6 ms·

Silicon Valley gets a taste for food

50 points by deegles 12y ago

amelius 12y ago
Is there a working theory yet on how taste and smell work? (Can they be decomposed like the RGB triplets of vision, or the frequencies of sound?)
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- svachalek 12y ago
  Taste comes down to combinations of 5 basic flavors, but smell is very complex and as far as I know, not well understood. The actual experience of food however, combines both of these as well as temperature, texture, color, and more.
Toast_ 12y ago
beyond meat's patent is such a fucking joke. https://www.google.com/patents/US20120093994 https://www.google.com/patents/US20120093994
- pyrois 12y ago
  How is that a real patent? As far as I can tell (and I'm not a lawyer), they're patenting mixing protein, carbohydrates, fats, and water in specific ratios to make a meat substitute. Why isn't every veggie burger ever prior art in this case?
  - jmedefind 12y ago
    I showed it to a former patent examiner. It's just an application for a patent. It was rejected on 2/20/15. Now it's just kept around as prior art. They also requested and then denied a refund on their filing fees apparently. Cause it's a really stupid patent.
    - gyc 12y ago
      Well no not exactly. Yes, a final rejection was issued by the patent office on 2/24/15, and the applicant still has up to 6 months to respond to the final rejection or to file an appeal. With respect to the request for refund, the applicant requested a refund of extension fees and excess claim fees. The refund for extension fees was granted but the refund for excess claim fees was denied. None of this has anything to do with the merits of the patent application itself. To check on the status of this patent application, go to http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair, enter the captcha, and then enter the patent application number (13/272,825). Select the Image File Wrapper tab to view the various documents relating to the prosecution of the patent application.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
Egregore 12y ago
I happy that they're not only working on taste, but also try to add all the healthy nutrients to the product.
liveoneggs 12y ago
If only SV could first get a few decent restaurants they might not feel the need to invent industrial chemical food.
Vraxx 12y ago
I've been eating soylent for "utility" meals for about 2 weeks now and I couldn't be happier with the product. I usually eat one meal a day for the satisfaction of eating food, but it's nice not having to deal with preparation for the breakfast or lunch at work. This article is even slightly outdated as soylent 1.4 was released a couple of weeks ago.
- jkachmar 12y ago
  I actually just got my first batch of Soylent this week, and I'm cutting out 'traditional' food for 2 weeks as an experiment. I've only been eating it for about a day and a half now, but changing from eating discrete meals to sipping on a cup of Soylent continuously throughout the day is very different. Have you noticed any psychological changes in how you view food since starting?
  - plus 12y ago
    I have been using Soylent as my primary source of nutrition since November. I will generally have around 3 non-Soylent meals a week. Part of the reason I started Soylent was for financial considerations, as I am a graduate student on a relatively low-paying stipend. In terms of how I view food, I am less willing to go off Soylent for foods that I do not enjoy considerably. Whereas before I would eat at Subway or McDonalds on a weekly basis, since starting Soylent I haven't eaten fast food in months. On the other hand, I order a nice greasy pizza from a local pizzeria every couple of weeks, which is more frequent than before. I never really cooked before, and Soylent is considerably cheaper than eating out for every meal, so I have more food money to spend on things I genuinely enjoy. As Rob says in this article, I find myself able to separate the feeling of hunger from the desire to enjoy food. When I have specific cravings or when a meal is part of social interactions, I have no qualms about eating "real" food. But when I'm alone and hungry for nothing in particular, why would I eat something that's more expensive and less healthy than the Soylent I already have sitting in my fridge?
  - datashovel 12y ago
    The most noticeable thing to me is, before I started using Soylent as meal replacement, I noticed my brain would shift attention and in a way interrupt me to say "you need to go eat now, you're hungry". These days I don't notice the interruptions as often and when they do happen they're not as significant. Instead it's more like "Ok, I'm done with that task, what should I do now. Oh yeah, I haven't eaten lunch yet..."
jobu 12y ago
The hamburger substitute sounds promising, but if the point of this is to create protein efficiently then this doesn't make any sense to me: "Mayonnaise made without eggs that is creamy and smooth." Eggs are one of the most efficient sources of protein there is.
- chaosphere2112 12y ago
  Right, but (at least in theory) the total economic/environmental cost of growing the plants is lower than that of raising the chickens to produce the eggs.
  - wavefunction 12y ago
    Do you have information on the environmental cost of growing the plants vs eggs? I would agree that factory farming of eggs has a terrible effect but it seems like on a small scale it wouldn't necessarily be true.
    - hamax 12y ago
      True, but making mayo for 300M Americans will never be small scale.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      It takes ~2.4 kg of feed to grow ~1 kg of (cooked) eggs. (this is called the feed conversion ratio) Eating vegetarian gives the baseline for comparison, a conversion ratio of ~1:1 (I think it is better to not claim exactly 1, animals eat different things than humans and maybe do better with extracting value from fiber). The details of a given process for making a lower compromise meat replacement would have to be considered to calculate the equivalent measure. I don't think it would even be 2:1, but that's just a guess.
- hedning 12y ago
  > Eggs are one of the most efficient sources of protein there is. Eggs aren't even one of the most efficient animal based sources of protein [1]. When comparing the energy input in terms of fossil fuels against the energy output in terms of protein broilers have a 4:1 ratio, while eggs have a ratio of 40:1. The same value for corn is 2.2:1. (which goes up to 3.1 when accounting for bioavailability). Looking at total caloric energy input against output isn't any better (worse for the broiler, better for the eggs). We here get a 6:1 conversion factor for eggs, and 9:1 for broilers [2]. [1] Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/660S.full http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/660S.full [2] Land, irrigation water, greenhouse gas, and reactive nitrogen burdens of meat, eggs, and dairy production in the United States: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/11996/F4.expansion.html http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/11996/F4.expansion.html
mc32 12y ago
What's interesting about this tack is that it would go against the anti-corporate anti-big food movements which have steadily grown since the mid seventies and had taken root vigorously in the recession and expressed itself with people cooking at home more, cooking from scratch more. A belief that the closer to the source the healthier the food. But this is an attempt to figure out how to feed a growing world cheaply (pocket-wise and ecology-wise) which small local organic farming would have trouble achieving, presumably.
shanev 12y ago
Silicon Valley needs to understand the food domain and it's environmental impact better before investing in these processed food startups. We already have the most efficient machine that converts plant matter into meat. It's called a cow. Cows and other ruminants have evolved over millions, if not billions of years, to make this process super efficient using just solar energy (photosynthesis) and water. Who are we to think we can do better in a few years in the lab? Have these companies thought about the environmental impact of growing more row crops to create this fake meat and eggs? Row crops destroy ecosystems and reduce topsoil. It's also a system that sounds like it would need lots of logistics and energy to operate. Also it's not sustainable. Silicon Valley should instead fund organizations looking to work with nature to create the future of food. Companies like Summer Technologies [1] are doing the right thing by acknowledging nature and creating technology that empowers sustainable agriculture that scales. With the right tools, these kind of farms can be more productive than massive industrial farms [2], feed the growing population of the world [3], while improving the quality of land and reducing CO2. It's a win-win-win if I've ever seen one. This article also fails to mention anything about how the dangers of meat are greatly over exaggerated and not corroborated by modern science. [4] And what's wrong with eggs? They're one of the most nutritious foods out there with healthy omega-3 fats and a variety of minerals that are sorely lacking in modern processed food diets. [1] http://www.summertechnologies.com http://www.summertechnologies.com [2] Soil Carbon Cowboys: http://www.carbonnationmovie.com/about/clips/225-new-video-soil-carbon-cowboys http://www.carbonnationmovie.com/about/clips/225-new-video-s... [3] http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world... [4] http://chriskresser.com/red-meat-it-does-a-body-good http://chriskresser.com/red-meat-it-does-a-body-good
- ethanbond 12y ago
  I don't see any evidence that we have "the most efficient machine" and that it's a cow. Evolution is incredibly slow, and humans outpacing it (using their brains) is exactly why we're at the top of the food chain. Who are we to think we can't do better in the lab, when almost every worthwhile human invention has been precisely that – beating evolution at its own game? I do agree with your initial premise though, we should be very careful and spend a lot of time considering the environmental impact. It's also very easy to say that as a well-off westerner with abundant access to food, though ;)

50 points by deegles 12y ago

Is there a working theory yet on how taste and smell work? (Can they be decomposed like the RGB triplets of vision, or the frequencies of sound?)

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
svachalek 12y ago
Taste comes down to combinations of 5 basic flavors, but smell is very complex and as far as I know, not well understood. The actual experience of food however, combines both of these as well as temperature, texture, color, and more.

Toast_ 12y ago

beyond meat's patent is such a fucking joke. https://www.google.com/patents/US20120093994 https://www.google.com/patents/US20120093994

pyrois 12y ago
How is that a real patent? As far as I can tell (and I'm not a lawyer), they're patenting mixing protein, carbohydrates, fats, and water in specific ratios to make a meat substitute. Why isn't every veggie burger ever prior art in this case?
- jmedefind 12y ago
  I showed it to a former patent examiner. It's just an application for a patent. It was rejected on 2/20/15. Now it's just kept around as prior art. They also requested and then denied a refund on their filing fees apparently. Cause it's a really stupid patent.
  - gyc 12y ago
    Well no not exactly. Yes, a final rejection was issued by the patent office on 2/24/15, and the applicant still has up to 6 months to respond to the final rejection or to file an appeal. With respect to the request for refund, the applicant requested a refund of extension fees and excess claim fees. The refund for extension fees was granted but the refund for excess claim fees was denied. None of this has anything to do with the merits of the patent application itself. To check on the status of this patent application, go to http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair, enter the captcha, and then enter the patent application number (13/272,825). Select the Image File Wrapper tab to view the various documents relating to the prosecution of the patent application.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

Egregore 12y ago

I happy that they're not only working on taste, but also try to add all the healthy nutrients to the product.

liveoneggs 12y ago

If only SV could first get a few decent restaurants they might not feel the need to invent industrial chemical food.

Vraxx 12y ago

I've been eating soylent for "utility" meals for about 2 weeks now and I couldn't be happier with the product. I usually eat one meal a day for the satisfaction of eating food, but it's nice not having to deal with preparation for the breakfast or lunch at work. This article is even slightly outdated as soylent 1.4 was released a couple of weeks ago.

jkachmar 12y ago
I actually just got my first batch of Soylent this week, and I'm cutting out 'traditional' food for 2 weeks as an experiment. I've only been eating it for about a day and a half now, but changing from eating discrete meals to sipping on a cup of Soylent continuously throughout the day is very different. Have you noticed any psychological changes in how you view food since starting?
- plus 12y ago
  I have been using Soylent as my primary source of nutrition since November. I will generally have around 3 non-Soylent meals a week. Part of the reason I started Soylent was for financial considerations, as I am a graduate student on a relatively low-paying stipend. In terms of how I view food, I am less willing to go off Soylent for foods that I do not enjoy considerably. Whereas before I would eat at Subway or McDonalds on a weekly basis, since starting Soylent I haven't eaten fast food in months. On the other hand, I order a nice greasy pizza from a local pizzeria every couple of weeks, which is more frequent than before. I never really cooked before, and Soylent is considerably cheaper than eating out for every meal, so I have more food money to spend on things I genuinely enjoy. As Rob says in this article, I find myself able to separate the feeling of hunger from the desire to enjoy food. When I have specific cravings or when a meal is part of social interactions, I have no qualms about eating "real" food. But when I'm alone and hungry for nothing in particular, why would I eat something that's more expensive and less healthy than the Soylent I already have sitting in my fridge?
- datashovel 12y ago
  The most noticeable thing to me is, before I started using Soylent as meal replacement, I noticed my brain would shift attention and in a way interrupt me to say "you need to go eat now, you're hungry". These days I don't notice the interruptions as often and when they do happen they're not as significant. Instead it's more like "Ok, I'm done with that task, what should I do now. Oh yeah, I haven't eaten lunch yet..."

jobu 12y ago

The hamburger substitute sounds promising, but if the point of this is to create protein efficiently then this doesn't make any sense to me: "Mayonnaise made without eggs that is creamy and smooth." Eggs are one of the most efficient sources of protein there is.

chaosphere2112 12y ago
Right, but (at least in theory) the total economic/environmental cost of growing the plants is lower than that of raising the chickens to produce the eggs.
- wavefunction 12y ago
  Do you have information on the environmental cost of growing the plants vs eggs? I would agree that factory farming of eggs has a terrible effect but it seems like on a small scale it wouldn't necessarily be true.
  - hamax 12y ago
    True, but making mayo for 300M Americans will never be small scale.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    It takes ~2.4 kg of feed to grow ~1 kg of (cooked) eggs. (this is called the feed conversion ratio) Eating vegetarian gives the baseline for comparison, a conversion ratio of ~1:1 (I think it is better to not claim exactly 1, animals eat different things than humans and maybe do better with extracting value from fiber). The details of a given process for making a lower compromise meat replacement would have to be considered to calculate the equivalent measure. I don't think it would even be 2:1, but that's just a guess.
hedning 12y ago
> Eggs are one of the most efficient sources of protein there is. Eggs aren't even one of the most efficient animal based sources of protein [1]. When comparing the energy input in terms of fossil fuels against the energy output in terms of protein broilers have a 4:1 ratio, while eggs have a ratio of 40:1. The same value for corn is 2.2:1. (which goes up to 3.1 when accounting for bioavailability). Looking at total caloric energy input against output isn't any better (worse for the broiler, better for the eggs). We here get a 6:1 conversion factor for eggs, and 9:1 for broilers [2]. [1] Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/660S.full http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/3/660S.full [2] Land, irrigation water, greenhouse gas, and reactive nitrogen burdens of meat, eggs, and dairy production in the United States: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/11996/F4.expansion.html http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/11996/F4.expansion.html

mc32 12y ago

What's interesting about this tack is that it would go against the anti-corporate anti-big food movements which have steadily grown since the mid seventies and had taken root vigorously in the recession and expressed itself with people cooking at home more, cooking from scratch more. A belief that the closer to the source the healthier the food. But this is an attempt to figure out how to feed a growing world cheaply (pocket-wise and ecology-wise) which small local organic farming would have trouble achieving, presumably.

shanev 12y ago

Silicon Valley needs to understand the food domain and it's environmental impact better before investing in these processed food startups. We already have the most efficient machine that converts plant matter into meat. It's called a cow. Cows and other ruminants have evolved over millions, if not billions of years, to make this process super efficient using just solar energy (photosynthesis) and water. Who are we to think we can do better in a few years in the lab? Have these companies thought about the environmental impact of growing more row crops to create this fake meat and eggs? Row crops destroy ecosystems and reduce topsoil. It's also a system that sounds like it would need lots of logistics and energy to operate. Also it's not sustainable. Silicon Valley should instead fund organizations looking to work with nature to create the future of food. Companies like Summer Technologies [1] are doing the right thing by acknowledging nature and creating technology that empowers sustainable agriculture that scales. With the right tools, these kind of farms can be more productive than massive industrial farms [2], feed the growing population of the world [3], while improving the quality of land and reducing CO2. It's a win-win-win if I've ever seen one. This article also fails to mention anything about how the dangers of meat are greatly over exaggerated and not corroborated by modern science. [4] And what's wrong with eggs? They're one of the most nutritious foods out there with healthy omega-3 fats and a variety of minerals that are sorely lacking in modern processed food diets. [1] http://www.summertechnologies.com http://www.summertechnologies.com [2] Soil Carbon Cowboys: http://www.carbonnationmovie.com/about/clips/225-new-video-soil-carbon-cowboys http://www.carbonnationmovie.com/about/clips/225-new-video-s... [3] http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world... [4] http://chriskresser.com/red-meat-it-does-a-body-good http://chriskresser.com/red-meat-it-does-a-body-good

ethanbond 12y ago
I don't see any evidence that we have "the most efficient machine" and that it's a cow. Evolution is incredibly slow, and humans outpacing it (using their brains) is exactly why we're at the top of the food chain. Who are we to think we can't do better in the lab, when almost every worthwhile human invention has been precisely that – beating evolution at its own game? I do agree with your initial premise though, we should be very careful and spend a lot of time considering the environmental impact. It's also very easy to say that as a well-off westerner with abundant access to food, though ;)