5 ms·

Soylent 1.4 begins shipping today

44 points by jbardnz 12y ago

bufordsharkley 12y ago
Possibly stupid question: is the serving size meaningful? I thought the procedure was to make a day's worth all at once, and consume it throughout the day at whatever schedule you choose. Three servings of 670 vs. four servings of 500-- I don't see exactly what this changes.
- GenerocUsername 12y ago
  The labeling now more accurately reflects observed usage patterns. Sort of the opposite tactic of most companies who try to squeeze serving sizes to meet certain nutritional milestones despite having no basis in real-life usage of the product. I'm looking at you Pop-Tarts! No body eats one tart at a time.
  - bufordsharkley 12y ago
    Two Pop-Tarts at once? I've never done that. ...But then again, I don't eat an awful lot, and that's why I was originally interested in the "revised serving size"-- I'm wondering what other Soylent drinkers do if their caloric input is usually (far) less than 2000 cal/day.
    - elmin 12y ago
      The packages inside the box each contain two tarts, somewhat suggesting that's how they expect them to be eaten.
      - lfowles 12y ago
        Wouldn't want one of them to go stale.
    - angersock 12y ago
      Put peanut butter between them after toasting them. Tastiest thing in the world. And dip it in milk or chocolate syrup.
      - justzisguyuknow 12y ago
        But don't forget to wrap it in bacon and deep fry it too.
    - ambrice 12y ago
      I think most soylent drinkers don't do it 100%. I drink it for breakfast and lunch, and do dinner with the family. So for me I do four servings over two days. I think they're finding that this a common pattern and updating the packaging to reflect it.
      - alexqgb 12y ago
        That's my pattern exactly, which I settled into very quickly. From what I understand from others, they had the same experience.
  - goodJobWalrus 12y ago
    Or 1/3 of a muffin as a serving. Ridiculous, but a lot of people probably fall for it. It's mostly North American thing tho. In Europe, you usually get calories per 100 grams, so you can compare different foods to each other as well.
- arh68 12y ago
  A bag is about 2 days' worth, not one. I can't imagine going through an entire bag every day. Serving size is just labeling as you suspect; in my house, serving size is correlated with size of glass.
superobserver 12y ago
I've tried soylent for a week's worth. Unfortunately, my budget simply can't handle the load that this would cost me - even at a bulk order for one month. At half the current price, I'd be able to seriously consider it. Until then...
- zwischenzug 12y ago
  I thought exactly the same. I have a family of 4, and Solyent would be significantly more expensive than what we already spend. And we eat very healthily.
  - angersock 12y ago
    Probably shouldn't feed Soylent to your kids--a lot of the nutritional needs are different depending on their age.
    - leshow 12y ago
      nutritional needs can also be very individual, in terms of things like total caloric intake, macronutrient requirements to 'feel optimal' does soylent recommend a blanket amount of product to everyone per day, with no variation in individual metabolism? or do the have some kind of induction period where they figure out your maintenance caloric intake and then give you enough soylent to satisfy your caloric needs?
      - yaddayadda 12y ago
        There's only one formulation, but the Soylent team has stated that the total volume consumed per day should be based on individual needs (e.g. a petite 5' individual should be consuming less overall than a muscular 6' individual). edit to add a source (many more are on the forums): > Then, a bit before midnight, I got a pair of e-mails from two of the folks at Soylent, one from founder Rob Rhinehart and one from customer service vice president Julio Miles. "We encourage Soylent beta testers to decide how much Soylent they require in a day," he said. Rhinehart had a similar message. They both tell me that I don't have to actually eat the entire bag of Soylent. From http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/ars-does-soylent-day-3-moderation-leads-to-actual-for-real-enjoyment/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/ars-does-soylent-day-...
dmamills 12y ago
I still don't understand this company, to me it just seems like a marketing/branding ploy sitting on top of Ensure.
- adamwong246 12y ago
  If you check the nutritional information for Soylent and compare it to Ensure, you'll see that Soylent is not at all like Ensure.
  - copperx 12y ago
    Ensure + a multivitamin. Yeah.
    - adamwong246 12y ago
      That is absolutely incorrect. Soylent is designed to be a meal replacement in the realest sense. Rosa Labs is constantly tweaking the formula for optimum results. To compare it to a weightloss shake and overdoses of vitamins is rather reductive of the work done by Rosa Labs. If you think you can do better, go ahead and try. I tried to make my own with disastrous results.
    - fizzbatter 12y ago
      Okay, i have a heavy urge to call your nonsense FUD - but to give you of the benefit of the doubt, why do you think it is that? Have you compared the two nutritionally speaking? If so, what led you to believe they were so similar? To me the differences are striking - unbelievably so. So much, that you come off as a troll. Please inform me otherwise.
  - dmamills 12y ago
    I whole heartedly disagree. It really doesn't look that different from Ensure Complete. (Ensure's product that targets the exact same market) They contain almost the exact same vitamins and minerals. Considering the differences in recommended portion sizes I'd say they are pretty much identical. http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0421/5993/t/14/assets/files_Complete-Soylent-Nutrition-Facts-1p4.pdf?2850945328223203203 http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0421/5993/t/14/assets/files... http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-shakes http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-shakes
rnernento 12y ago
Is anybody actually living off of this stuff? After following them for a while I got the impression they were a glorified Ensure and gave up.
- adamwong246 12y ago
  I do. I eat Soylent for lunch and breakfast.
  - copperx 12y ago
    Why Soylent and not Ensure?
    - adamwong246 12y ago
      They are very different products. Like I said before, compare the nutritional information for the 2 and you'll see they nothing alike.
    - frewsxcv 12y ago
      https://www.reddit.com/r/soylent/wiki/faq#wiki_how_is_this_different_from.. https://www.reddit.com/r/soylent/wiki/faq#wiki_how_is_this_d....
    - fizzbatter 12y ago
      Because if you look at the nutritional facts Ensure is no where near what Soylent is, nor is it designed to be. Not only is it missing the majority of the daily requirement percentages (partially or entirely), but of the 11% of your daily carbs that it does give you, literally half of that is sugar. Sugar. Why you think Ensure is something you can live off of, is beyond me.
- GigabyteCoin 12y ago
  I certainly couldn't. I barely managed to swallow the grittiness of the mixture after following their instructions and shaking up my first batch a few months ago. I even put it in my vitamix on high for a while and it still tasted like undisolved powders sitting in the bottom of a jug of water. I ended up throwing out the remainder of the first mixture, and the rest of my week's supply has been sitting in storage ever since. Apparently there is a secondary market out there where dissapointed early adopters can sell their soylent to others, which speaks volumes about it's quality/taste/texture... that people who waited over a year for delivery can't even finish the stuff and want to pawn it off to somebody else. [0] [0] http://motherboard.vice.com/read/i-waited-five-months-for-my-soylent-and-now-i-cant-get-rid-of-it http://motherboard.vice.com/read/i-waited-five-months-for-my...
schintan 12y ago
Soylent seems to be the only food product following software versioning.
adamwong246 12y ago
For all the naysayers... I eat it, I love it, I'll never give it up. Soylent is awesome and I'm stoked to see v1.4 waiting on my doorstep. Please, don't knock it till you try it OR at least do a little bit of research. Soylentarians are bombarded daily by the uninformed opinions of FoodBarbies and the like. At least do some research before you decide to tear down the idea.
- fizzbatter 12y ago
  And for a little more opinions, I personally dislike official Soylent (own it, tried it, don't like it). With that said, i've been on 70% DIY Soylent for ~9 months now. I couldn't live without the stuff. While i may not like official Soylent, i am ever grateful. It's been a huge boon to my life.
  - molloy 12y ago
    Could you share your recipe with me? Would love to hear it!
    - frewsxcv 12y ago
      In case you don't know: http://diy.soylent.me/ http://diy.soylent.me/
    - fizzbatter 12y ago
      I use PeopleChow, slightly altered to be around 66% Oats and 33% Masa. I prefer the taste of the larger oat percentage, and in general i just like that i am using oats, given the (potential?) health benefits. Furthermore, this mix really leaves my bloodsugar level feeling amazing. I really have to eat balanced meals, or i am left feeling woozy/shaky. I am left feeling almost entirely neutral after DIY Soylent (this specific variety of course). If anything, the only downside of it for me is the neutralness. Sometimes i am left a bit bored. Quite funny considering i started doing this because i had terrible eating habits due to time restrictions, and now i complain about having to fill time that would otherwise be left with food preparation and consumption hah. As a sidenote and unforeseen benefit of both DIY and Soylent - they make amazing road foods. When i am driving somewhere far away, i always mix up a bottle of my DIY. And i always bring a pouch of Official with me, for the way back (and random times when you might be stuck without food). Official Soylent plus a bottle of water and a blender bottle is a pretty nice meal in a pinch. Even if you don't want to eat the stuff regularly, i'd recommend it to anyway for road meals.
lambdacore 12y ago
I simply don't understand why someone would willingly give up one of life's great pleasures for consuming something resembling thinset. I'm glad Julia Child isn't alive to see this product.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- patmcc 12y ago
  I love food and eating, but there are certainly meals where I'm hungry and want to eat something, but don't have the time/energy to make something nutritious and complete (lunch is often this way for me). If Soylent was cheaper/available in Canada, I'd be tempted to have some on hand for that. As others in this thread have said - Soylent for breakfast and lunch but real food for dinner sounds pretty good, actually.
- mcdoug 12y ago
  I can tell you why, though I am very much against Soylent: convenience. My day is limited, such that I spend a significant portion of my free time cooking. If I had those 2 extra hours out of the 24 back, I feel I would be happeir and more productive. This is the same reason I wish I could get away with only sleeping 2-4 hours a day (I tried at one point to mess with sleep cycles; it was not fun). Why not Soylent? Because it will kill you. It's pretty simple, I think. I am a big fan of Michael Pollan, and his main argument is that even nutritionists and doctors, people who dedicate thier lives to studying nutrition, can't answer lots of the more complex questions: "Eat carbs! No, wait, eat protein! No, eat whatever you want, just get enough vitamins! Fast! Eat constantly!" What are the chances that a single non-nutritionist got it right? I think exactly 0, and I'm not willing to prove that theory wrong using my own body. Edit: ideal situation is where the human body naturally requires only 1-5 meals per week. Then I could easily see myself cooking a few gourmet meals. Alternative: be so filthy rich that you are either less busy or have a chef ready to cook for you any time of day.
  - frewsxcv 12y ago
    > Why not Soylent? Because it will kill you. Did you ever explain why Soylent will kill you?
yaddayadda 12y ago
>Due to U.S. food regulations, the exact makeup of the artificial flavors used in Soylent versions 1.0 - 1.3 were proprietary and not made available for our examination. I understand proprietary formulas wouldn't be made public, but they start off stating "Due to U.S. food regulations..." What food regulations would prevent ingredients being shared?
- berberous 12y ago
  If I had to guess, they were buying the flavoring from a third party, and the third party refused to disclose what was in their product to Soylent. In the U.S., for certain items all you have to disclose is either "Natural Flavors" or "Artificial Flavors". So it's not that food regulations prevent the ingredients from being shared, it's that they don't force you to share.
neosilky 12y ago
Damn, I'd love to try this. It's awesome!
trishume 12y ago
This looks like an awesome update! More convenience, more production, more fat, more science!
leshow 12y ago
Speaking as someone who has done contest prep diets for bodybuilders and regular folk.... there is huge individual variation in metabolic rate, and the existing calculators out there are all garbage at judging metabolic expenditure. the only accurate way to determine your caloric maintenance would be to track your food intake while you remain weight stable, and then substitute that with an isocaloric amount of soylent. They seem to gloss over this and blanket recommend 2000 cals per day
- frewsxcv 12y ago
  I think that all goes without saying. They aren't forcing their users to consume 2000 calories a day.
- adamwong246 12y ago
  If you exercise, eat more. If you are sedentary, eat less. But more to your point, that's really a criticism of the FDA guidelines, which recommends 2000 calories a day.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > But more to your point, that's really a criticism of the FDA guidelines, which recommends 2000 calories a day. The FDA guidelines do not recommend any number of calories a day. The % DV is based on the recommended amounts for a 2,000 calorie diet, and there is a standard, required, footnote noting this and that actual DVs vary by calorie needs.
    - frewsxcv 12y ago
      > The FDA guidelines do not recommend any number of calories a day. Soylent does not recommend any number of calories a day.
      - leshow 12y ago
        they sure do, the standard 'dosage' is 2k cals per day and they have a calculator (that you have to dig for) if you figure your requirements differ from the 2k cals per day. Nevermind the fact that these types of calculators of woefully inaccurate.
jack-r-abbit 12y ago
It will be nice to get rid of the oil bottle. (Although my kids love the empties for various play activities so I better stock up on them before I use up my current supply.) I also think the serving size fits into how I use the product. I usually go a couple days consuming only Soylent, and then have dinner one night and then back to only Soylent for a couple more days, and repeat. But either way, I usually only have a pint for each meal. So even if I have nothing but Soylent one day, I still only use 3/4 of a package. I never was able to drink an entire pouch in a day.
igl 12y ago
Why would you eat that instead of vegys? I think food scarcity is not real.
jimrandomh 12y ago
> Sodium and chloride levels have been increased slightly, to 1,640 mg and 2,300 mg, respectively. In the past, Soylent has not fully met the Institute of Medicine’s recommended sodium intake levels, due to the challenges of providing recommended daily sodium values without creating an unpleasantly salty flavor. > > Thanks to the addition of isomaltulose, Soylent 1.4 can now meet the IOM’s recommended levels for sodium and chloride while maintaining a balanced flavor profile. I should point out, here, that the IOM's recommendation is controversial, and that many would consider 1.64g sodium per day to still be inadequate. (Luckily, getting sodium elsewhere is easy.)
Mandatum 12y ago
International shipping already, come on!
Shorel 12y ago
A bit more keto than 1.3, better.

44 points by jbardnz 12y ago

Possibly stupid question: is the serving size meaningful? I thought the procedure was to make a day's worth all at once, and consume it throughout the day at whatever schedule you choose. Three servings of 670 vs. four servings of 500-- I don't see exactly what this changes.

GenerocUsername 12y ago
The labeling now more accurately reflects observed usage patterns. Sort of the opposite tactic of most companies who try to squeeze serving sizes to meet certain nutritional milestones despite having no basis in real-life usage of the product. I'm looking at you Pop-Tarts! No body eats one tart at a time.
- bufordsharkley 12y ago
  Two Pop-Tarts at once? I've never done that. ...But then again, I don't eat an awful lot, and that's why I was originally interested in the "revised serving size"-- I'm wondering what other Soylent drinkers do if their caloric input is usually (far) less than 2000 cal/day.
  - elmin 12y ago
    The packages inside the box each contain two tarts, somewhat suggesting that's how they expect them to be eaten.
    - lfowles 12y ago
      Wouldn't want one of them to go stale.
  - angersock 12y ago
    Put peanut butter between them after toasting them. Tastiest thing in the world. And dip it in milk or chocolate syrup.
    - justzisguyuknow 12y ago
      But don't forget to wrap it in bacon and deep fry it too.
  - ambrice 12y ago
    I think most soylent drinkers don't do it 100%. I drink it for breakfast and lunch, and do dinner with the family. So for me I do four servings over two days. I think they're finding that this a common pattern and updating the packaging to reflect it.
    - alexqgb 12y ago
      That's my pattern exactly, which I settled into very quickly. From what I understand from others, they had the same experience.
- goodJobWalrus 12y ago
  Or 1/3 of a muffin as a serving. Ridiculous, but a lot of people probably fall for it. It's mostly North American thing tho. In Europe, you usually get calories per 100 grams, so you can compare different foods to each other as well.
arh68 12y ago
A bag is about 2 days' worth, not one. I can't imagine going through an entire bag every day. Serving size is just labeling as you suspect; in my house, serving size is correlated with size of glass.

superobserver 12y ago

I've tried soylent for a week's worth. Unfortunately, my budget simply can't handle the load that this would cost me - even at a bulk order for one month. At half the current price, I'd be able to seriously consider it. Until then...

zwischenzug 12y ago
I thought exactly the same. I have a family of 4, and Solyent would be significantly more expensive than what we already spend. And we eat very healthily.
- angersock 12y ago
  Probably shouldn't feed Soylent to your kids--a lot of the nutritional needs are different depending on their age.
  - leshow 12y ago
    nutritional needs can also be very individual, in terms of things like total caloric intake, macronutrient requirements to 'feel optimal' does soylent recommend a blanket amount of product to everyone per day, with no variation in individual metabolism? or do the have some kind of induction period where they figure out your maintenance caloric intake and then give you enough soylent to satisfy your caloric needs?
    - yaddayadda 12y ago
      There's only one formulation, but the Soylent team has stated that the total volume consumed per day should be based on individual needs (e.g. a petite 5' individual should be consuming less overall than a muscular 6' individual). edit to add a source (many more are on the forums): > Then, a bit before midnight, I got a pair of e-mails from two of the folks at Soylent, one from founder Rob Rhinehart and one from customer service vice president Julio Miles. "We encourage Soylent beta testers to decide how much Soylent they require in a day," he said. Rhinehart had a similar message. They both tell me that I don't have to actually eat the entire bag of Soylent. From http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/ars-does-soylent-day-3-moderation-leads-to-actual-for-real-enjoyment/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/ars-does-soylent-day-...

dmamills 12y ago

I still don't understand this company, to me it just seems like a marketing/branding ploy sitting on top of Ensure.

adamwong246 12y ago
If you check the nutritional information for Soylent and compare it to Ensure, you'll see that Soylent is not at all like Ensure.
- copperx 12y ago
  Ensure + a multivitamin. Yeah.
  - adamwong246 12y ago
    That is absolutely incorrect. Soylent is designed to be a meal replacement in the realest sense. Rosa Labs is constantly tweaking the formula for optimum results. To compare it to a weightloss shake and overdoses of vitamins is rather reductive of the work done by Rosa Labs. If you think you can do better, go ahead and try. I tried to make my own with disastrous results.
  - fizzbatter 12y ago
    Okay, i have a heavy urge to call your nonsense FUD - but to give you of the benefit of the doubt, why do you think it is that? Have you compared the two nutritionally speaking? If so, what led you to believe they were so similar? To me the differences are striking - unbelievably so. So much, that you come off as a troll. Please inform me otherwise.
- dmamills 12y ago
  I whole heartedly disagree. It really doesn't look that different from Ensure Complete. (Ensure's product that targets the exact same market) They contain almost the exact same vitamins and minerals. Considering the differences in recommended portion sizes I'd say they are pretty much identical. http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0421/5993/t/14/assets/files_Complete-Soylent-Nutrition-Facts-1p4.pdf?2850945328223203203 http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0421/5993/t/14/assets/files... http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-shakes http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-shakes

rnernento 12y ago

Is anybody actually living off of this stuff? After following them for a while I got the impression they were a glorified Ensure and gave up.

adamwong246 12y ago
I do. I eat Soylent for lunch and breakfast.
- copperx 12y ago
  Why Soylent and not Ensure?
  - adamwong246 12y ago
    They are very different products. Like I said before, compare the nutritional information for the 2 and you'll see they nothing alike.
  - frewsxcv 12y ago
    https://www.reddit.com/r/soylent/wiki/faq#wiki_how_is_this_different_from.. https://www.reddit.com/r/soylent/wiki/faq#wiki_how_is_this_d....
  - fizzbatter 12y ago
    Because if you look at the nutritional facts Ensure is no where near what Soylent is, nor is it designed to be. Not only is it missing the majority of the daily requirement percentages (partially or entirely), but of the 11% of your daily carbs that it does give you, literally half of that is sugar. Sugar. Why you think Ensure is something you can live off of, is beyond me.
GigabyteCoin 12y ago
I certainly couldn't. I barely managed to swallow the grittiness of the mixture after following their instructions and shaking up my first batch a few months ago. I even put it in my vitamix on high for a while and it still tasted like undisolved powders sitting in the bottom of a jug of water. I ended up throwing out the remainder of the first mixture, and the rest of my week's supply has been sitting in storage ever since. Apparently there is a secondary market out there where dissapointed early adopters can sell their soylent to others, which speaks volumes about it's quality/taste/texture... that people who waited over a year for delivery can't even finish the stuff and want to pawn it off to somebody else. [0] [0] http://motherboard.vice.com/read/i-waited-five-months-for-my-soylent-and-now-i-cant-get-rid-of-it http://motherboard.vice.com/read/i-waited-five-months-for-my...

schintan 12y ago

Soylent seems to be the only food product following software versioning.

adamwong246 12y ago

For all the naysayers... I eat it, I love it, I'll never give it up. Soylent is awesome and I'm stoked to see v1.4 waiting on my doorstep. Please, don't knock it till you try it OR at least do a little bit of research. Soylentarians are bombarded daily by the uninformed opinions of FoodBarbies and the like. At least do some research before you decide to tear down the idea.

fizzbatter 12y ago
And for a little more opinions, I personally dislike official Soylent (own it, tried it, don't like it). With that said, i've been on 70% DIY Soylent for ~9 months now. I couldn't live without the stuff. While i may not like official Soylent, i am ever grateful. It's been a huge boon to my life.
- molloy 12y ago
  Could you share your recipe with me? Would love to hear it!
  - frewsxcv 12y ago
    In case you don't know: http://diy.soylent.me/ http://diy.soylent.me/
  - fizzbatter 12y ago
    I use PeopleChow, slightly altered to be around 66% Oats and 33% Masa. I prefer the taste of the larger oat percentage, and in general i just like that i am using oats, given the (potential?) health benefits. Furthermore, this mix really leaves my bloodsugar level feeling amazing. I really have to eat balanced meals, or i am left feeling woozy/shaky. I am left feeling almost entirely neutral after DIY Soylent (this specific variety of course). If anything, the only downside of it for me is the neutralness. Sometimes i am left a bit bored. Quite funny considering i started doing this because i had terrible eating habits due to time restrictions, and now i complain about having to fill time that would otherwise be left with food preparation and consumption hah. As a sidenote and unforeseen benefit of both DIY and Soylent - they make amazing road foods. When i am driving somewhere far away, i always mix up a bottle of my DIY. And i always bring a pouch of Official with me, for the way back (and random times when you might be stuck without food). Official Soylent plus a bottle of water and a blender bottle is a pretty nice meal in a pinch. Even if you don't want to eat the stuff regularly, i'd recommend it to anyway for road meals.

lambdacore 12y ago

I simply don't understand why someone would willingly give up one of life's great pleasures for consuming something resembling thinset. I'm glad Julia Child isn't alive to see this product.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
patmcc 12y ago
I love food and eating, but there are certainly meals where I'm hungry and want to eat something, but don't have the time/energy to make something nutritious and complete (lunch is often this way for me). If Soylent was cheaper/available in Canada, I'd be tempted to have some on hand for that. As others in this thread have said - Soylent for breakfast and lunch but real food for dinner sounds pretty good, actually.
mcdoug 12y ago
I can tell you why, though I am very much against Soylent: convenience. My day is limited, such that I spend a significant portion of my free time cooking. If I had those 2 extra hours out of the 24 back, I feel I would be happeir and more productive. This is the same reason I wish I could get away with only sleeping 2-4 hours a day (I tried at one point to mess with sleep cycles; it was not fun). Why not Soylent? Because it will kill you. It's pretty simple, I think. I am a big fan of Michael Pollan, and his main argument is that even nutritionists and doctors, people who dedicate thier lives to studying nutrition, can't answer lots of the more complex questions: "Eat carbs! No, wait, eat protein! No, eat whatever you want, just get enough vitamins! Fast! Eat constantly!" What are the chances that a single non-nutritionist got it right? I think exactly 0, and I'm not willing to prove that theory wrong using my own body. Edit: ideal situation is where the human body naturally requires only 1-5 meals per week. Then I could easily see myself cooking a few gourmet meals. Alternative: be so filthy rich that you are either less busy or have a chef ready to cook for you any time of day.
- frewsxcv 12y ago
  > Why not Soylent? Because it will kill you. Did you ever explain why Soylent will kill you?

yaddayadda 12y ago

>Due to U.S. food regulations, the exact makeup of the artificial flavors used in Soylent versions 1.0 - 1.3 were proprietary and not made available for our examination. I understand proprietary formulas wouldn't be made public, but they start off stating "Due to U.S. food regulations..." What food regulations would prevent ingredients being shared?

berberous 12y ago
If I had to guess, they were buying the flavoring from a third party, and the third party refused to disclose what was in their product to Soylent. In the U.S., for certain items all you have to disclose is either "Natural Flavors" or "Artificial Flavors". So it's not that food regulations prevent the ingredients from being shared, it's that they don't force you to share.

neosilky 12y ago

Damn, I'd love to try this. It's awesome!

trishume 12y ago

This looks like an awesome update! More convenience, more production, more fat, more science!

leshow 12y ago

Speaking as someone who has done contest prep diets for bodybuilders and regular folk.... there is huge individual variation in metabolic rate, and the existing calculators out there are all garbage at judging metabolic expenditure. the only accurate way to determine your caloric maintenance would be to track your food intake while you remain weight stable, and then substitute that with an isocaloric amount of soylent. They seem to gloss over this and blanket recommend 2000 cals per day

frewsxcv 12y ago
I think that all goes without saying. They aren't forcing their users to consume 2000 calories a day.
adamwong246 12y ago
If you exercise, eat more. If you are sedentary, eat less. But more to your point, that's really a criticism of the FDA guidelines, which recommends 2000 calories a day.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > But more to your point, that's really a criticism of the FDA guidelines, which recommends 2000 calories a day. The FDA guidelines do not recommend any number of calories a day. The % DV is based on the recommended amounts for a 2,000 calorie diet, and there is a standard, required, footnote noting this and that actual DVs vary by calorie needs.
  - frewsxcv 12y ago
    > The FDA guidelines do not recommend any number of calories a day. Soylent does not recommend any number of calories a day.
    - leshow 12y ago
      they sure do, the standard 'dosage' is 2k cals per day and they have a calculator (that you have to dig for) if you figure your requirements differ from the 2k cals per day. Nevermind the fact that these types of calculators of woefully inaccurate.

jack-r-abbit 12y ago

It will be nice to get rid of the oil bottle. (Although my kids love the empties for various play activities so I better stock up on them before I use up my current supply.) I also think the serving size fits into how I use the product. I usually go a couple days consuming only Soylent, and then have dinner one night and then back to only Soylent for a couple more days, and repeat. But either way, I usually only have a pint for each meal. So even if I have nothing but Soylent one day, I still only use 3/4 of a package. I never was able to drink an entire pouch in a day.

igl 12y ago

Why would you eat that instead of vegys? I think food scarcity is not real.

jimrandomh 12y ago

> Sodium and chloride levels have been increased slightly, to 1,640 mg and 2,300 mg, respectively. In the past, Soylent has not fully met the Institute of Medicine’s recommended sodium intake levels, due to the challenges of providing recommended daily sodium values without creating an unpleasantly salty flavor. > > Thanks to the addition of isomaltulose, Soylent 1.4 can now meet the IOM’s recommended levels for sodium and chloride while maintaining a balanced flavor profile. I should point out, here, that the IOM's recommendation is controversial, and that many would consider 1.64g sodium per day to still be inadequate. (Luckily, getting sodium elsewhere is easy.)

Mandatum 12y ago

International shipping already, come on!

Shorel 12y ago

A bit more keto than 1.3, better.