Is it to satisfy your hunger in the afternoon of midday as a snack? If so why not just buy granola or protein bars that at least have some flavor?
As for other bars, I suspect you will find that most energy bars are not healthy at all. Granola bars are mostly sugar/carbs. The only bar that I know that competes with Soylent in terms of being low-carb, high-fiber, high-protein is Quest. Like Soylent, they use isomalto-oligosaccharides (a whole lot of fiber), just more of it. Quest uses mostly natural sweeteners such as stevia and erythritol, though some contain sucralose. The average Quest bar (60g) has just around 5g carbohydrates.
that's the whole thing that Soylent is selling, convenience.
Do it once a quarter, and you'll spend less time on that than opening Soylent bars.
The secret is just... freeze them. I find the best results come by sandwiching each layer of them between wax paper, and then wrapping the whole thing up and storing in the freezer, separated out by 1 weeks. Just take your 1 week batch out at a time, pop in the fridge, and you're set.
EDIT: I just want to add, it's a real GIGO thing; the better and tastier your base ingredients, the better the result... especially with nuts and chocolate.
Your mental health, ability to work, and happiness are all impacted pretty heavily by your diet. Lacking some nutrients can increase depression, lacking others can result in always feeling tired and sluggish, etc.
The reason I'm wary of soylent is not because I doubt that I could live on it (many people have lived for fairly significant durations on basically only soylent), but because I worry it would overall decrease my quality of life. Saving time eating is great, but it's not worth feeling like shit the rest of the time.
I'm not looking for a "food replacement" though. I just want something that I can eat for lunch because I often forget to eat anything at all (also with breakfast, but that's more of not wanting to waste the time on making a good breakfast).
Soylent seems like a great choice vs nothing half of the time. It's also better than me just eating rasin bran for the 20th morning in a row.
It takes about 5 minutes to grill an egg or boil one. If you soak oatmeal overnight, it takes about 10 minutes to fully cook. You can make toast or hashbrowns in about that amount of time as well.
My routine is often start heating some food, then go brush my teeth while it's heating, so no time wasted.
Small condiments can add a lot of variety -- buy a tub of yogurt, cream, cheese, salmon slices, sausage, etc., then just mix and match. You won't have to have the same meal twice in a week.
And if cooking is simply too much of a hassle, why not just buy some apples, oranges, or whatever fruit suits your fancy, and just eat it whole? Pretty sure everyone agrees that fruit is healthy, and they're cheap.
It seems funny that people are coming out of the woodwork to tell me alternatives to Soylent like its some kind of toxic waste. I might be horribly wrong, but I'm pretty sure that a soylent shake is going to be nutritionally better for me than an orange in the mornings...
I don't claim to have any answers on this, mind! And I'm certainly not perfect about any of this (said my waistline, peevishly), but actually thinking about this stuff has made me spend more time taking care of myself. And I actively wonder if attempted solve-everythings like Soylent are not a step backwards for us as people, instead of mere consumers. The stuff you don't want to do with regard to going to the store and so on is so very, very trivial, and yet actually engages you with the ephemera of your world in a way that I would suggest meditating on before discarding.
For example:
https://discourse.soylent.com/t/phytonutrients-and-all-the-o...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistant_starch
http://www.webmd.com/diet/guide/phytonutrients-faq#1
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4287321/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26757793
There are all sorts of compounds in natural foods that science hasn't even begun to analyze in depth, but which humans have been eating and coevolved with for millions of years. What's the effect if you take them all out of your diet completely?
Soylent's strategy, understandably, is to put in all the things that we think we already understand and know we need, but what if that's only 10% of what the body needs long term? How do you quantify the risk from unknown unknowns?
Also, the comparison isn't really between Soylent and oranges alone, but Soylent and a normal balanced diet, of which fruit is one component.
You did suggest a piece of fruit as a replacement breakfast, though. I agree with you in the large, but I think you left this barn door open a bit. =)
https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/212769503-Glycemic...
http://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/glycem...
Many people don't really agree that fruit is healthy, though, given how much sugar is in it; I personally avoid it, because I feel like hell when I have it.
Some people don't afford to spend one hour for this, especially in the morning, and some people find 20 minutes of mandatory cleanup exhausting; both physically and mentally.
I love to cook and to eat good food. I cook real, elaborate, dinner at least 3-4 times a week. However, I can't affort to spend one hour every day for breakfast. That being said, Soylent is... awful. For me the alternative is not to eat soylent for breakfast, but to skip breakfast.
Eating time...well, that's a personal thing. =) I do WFH, so I am more relaxed on that, but I tend to scarf food down, so, eh.
Well, I can't just do that. See my response to smallnamespace: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12670789
Yesterday I made roast beef for dinner (http://i.imgur.com/b2ZBblD.jpg), and after I finished eating cleanup took 70 minutes (I measure these things), more than the actual hands-on time I spent preparing the food, plus the time I spent eating!
It's just that I am really thorough when it comes to cleanliness in the kitchen.
Yeah, 5 minutes of cooking and 20 minutes of cleaning.
I don't use a dishwasher, so every bowl, dish, cup, plate, and utensil I use gets handwashed.
Even so, boiling an egg, making a slice of toast, and then having a piece of fruit costs me <3 minutes of cleanup time: rinsing 1 plate, 1 pot, and a spoon.
To be fair, I do this more or less every day, so I have plenty of practice.
The 20 minute number is not arbitrary. I deeply care about optimising time spent cooking and eating, and I have measured this stuff for myself. Sure I can make something that takes two minutes to clean, but I want to eat something more satisfying that requires me to fry something. And cleanup after that, takes 20 minutes (more or less) if you are insane about the cleanup standards like I am.
I don't really see any need to clean my stove (or even the controls) more often than 1x / week (I cook daily), and the cutting board always occupies the same space on the counter, so the counter also gets thoroughly wiped once a week. The table gets wiped 1x a day, not after every single meal. Dishes, plates, and utensils just go soak in the sink so I only batch wash everything once a day.
Note that I'm still following all the usual food safety protocols, e.g. separating raw from cooked and washing my hands at appropriate times, etc.
I guess what I'm saying is that it probably does take you 20 minutes to clean after every meal, but that's probably much higher than average, and shouldn't be what keeps the average person from cooking.
"Most people", huh? How about some scientific studies to this effect instead of green-texter assertions that another poster's hesitance means nothing?
So you've talked to a statistically valid sample of Soylent users to conclude "most people" believe as you do? Interesting. How about you provide that data?
Oh, wait. You haven't talked to a statistically valid sample, you're just doing exactly the same thing you're accusing him of. I get that you might be a fan of Tech-Branded Slim-Fast, but come on. Be better than this.
(And I have tried it. I disagree with you. Oh no! Countering anecdotes with anecdotes!)
The problem is that many "healthy" things either cost time to prepare and make, or they cost money to buy.
I don't want to spend either of those, and based on my past experience, I'll just end up not eating, or just drinking milk if the barrier is too high. I know it's not healthy, but its what ends up happening.
(I have tried Soylent, and I think it's foul and unsatisfying. Tech bros apparently can't make Ensure or Slim-Fast better than Ensure or Slim-Fast is. Which isn't very good.)
And while you can find food prep to be a satisfying experience, i can't. I've tried, many times, and it just feels like pulling teeth. From going to the market to buy ingredients, to planning out the meals and portions, to actually prepping and cooking the food. It's boring, tedious, and not something I enjoy at all.
The "better taste" can actually be an issue as well, because I tend to need to force myself to eat even when I'm not hungry, and eating something that was prepared hours ago that doesn't sound that appealing any more while not really hungry isn't a pleasant experience.
I'd rather have a shake, or eat a bar, and go on with my life.
I hope Soylent works out for you, I'm just really doubtful that it's a reliable long term solution. It's our hubris in thinking we understood nutrition that led to stuff like trans fats being added to everything. Hope this isn't just repeating the same mistake.
But they're certainly not funding a lab that is doing new nutritional science research, because that would cost tens of millions of dollars a year.
I think the risk is that they'll be missing ingredients that are rather important to the human body that we don't know about yet.
Even the idea a 'vitamin' didn't exist until about ~100 years ago.
Why does one meal made by a tech company need to have literally everything you need to live when the alternatives don't?
I'm not saying soylent is all you need to live, and I'm pretty sure they aren't either, just that it's a healthy meal replacement.
Mostly because of their marketing claims: 'We engineered Soylent to provide all the protein, carbohydrates, lipids, and micronutrients that a body needs to thrive.'
Particularly the 'micronutrient' claim I think is totally unproven.
Nobody seriously expects to survive and be healthy eating nothing but breakfast cereal (admittedly, a lot of cereal is crap), but that's Soylent's claim at face value.
One thing that traditional foods have going for them is that there is a lot of empirical cultural experience with them. You know yogurt, or curry, or broccoli is probably ok to eat, because humans have eaten them for some thousands of years and tinkered with them nonstop during that time. The same can't be said for 'engineered' foods, whether Soylent or any other modern processed food.
Why?
Also, what does "optimal" even mean? You're setting the bar too high; as long as they're healthier than typical alternatives of eating lots of fast food and processed packaged foods then their addressable market is huge.
this is exactly the kind of research soylent doesnt have on their products. we have no idea if they are 'healthier' or not.
You call that food? Suddenly the 'balanced diet' everyone seems to be pushing is not applicable? Yeah ok, I agree that if you are coming from a mcdonalds-only diet, you might do better, but they are positioning themselves as a healthy meal replacement.
Soylent set the bar that high during their kickstarter by saying it would put you in perfect health, and was suitable for everyone.
I know that's not a scientific study by any means, and people should be skeptical, but there really is a lot of (anecdotal) evidence out there of Soylent having a positive impact on people's diets. On the other hand, I've hardly seen any evidence of Soylent having a negative impact on someone's health.