as possible" vs. bargain hunting.
ryanSrich 12y ago
Where are you shopping? I can't even buy the ingredients for one meal for $10 that'll serve two people.
- netcan 12y ago
  I live in Ireland. Food is expensive here relative to most benchmarks. At my local (small & expensive) €10 will get you a kg of potatoes (€1), A head of broccoli (€2), a kg of carrots (€1) and a delicious whole cooked chicken (€6) - that's euros, but it will feed 4. Cook you own chicken or drive to a proper supermarket and you can make it dollars or get some chocolate. Spaghetti with meatballs would feed the family for half that. Seriously though I'm surprised at this thread. Most of the world eats for under $1 per day. I assume that the median family of 4 in the US isn't spending much more than $5 per homecooked meal (X 3 X 4 X 7 = $420 per week) because they don't have the income for it.

by netcan 12y ago

DanBC 12y ago

I agree. About 20% of the world lives on less than 1.25USD per day. About one billion people do not have access to clean drinking water. Here's what the World Food Programme does. https://www.wfp.org/nutrition/how-wfp-fights-malnutrition https://www.wfp.org/nutrition/how-wfp-fights-malnutrition This page includes some pricing information for the products they use. https://www.wfp.org/nutrition/special-nutritional-products https://www.wfp.org/nutrition/special-nutritional-products I feel that Soylent making claims about World Hunger is just another claim they pulled from the air, with very little knowledge of the work needed, but which sounds good to supporters. http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/home http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/home http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/mdg1/en/ http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/mdg1/en/

vidarh 12y ago

I spend more than $10/day on lunch alone. Without eating out. "Cheap" varies greatly by location, and expectation, and how much time you're willing to put into cutting cost. And if you're considering Soylent, presumably spending lots of time planning out your meal is probably not high on your list of desirable activities (I could probably easily cut my lunch cost, but I value the time it'd take at more than my potential savings)..

netcan 12y ago
Sure. $100 is a lot less than some other people spend on lunch. Bench pressing 100kg is easy for some people. I wouldn't call it light. When you say something is "cheap" it's always relative. But, there is within the bounds of regular conversation there are some assumptions you make about things. If you say this jar of powdered chocolate beverage is cheap, I will assume you mean relative to coffee, tea or something else I'm likely to make at home and not relative to a barrister coffee or a martini in bar. Here I think the logical comparison is other powdered foods (slim fast, protein shakes, weight gainers, etc) or grocery shopping.
- vidarh 12y ago
  > Here I think the logical comparison is other powdered foods (slim fast, protein shakes, weight gainers, etc) or grocery shopping. Then, let me repeat myself: I spend $10/day on lunch based on grocery shopping. Easily. There are certainly many parts of the world where $10/day for Soylent would not be competitive at all. And it certainly would be less competitive for people who value their time low enough to spend time keeping the cost down (I could probably cut 1/3 of my lunch bill by going to the cheaper grocery store 5-10 minutes away rather than the one downstairs from the office; and I could cut quite a bit off the bill by spending time finding the cheapest lunch meat, and the cheapest bread etc., but I won't). But the point remains, that while $10/day may sound expensive, in many locations it is not, and even less so when comparing with "shopping as quickly as possible" vs. bargain hunting.

ryanSrich 12y ago

Where are you shopping? I can't even buy the ingredients for one meal for $10 that'll serve two people.

netcan 12y ago
I live in Ireland. Food is expensive here relative to most benchmarks. At my local (small & expensive) €10 will get you a kg of potatoes (€1), A head of broccoli (€2), a kg of carrots (€1) and a delicious whole cooked chicken (€6) - that's euros, but it will feed 4. Cook you own chicken or drive to a proper supermarket and you can make it dollars or get some chocolate. Spaghetti with meatballs would feed the family for half that. Seriously though I'm surprised at this thread. Most of the world eats for under $1 per day. I assume that the median family of 4 in the US isn't spending much more than $5 per homecooked meal (X 3 X 4 X 7 = $420 per week) because they don't have the income for it.