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Good for him. Whatever floats your boat. Personally for me it sounds horrible. Cooking isn't that bad - in fact it gives me some pleasure. And I enjoy different

Good for him. Whatever floats your boat. Personally for me it sounds horrible. Cooking isn't that bad - in fact it gives me some pleasure. And I enjoy different flavours, textures, in fact I enjoy eating. So I don't really understand, but I'm not going to force my tastes on others.

nkozyra 11y ago
It plays into a relatively new desire for all things quantified and automated. It does this - it allows for granular control over input, but it removes all of the inherent joy of eating. It's not a good trade-off for most people, but appeals to experimenters. The only appeal for me would be removing the time constraints of cooking or dining out. To be honest, cooking is a huge time sink and dining out isn't a whole lot better.
- Kalium 11y ago
  Personally, I found that the granular control is huge for dieting.
  - nkozyra 11y ago
    Of course. But it doesn't preclude eating, yknow, food.
- batbomb 11y ago
  Considering many people on this HN are, well, hackers, and can spend a ton of time coding, optimizing, etc... often even evangelizing coding for everyday people, I feel like this is the lazy answer. Which is fine; there's nothing inherently wrong with being lazy or ignorant about cooking. But evangelism about Soylent freeing up ones time is silly, all things considered. It's not for everyone, it's not for families, it's not even formulated for women, the elderly, children, or generally for people with nutritional needs that deviate from those of a 30 year old male. It's for the lazy dude who doesn't want to cook.
  - Retra 11y ago
    Not wanting to cook doesn't make you lazy. There are a billion interesting things to do in the world.
Retra 11y ago
Pretty much everyone enjoys eating. That's not why you do something like this. Enjoyment of food can be a social, entertaining, and ceremonial activity. But eating as in 'consuming food for nutrients' is a biological necessity. Thus they are completely separate goals. There's no reason a singular activity should be forced to perform two completely unrelated goals. If you want nutrients flavor doesn't matter. If you want flavor nutrients don't matter. You could choose what you want, when you want, and do it as efficiently and cheaply as possible.
meric 11y ago
I usually eat one "normal" meal a day for lunch, and obtain the rest of my kilojoules from drinking 1L tub of yoghurt for dinner. Perhaps I could improve my diet going over to soylent...
morganvachon 11y ago
Years before Soylent was created, I tried the old Slim-Fast diet shake plan (a shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, and a healthy dinner). It was basically vitamin/mineral laced chocolate or vanilla milk, and while it tasted decent at first, I couldn't get over the monotony of it. I tried it for a month and I did lose about 15 pounds during that time, but the utter blandness of it drove me back to standard food and the weight came right back. I love to cook, and there's just something about the crunch of roasted veggies, the savory taste of grilled meats, and the warmth of a good stew or soup that I had to have. Call it a "first world problem", but living on sludge, even good tasting sludge, isn't truly living for me. Of course, at 37 years old I'm overweight, diabetic, and at risk of heart disease so I have to do something. I've already started on my goal to be a healthy weight and have my blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol under control without medication by the end of the year. First step: Halve my caloric intake, not by starving myself but simply by reducing portion sizes. I don't have to fill my plate to get enough calories for the day; half a plate gives me enough energy and nutrients in a meal. Step two is walking at least a mile a day, gradually upgrading that to 2 miles, then jogging 2 miles a day once I've dropped enough weight that my knees won't suffer. If I make it to my weight and health goals by the end of the year, I'll start working on building up some muscle to help keep the fat at bay at my sedentary job. It sucks being not quite 40 and feeling a bit over 60. Hell, my dad is in far better shape than I am!

nkozyra 11y ago

It plays into a relatively new desire for all things quantified and automated. It does this - it allows for granular control over input, but it removes all of the inherent joy of eating. It's not a good trade-off for most people, but appeals to experimenters. The only appeal for me would be removing the time constraints of cooking or dining out. To be honest, cooking is a huge time sink and dining out isn't a whole lot better.

Kalium 11y ago
Personally, I found that the granular control is huge for dieting.
- nkozyra 11y ago
  Of course. But it doesn't preclude eating, yknow, food.
batbomb 11y ago
Considering many people on this HN are, well, hackers, and can spend a ton of time coding, optimizing, etc... often even evangelizing coding for everyday people, I feel like this is the lazy answer. Which is fine; there's nothing inherently wrong with being lazy or ignorant about cooking. But evangelism about Soylent freeing up ones time is silly, all things considered. It's not for everyone, it's not for families, it's not even formulated for women, the elderly, children, or generally for people with nutritional needs that deviate from those of a 30 year old male. It's for the lazy dude who doesn't want to cook.
- Retra 11y ago
  Not wanting to cook doesn't make you lazy. There are a billion interesting things to do in the world.

Retra 11y ago

Pretty much everyone enjoys eating. That's not why you do something like this. Enjoyment of food can be a social, entertaining, and ceremonial activity. But eating as in 'consuming food for nutrients' is a biological necessity. Thus they are completely separate goals. There's no reason a singular activity should be forced to perform two completely unrelated goals. If you want nutrients flavor doesn't matter. If you want flavor nutrients don't matter. You could choose what you want, when you want, and do it as efficiently and cheaply as possible.

meric 11y ago

I usually eat one "normal" meal a day for lunch, and obtain the rest of my kilojoules from drinking 1L tub of yoghurt for dinner. Perhaps I could improve my diet going over to soylent...

morganvachon 11y ago

Years before Soylent was created, I tried the old Slim-Fast diet shake plan (a shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, and a healthy dinner). It was basically vitamin/mineral laced chocolate or vanilla milk, and while it tasted decent at first, I couldn't get over the monotony of it. I tried it for a month and I did lose about 15 pounds during that time, but the utter blandness of it drove me back to standard food and the weight came right back. I love to cook, and there's just something about the crunch of roasted veggies, the savory taste of grilled meats, and the warmth of a good stew or soup that I had to have. Call it a "first world problem", but living on sludge, even good tasting sludge, isn't truly living for me. Of course, at 37 years old I'm overweight, diabetic, and at risk of heart disease so I have to do something. I've already started on my goal to be a healthy weight and have my blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol under control without medication by the end of the year. First step: Halve my caloric intake, not by starving myself but simply by reducing portion sizes. I don't have to fill my plate to get enough calories for the day; half a plate gives me enough energy and nutrients in a meal. Step two is walking at least a mile a day, gradually upgrading that to 2 miles, then jogging 2 miles a day once I've dropped enough weight that my knees won't suffer. If I make it to my weight and health goals by the end of the year, I'll start working on building up some muscle to help keep the fat at bay at my sedentary job. It sucks being not quite 40 and feeling a bit over 60. Hell, my dad is in far better shape than I am!