Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV | Hacker News Reader

Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

blog.soylent.com

335 pointsthejacenxpress640 comments

Soylent gets a lot of hate (I'm looking forward to skipping out on this thread before the inevitable negative comments from people who assume that Soylent consumers will eat nothing but Soylent for the rest of their lives), but to me, it's solved a large problem in my life: what to eat when I'm hungry but I don't have enough time to prepare a full meal. It can happen every now and then when I'm rushing around, and soylent blows away whatever I'd eat before (nothing, some Mexican I bought in the Mission, clif bars, etc).

I've actually switched over to a product called Ample which is similar to Soylent but a bit more health conscious with ingredient choice. Still, I've got nothing against Soylent.

What advantage does Soylent have over say, other meal replacements e.g. Slimfast, weight watcher shakes, juices etc that have existed for years before it and will continue to do so for years after? All I see is SV hype and marketing. In fact you just showed that Soylent is easily outplayed because you switched to a different drink already.

Slimfast has 4x as much sugar as Soylent (per-calorie). To get 2000 calories from Slimfast you'd be getting 180g sugar, while with Soylent it would be 45g. Now 45g is a little higher than recommended, but 180g is way too high.

http://d8m5oga7foiu.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/1...

http://files.soylent.com/pdf/soylent-drink-nutrition-facts-e...

not sure where you got the slimfast nutritional info but they have 1g of sugar: http://slimfast.com/advanced-nutrition/#shakes

if it had that much sugar, it wouldve never gained a reputation for losing weight.

You can't go hiking with Slimfast, Weight Watcher shakes, or juices.

What I don't understand: the REI market is the one place where Soylent is inarguably better than any other product in its niche, and nobody seems to give a shit about that.

I carry a bag of dry Soylent in my SAR pack. When I get sent out on an assignment, I have no idea how long I might be out for. For less weight than any other option, I have dinner and breakfast and lunch if necessary.

If I know in advance I'm going to be out hiking for more than about three hours, a pre-mixed solution of it in a Nalgene, with a quick chug here and there, really beats back the fatigue.

The REI market is not small, and it's got a huge focus on ultralight, ultralight, ultralight now. Soylent really seems to be missing an opportunity here.

> What I don't understand: the REI market is the one place where Soylent is inarguably better than any other product in its niche, and nobody seems to give a shit about that.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "better".

SAR is a niche within a niche. I can totally understand why Soylent is 1000x better than other options.

But most backpackers are doing it for fun. Reducing weight and space is great, but there are plenty of much more enjoyable meals that are only marginally heavier/bulkier.

At least for me, cooking a good meal before bed is my favorite part of the day. I'll happily carry an extra pound or so to make that happen.

TBF, a lot of purely recreational backpackers care less about the pleasures of life. The type doing 14 hour days and so on. But that's a small market, and all the folks I've met on trails who are doing that sort of thing tend to be pretty price sensitive. Young folks with few savings taking a few months off work don't have three months of Soylent money ;-)

Agreed. I use Soylent as a replacement for cliff bars when I ski or climb. It's easier to get down and has more calories.

What are the acronyms REI and SAR?

Uh, you know that every REI has a wide selection of freeze-dried camping foods, right? They're a lot better than the idea of slurping down bland nutrient goo (but more power to you, if nutrient spooge is your preference, I suppose).

As for price, I bought a 30-day supply of camp food for less than $100 on amazon.

Out of curiosity, have you tried Tsogo for your SAR needs? I generally like Soylent better taste-wise; but one thing that Tsogo does, they pack their powder in fairly thick sealed mylar bags that can just be dropped in your backpack without worry of it spoiling (the shelf life is also on the same order of magnitude as freeze-dried food, so you can just put it there and forget it).

Yes. Yes, you can go hiking on slimfast or Weight Watchers. I go hiking all the time in Arizona with a Builder Bar or an apple and some water. 6 to 8 mile trail runs with some water (nothing else) is very common for me and my friends. I am not going to mix up Soylent for trail running or hiking, ever. I can almost say that 99% of my friends will not either.

I also participate (professionally) in uSAR via a technical rescue team for a decently large municipality. We don't take food on call outs and have no idea how long an extrication will take for example. When I am at work, I often don't eat for two, three, or four hours past "lunch time" or "dinner time" due to calls. Soylent is not an option anymore than drinking a protein shake on a call. Not happening.

> Soylent is inarguably better than any other product in its niche

jakefood.com beg to differ.

> What advantage does Soylent have over say, other meal replacements e.g. Slimfast, weight watcher shakes, juices etc

Which of those examples are actual food replacements instead of liquid candy blasted with vitamins?

Slimfast high protein is the only option I see online that doesn't include huge amounts of sugar, but a single 180 calorie shake also gives way too much vitamins and protein to be sane times 10, which is what you need to get a day's worth of calories from it.

Weight watchers shakes look like they have exactly the same issue as slimfast high protein, except with more sugar and more servings required.

So here you are crapping on the product, but you actually haven't pointed to a realistic replacement for it.

Products for people on feeding tubes like Jevity?

Last I checked Soylent contained Sucralose (Splenda).

Protein isn't a panacea. Eating 2,000 calories of Soylent a day would mean consuming 100 grams of protein. That's unnecessary for the average person.

> So here you are crapping on the product, but you actually haven't pointed to a realistic replacement for it.

Why should suggesting a replacement be a requirement for criticism?

>... haven't pointed to a realistic replacement for it.

The "realistic replacement" is to not worry too much about perfectly balanced nutrition if you need skip an actual real meal occasionally. The body can handle it.

> easily outplayed because you switched to a different drink already.

Not really. Soylent is much cheaper than Ample, and that's a major plus for the cost conscious (which is a lot of people!)

As for the other ones - honestly mostly marketing I'd imagine. I've never heard of any product billed as a "nutritionally complete" meal. SlimFast to me sounds like a dieting product (as do weight watcher shakes), which isn't what I want at all. Non-dieting meal replacements, where they exist (I don't know the name of a single one!), just don't seem to target the same market that Soylent does.

Do other products exist that do what Soylent does? I don't doubt it. I've never heard of them, though.

I lived on Garden of Life's Raw Organic Meal + Green Vibrance + Alkaline Water for a while.

https://www.gardenoflife.com/content/product/why-choose-raw-...

https://www.vibranthealth.com/green-vibrance/

Check out Tsogo.

Snickers?

>All I see is SV hype and marketing.

That's all it is. If Soylent brands itself as a normal meal replacement, that's not sexy. So Soylent branded itself as a food replacement - which is more interesting and more dangerous (I just cannot trust that replacing food with Soylent won't have unintended health consequences down the line).

Well can't have Herbalife having all of the fun

That's my impression as well, feels a lot like this juicer https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-19/silicon-v...

There's a marked difference between all of the above if you take a cursory glance at the nutritional information. If you tried to eat a 2,000 calorie diet on classic Slim Fast, you'd be getting around 200 grams of sugar and over twice the recommended daily allowance of sodium. Ensure, Cliff Bars and a lot of other popular snacks of that kind compared about as unfavorably last time I checked.

I agree with the common sentiment that Soylent's original goal/purpose - a simple powder/drink that could serve as one's sole source of nutrition - is sort of ridiculous, but it actually led to a remarkably well balanced product unlike anything on the mass market. It's remarkably filling and nutritionally well balanced for a convenience food.

...a simple powder/drink that could serve as one's sole source of nutrition - is sort of ridiculous

Care to explain why? I am genuinely curious, as it sounds like an awesome idea.

Pro GMO: they are not hiding that they used a lot of GMO product, instead of selling you something organic with a huge premium.

Glycemic Index/Glycemic Load: a quick search doesn't give me SlimFast's GI/GL info, while Soylent does post the number.

> Glycemic Index/Glycemic Load: a quick search doesn't give me SlimFast's GI/GL info, while Soylent does post the number.

It's available. Seems weird to decide based on the availability of the number versus the number.

A very quick look at the Slimfast page for their high protein product links the nutritional information. It shows that the mix has ~1g of sugars per serving, but is mixed with milk, so you'll need to account for that in your calculations depending on the type of milk you use for mixing.

http://slimfast.com/advanced-nutrition/

This is a really weird myth that has started spreading lately. That somehow Soylent was just another meal replacement in a long line of meal replacements.

No, none of the products you mentioned is anywhere near as nutritionally balanced as soylent. And those that are, clearly came after

Yeah, I've noticed that. It seems many people simply aren't aware of the state of meal replacement drinks when Soylent came out. People in the Soylent community actually looked at the other options at the time, but they were all fairly bad.

This was posted last week https://www.blendrunner.com

Brand.

Unlike the examples you mentioned, Soylent is not a "lose weight" brand.

As an undergrad in college, Soylent is everywhere. Can't remember the last time I saw any of those other meal replacements.

Neither is Ensure a "lose weight" brand. But Ensure is an old-people brand. So Soylent (and Ample, which I learned about in this thread) are basically Ensure for young people.

Is that product penetration or advertising?

The advantage, for me, is that there are no animal products in Soylent.

Except on those days when it isn't.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/24/dairy-might-have-snuck-int...

I get what you're saying, but for many who have tried it, Soylent is simply better than ensure and slim fast. (Frankly, ensure is just too sweet.)

I drink a mix of whey/soy protein powder mixed in milk each morning. Does soylent have any advantages over that if I eat balanced meals the rest of the day?

Depends on how balanced those other meals are. There are some nutrients in there that are not in every ordinary meal, like methylfolate. You could think of soylent as a weak multivitamin plus macronutrients. In an early report a tester talked about a fantastic energy boost, and I'd wager he was deficient in one of the nutrients soylent contains. In the case of methylfolate, it's actually better than most multivitamins which only contain folic acid, which is harder to metabolize (especially if you have a MTHFR mutation).

I like the Coffiest product because it's basically like green tea, due to the caffeine + l-theanine they add (basically you get calm energy). Also I have only 13 minutes from waking up to leaving my door each morning, so saving time from mixing anything up, chewing food, etc is very useful.

Marketing.

This is my take as well. I don't see an innate advantage to Soylent over existing meal replacements like SlimFast. While Soylent has struggled with quality control, their competitors have been producing high volumes of equivalent products for many years, at better prices, and better name recognition to the american population outside of SV.

>what to eat when I'm hungry but I don't have enough time to prepare a full meal.

Protein powder (whey or soy pick based on lactose tolerance) + powdered oats + whatever for flavoring (eg. cocoa powder and coconut flour) in a shaker bottle - add water/whatever milk - shake and consume.

Throw in fiber supplement if you don't get enough fiber like psyllium husks.

Waaay cheaper than soylent if you buy smart (bulk), scale macros according to your requirements, at home or if you have a kitchen at work you can pre-mix powders in a container then scoop out, mix, drink and clean up in 10 mins tops.

Take some fruit along if you want - like an apple or a banana. Honestly soylent seems like a shitty version of a protein shake diet - low satisfaction is there but you get none of the gains.

You missed a major benefit of Soylent... convenience. It is pre-made, pre-bottled and ready to drink. For some at least, time is worth more than the money saved.

1) It's not convenient 2) That's not nutritionally complete.

You're just describing DIY soylent. I've seen recipes very similar to yours on the official DIY site.

Soylent gets a lot of hype, and invariably the hype follows a predictable pattern-

"Geez, you don't eat only Soylent! It's just an occasional meal replacement!"

"Okay, then how is it interesting when there are dozens of competing products in the meal replacement category?"

"Because those aren't a full dietary replacement. You can't live on only Ensure (insert many other products here)."

"Okay....but you just said..."

I don't get Soylent. Not only is food one of the greatest luxuries in life -- one of the greatest rewards -- it's laughably easy to have a nutritionally complete lifestyle with minimal effort or time. But if I were enfeebled they all sound pretty terrible.

Just because I don't intend to replace 100% of all meals with Soylent doesn't mean that its nutritional content is irrelevant. The fact that I could replace all meals with Soylent if I wanted to suggests that it has a better nutrient profile than something like Ensure or Slimfast, which is not intended to replace all meals. If you look at the macronutrient profiles of those three drinks, Soylent comes out head and shoulders above the others. Even though I don't want to bother making breakfast, a 200 kcal shake isn't going to cut it for me on a regular basis.

Partially agreed, though, I replace two meals a day with the UK equivalent. I suffer from depression and ADHD, so while I generally collect myself enough to make a proper evening meal, prior to Huel I would often skip or forget meals, and binge on junk later in the day. I'm working on 50/50.

From the horses mouth, most use cases I've heard are pretty sensible. Very few users treat it as their entire diet. You've a good point that food is great, and it's good to do it right. I'd hope students would take the opportunity to learn, but they rarely do. Still, Soylent or equiv >>> pizza. Most other arguments against it/characterisations are a little circular at best, or reduction to absurdity at worst.

I would gladly pay twice the amount I pay for Soylent for a "nutritionally complete lifestyle" that I could get in the same amount of time.

I honestly don't think it exists, though. Cooking and preparing food takes time and creativity.

> Not only is good one of the greatest luxuries in life

See, I promised myself I would leave this thread before people started toting out the arguments isomorphic to "you only eat Soylent 100% of the time! You monster!" - and yet here we are :). I thought I made it clear in my OP, but I don't eat Soylent for every meal- just the meals where, in the absence of Soylent, I would have had something worse.

Does that clear things up?

Your comment reminds me of this article an article the guardian wrote about "conspicuous production" being the new way of signaling status[1]. To that end, the consumption of food becomes just another thing to be optimized.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/24/new-statu...

> it's laughably easy to have a nutritionally complete lifestyle with minimal effort or time.

Care to elaborate? I can cook and know how to eat a balanced set of macro-nutrients, but I find it quite difficult to be consistently health concious when eating out all the time and cooking regularly is anything but minimal effort and time.

I get a lot more pleasure out of shopping, meal prepping and cooking without the pressure of having to scramble for crappy food if I get busy when I'm low on food. There have been many times where I'd normally be sheepishly eating Wendy's where instead I'll head straight to the supermarket with a Soylent in my car's cupholder. On a similar note, I love cooking breakfast for myself and my wife, and if anything occasionally being able to take a break for a day or two has sustained my enthusiasm.

So Soylent and real food hardly need to be enemies.

I would much rather do any other enjoyable thing, than stop doing that thing, to eat.

> I don't get Soylent. Not only is food one of the greatest luxuries in life -- one of the greatest rewards

totally agree with this. soylent feels too much like... dog food for humans

Soylent does nothing for me because I find that any other viable option for eating, be it a sandwich from a vending machine, is a more attractive.

Even low quality food is likely to give me a modicum of satisfaction, when a meal replacement does not.

I can't get the hate either, though.

If you are happy with it and improves your life, more power to you (and to Soylent).

> I can't get the hate either, though.

I believe the fact that someone just wrote them a $50MM check is a fine reason to make a critical assessment of their actual value.

But I think that's really the point.

Criticism of Soylent seems to be due to factors that go beyond a reasonable critical assessment of the product, and tends to be much harsher in form.

I think many people tend to assume that just because Soylent is not an appealing product for THEM, then there is not a market for it.

Why? Most $50mm investments end up worth nothing. The fact a company has investment does not mean they have actual value.

> Ample which is similar to Soylent but a bit more health conscious with ingredient choice

What does that mean? How did you make this judgement?

If you go to what they've written up on their website, https://www.amplemeal.com/products/ample, you can see they've taken and written about a lot of care in selecting ingredients.

Off the top of my head, probiotics are a big thing that you don't see in Soylent. Spirulina is included. Omega 3 fatty acids. The emphasis on whole foods rather than nutrients is another thing important to me.

From what they've written it is clear they are taking a significant focus on nutrition, as the expense of, er, expense. This is a trade off I am willing to make.

I don't want to spend my days pouring over the latest nutrition research to see what I should be eating. Before Ample I would spend a lot of time chasing the latest research, yet continually feeling like there were huge things I was missing. It gives me great peace of mind to see that apparently smart people are doing this work in my stead. This is a huge advantage I cannnot overstate.

Spirulina is far from a good health choice. It got popular because it contains a molecule that's similar to B12, but it turns out that it's not B12. But it does bind to B12 intrinsic factor, which is a problem because intrinsic factor production, not B12 consumption, is frequently the limiting factor in how much of the nutrient you can get into your system.

Or, to put it more succinctly - spirulina : B12 :: CO : O2.

And while I'm laying it on, probiotics isn't really all that impressive, either. Right now the food industry's approach to probiotics is, at best, comparable to the kind of thinking that caused to large swaths of the USA to have problems with kudzu and asian carp.

I recently tried Ample Original and AmpleX, and I like Ample Original quite a bit. The only other product I've tried is from Super Body Fuel, though that one had a pretty different macronutrient profile and required some preparation.

I agree that the focus on nutrition is a huge benefit. In addition, I appreciate the transparency of the company and what seems to be a desire to iterate and improve on their product. Today, they announced a few small tweaks to their formula and released a "change log" (their choice of word) detailing the reasons behind their choices.

Do you personally feel any physically different or have noticed any health improvements upon switching to Ample from Soylent?

Looks great. I've been using Huel, the British Soylent knockoff, for 1-2 meals per day (much healthier than the 4oz bag of chips it replaced), and now that I'm moving back to America I'm looking for local alternatives.

Looks good but doesn't list many vitamins or minerals on the label.

It contains an unnecessary amount of protein if you're only consuming Ample.

Soylent is great, but you should check out Joylent if you get a chance. Similar nutritional profile to Soylent, but cheaper, better tasting, and cooler branding.

I've been getting 90% of my calories from Joylent for about 5 months.

I've been getting 90% of my calories from Joylent for about 5 months.

90% for 5 months? Any specific situation or just prefer it that way?

Personally, I'd prefer to get out of the home /office, stretch, clear my head and eat the (kinda) old fashion way. Everyone has the same 24 hours...

Re Amplemeal? You should take a close look at the nutrition label and compare to Soylent's, Joylent's or any other meal-replacement. You will find the product provides laughably paltry amounts of micronutrients, less than 5% RDA of any vitamin, in a 400 kcal "meal". If you replace even one meal a day with Ample you will run a deficiency.

There's Calorie Mate Balanced Food Block from Otsuka Pharmaceutical Company in Tokyo.[1] It's like Soylent, but in solid form, without the pretension. Popular with Japanese salarymen who eat lunch at their desks. It's such a cliche in Japan that it appears in Metal Gear Solid. Nijiya Markets, the California chain, stocks it.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Calorie-Mate-Balanced-Chocolate-Ounce...

The bay area version is called Mealsquares: http://www.mealsquares.com/

Whole foods, in bar form. Pretty good when warmed up (think banana bread, but slightly gritty, from all the fiber) but not exactly recreational when cold. Short shelf life.

That's my use case too. I've also just bought something called MealSquares, which may be serve the same purpose with the advantage of being solid food and using mostly whole foods.

I second MealSquares! I've been on their subscription for months now and don't intend to stop. I really appreciate their emphasis on full nutrition with whole foods.

I'd never again trust Soylent with my health for all their problems.

Yeah! I tried MealSquares for a while and they were great. The actual taste left something to be desired - they were quite dry - but if I wasn't into Ample I'd totally get some more.

I think you nailed it. I drink Soylent not to replace a dinner with my girlfriend, but in those times when the alternative is getting a quick burger or pizza due to lack of time, usually late in the night.

For other readers, a caution - I found Ample to be inedible, taste wise. I took a few sips of the first bottle, and didn't touch the rest of my order.

That's a really interesting experience. I personally find it to be significantly better tasting than Soylent.

One crucial thing is that the water you mix it with has to be very cold, otherwise I did find it to be difficult to drink. Once you hit that temperature threshold though, it makes a world of difference.

At least for me.

I've never been bothered by the taste of any version of Soylent, even 1.0, so I could just have a unique experience.

What about the taste was bad? Does anyone use a dairy-free milk alternative instead of water?

>what to eat when I'm hungry but I don't have enough time to prepare a full meal.

In what way is Soylent any better than a handful of almonds and a banana?

Thank you for mentioning Ample, as I hadn't heard of it before. I'm a T2 diabetic, so I've been avoiding Soylent because of the carb content. Ample looks like it's made of things I'd actually feel good about putting in my body vs the maltrodextrin/oat base of Soylent. I went ahead and ordered a 12 pack to give it a try.

Soylent does publish their GI info [1].

But if you want a low-carb product with a wide range of flavors, check KetoChow [2].

[1] https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/212769503-Glycemic...

[2] https://www.ketochow.xyz/

How does it blow away a clif bar?

Clif bars a terrible meal replacement, they're intended to be something that you eat to fuel or replenish for/from endurance sports.

As I recall, Clif Bars are predominantly carbs and some fat. Soylent has a reasonable balance of protein and more emphasis on vitamins and minerals.

To be clear, I'm not a nutritional expert. But I've had people who know more than me tell me clif bars are basically non-nutritious.

Clif is ok if you are going hiking, there is a lot of sugar. Sitting in front of a computer? Not so much.

Clif Bars are roughly the same caloric and nutritional content of a standard size Snickers bar.

Clif bars are candy, but this would be a much more interesting comparison with Quest Bars.

What's wrong with those microwavable stuff (like noodles, and others)? I mean it's not healthy, but if it's once in a while, it's cheaper and imo tastes better!

> What's wrong with those microwavable stuff?

I'm guessing you and many other commenters haven't hit the age where heart disease, high blood pressure, and pre-diabetes start raising their ugly heads. All of those conditions are depressingly common in the Western world and require medication with various side effects to treat. Each one of those microwaveable meals, though tasty and convenient, takes you one step closer to a rather unpleasant conversation with your doctor.

Given this, it should hardly be surprising that there's a market for a convenient meal replacement that is, if not actually healthy, then at least health-neutral.

("Just prepare your own healthy means and exercise more!" you say? Easier said than done. Just because you are able to do it doesn't mean everybody is in a situation where they can do the same.)

> I mean it's not healthy

And that's precisely why people turn to Soylent and its competitors, because they are attempting to be healthy, balanced sources of nutrition. A bowl of instant ramen might be tasty but it's not going to get you much in the way of protein or vitamins.

So stopping at a groceries store to buy a fruit is not an option when you're 'rushing around'?

It is an option with trade-offs and variables (distance, hours, how busy they are)

Is "a fruit" really a healthier alternative as a meal replacement?

"Which fruit" is also a question that requires some overhead to answer (bananas are convenient but I don't like the flavor, oranges are delicious but messy to eat, etc)

I actually do prefer to have a Soylent in addition to whatever fruits I have available. It's not like you're swearing off all other foods if you choose Soylent as an option.

Everything that was an option still remain to be options, Soylent adds to the list of available options

Soylent is a meal replacement product. A fruit is not. Not to mention, it is indeed faster to drink the bottle you already own, rather than going to a grocery store.

>it's solved a large problem in my life: what to eat when I'm hungry but I don't have enough time to prepare a full meal.

Meal replacements is a well-defined and established category

The fact that at least 3 people in this thread have named the category "meal replacements" but not a single one has named a specific product I would know by name (non dieting!) seems to me a pretty clear indictment that this category is not as established as you are suggesting.

Can't you keep some fruits like strawberry or bananas handy?

I do! But strawberries, bananas, apples, even nuts don't feel like a full meal. I always feel oddly and uncomfortably unsaturated after eating them.

The closest I ever got was avocado. Avocado is delicious and satiating. Takes a bit to prepare, but that's okay.

Avocado: the true Soylent competitor?

(Probably not. :))

Hehehe...I think the argument made here is perishability/storage since they spoil easy. But that brings up another point: dried fruits, nuts etc. are excellent sources of nutrition, and I would certainly prefer that over Soylent.

I don't really hate it, but I don't see Soylent as providing anything you haven't been able to get by just walking down to the local drug store and buying a bottle of Ensure or other meal replacement formula.

I do think they have brilliant marketing, though. They turned something that was for old, dying people and made it cool. So I see all the "research" stuff they post as kind of a joke or marketing, because it has all been done and available for over a decade in terms of product...

The reason it's for old dying people is that it's a weight gain shake. It turns out old dying people have trouble eating enough food to maintain weight so it (arguably) makes sense to give them basically liquid candy to up their calorie intake.

Please walk down to the local drugstore and actually look at the nutritional labels. Than tell me they are the same.

Their initial shtick was that you could replace all meals with Soylent - an idea with appeal to SV engineers.

>meal replacement formula

I've noticed many people mixing up "supplement" with "replacement". For example, Ensure (the commonly cited "alternative") is a supplement - not a replacement.

In fact, FDA regulation differentiates between "dietary supplements" and "food". Go ahead and research how Ensure is classified then compare that with Soylent.

Although I was initially brought onto the hype train by great marketing and the promises of health and complete nutrition, I realize that my initial reliance on Soylent was actually part of a deeper problem, brought on by problems such as depression and inappropriate time management. When in reality I should have had enough time to eat out or possibly even cook a meal, I found myself relying on Soylent. I didn't leave my room, and had trouble doing anything. I soon began to lose my appetite and had to force myself to gulp it down, attempting to make sure I wouldn't starve myself. Drinking Soylent was ruining my health.

I think many people approach Soylent as a way to solve some of their problems, but people should realize it won't be and can't be. Another person I knew had bought a few boxes of Soylent attempting to lose weight. In reality, she did not change her weight appreciably, as all she did was consume the same number of calories she would have otherwise.

Lastly I would like to add that there is some debate over the actual nutritional efficacy of the composition of Soylent. If you look at the bioavailability of their calcium supplement, calcium carbonate, it is significantly less than the one found in milk, calcium phosphate. However, Soylent will still claim that it is possible to have 100% D.V. of calcium with 5 bottles.

Overall, Soylent is probably not a healthy solution to your problems.

This comment is kinda silly. Like, the problem here isn't Soylent, it's that you were depressed. And the problem with your friend using Soylent to watch her weight isn't Soylent, it's that she ate more of other crap when she drank Soylent as a meal replacement.

I drink Soylent occasionally -- once every two or three weeks, maybe. Normally I use it if I know I'm going to eat a huge dinner, or if I ate a giant lunch and don't need to consume many more calories in the evening. It works great for me.

Yes, if you misuse Soylent, it will not be a good thing for you. That goes for, like, everything.

Soylent has refused to make basic changes to improve their nutritional profile based on widely known and accepted research. Lots of their micronutrients look optimized for cost and not for human health. E.g. Soylent uses D2, when even 30 seconds of googling should have turned up evidence such as: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/84/4/694.full

"ergocalciferol should not be regarded as a nutrient suitable for supplementation or fortification."

D2 and D3 are metabolized so differently that they result in the "production of unique biologically active metabolites."

Ergocalciferol is the version used in the Soylent powder, while the bottled version doesn't even deign to inform the consumer what they are getting (it just says Vitamin D)

The fact that this problem exists and has existed for years with many of their ingredients indicates that they aren't even doing shallow research into nutrition.

(https://www.MealSquares.com try to provide multiple sources of all micronutrients from different food groups)

> I think many people approach Soylent as a way to solve some of their problems, but people should realize it won't be and can't be.

You are saying your case (and that of your friend's) apply to everyone. I've lost a lot of weight using Huel (a similar product made in the UK), because it makes calorie tracking incredibly easy and allows me to avoid thinking about food except when I specifically choose to eat something.

Just because it wasn't suitable to you, and your friend didn't find a use for it, doesn't make it bad for everyone.

My experience with Huel was that it allowed me to reset my relationship with food to a more healthy one. My analogy is music - in the past I sat down and just listened to music, sometimes with friends. I still do that, but now I have a phone with me all the time, and headphones, and I listen to music almost all of the time. It's a constant, background thing, rather than (only) a special event.

Food had become something similar for me - I wanted to be eating all the time, to always have some flavour. For music, that relationship wasn't a problem, but for food, it has meant I'm overweight.

So I tried Huel. I don't think about food most days now - I drink, I drink a given number of calories of Huel (helping me lose weight).

Then, sometimes, I go out and eat something really nice with friends or family. Or I just feel like something and I make something nice. I still enjoy food, but it isn't a constant thing.

Now, you could do a similar thing with a normal calorie controlled diet, and in fact I did by using a calorie tracking app a few years back - but I didn't stick with it because it was hard, because every time you go to make food it's a tempation. Avoiding food entirely made it easier for me.

It's definitely not for everyone, but there are plenty of use cases.

For medical training, Soylent has been wonderful. On emergency shifts I often won't have 10 or 20 minutes to go to the cafeteria for a meal as there are too many acute patients. I used to rely on energy bars to get me through but I much prefer Soylent. They are quicker to eat and I know that I am drinking a someone balanced meal. I usually drink about three in an eight hour shift.

You raise a great point about self reflection and Soylent. To stop cooking entirely is madness, and Soylent can enable antisocial tendencies or depression. They shouldn't brand themselves as a complete dietary replacement for food.

I tried Soylent v1.2-1.4 for about 6 months thinking I could better regulate my calorie intake and lose some weight. In the end it wasn't for me.

I found that it did nothing to satiate my appetite and that I'd be hungry, bloated and gassy all day long. The bloating and gas were incredibly uncomfortable and never really subsided. Eschewing the normal 3 meals a day routine and doing 5 meals didn't seem to help. Despite the fact that I was only consuming 2000 calories, 500 less than recommended for my size/weight/age/sex, I managed to gain weight.

The powder was messy and would coat whatever surface I prepared it on with a fine dusting. The liquid smelled unpleasant after a while and eventually I started to smell like it when I sweat. The liquid was basically an oil and solid particulate suspension so if you spilled it on anything it was difficult to clean up because the particles would work their way into fabric. Not such a problem for clothes but more so for furniture or car seats.

From a social perspective it really sucked because meals are a time to socialize it was awkward to go out with people and not order anything. I gradually moved to half days which actually curbed the weight gain I was seeing and eventually motivated me to give it up.

> Drinking Soylent was ruining my health.

Was Soylent ruining your health, or enabling you to let your health decline by isolating yourself? If the later, I don't think that's any reflection of the product itself.

> inappropriate time management

This resonates with me. When I tried Soylent, it was because I was working WAY too much, and that "always-on" mindset carried over into other parts of my life. I felt like I didn't have time for food - I needed to be productive instead! Soylent markets to this extremely well, and it worked on me.

I stopped using Soylent when I found a healthier work/life balance, started meditating regularly, did a bit of traveling, started exercising more often, and met a new love interest. I wouldn't say that I'm a stellar cook, but I enjoy preparing meals - it's just another thing to try to do well.

So Soylent isn't really for me - though there probably are some lifestyles in which it makes sense.

My question is, would you have necessarily eaten better in the absence of Soylent? Or would you have just binged on snacks and junk food instead? Plenty of people seem to do so. I agree that Soylent is overhyped as a quick-fix to diet and nutrition problems that have complex causes, e.g. depression, social isolation, obesity, etc. But, since we aren't going to resolve those causes any time soon, it's probably better, on balance, to have Soylent available as a reasonably healthy option for people.

Interesting thought, but if I may ask, can you really blame Soylent for that?

The only person that I know drinks soylent only to surpess the hunger until lunch, and doesnt plan on drinking only soylent. So far they say its doing its job good enough.

What's your opinion on that ?

I never understood Soylent. Why not simple, convenient, repetitive meals instead? Why not a protein shake and a banana if occasional liquid meal replacements are needed?

Considering how far removed from its "natural" source much of our food is, I don't think Soylent should be looked at with much skepticism. Additionally:

> Calcium carbonate is the most common and least expensive calcium supplement. It should be taken with food, and depends on low pH levels (acidic) for proper absorption in the intestine.[26] Some studies suggests that the absorption of calcium from calcium carbonate is similar to the absorption of calcium from milk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_supplement#Types

In my case, soylent-like products (specifically what used to be called Joylent) helped me a lot when I was really quite depressed. I could often go without eating several days simply because I couldn't get myself together enough to source any kind of food. Having a stash of Joylent meant I could get a sort-of balanced meal with minimal effort, which really improved my physical health and enabled me to take better care of my mental health too.

Sure it is. My problems that Soylent can solve include having an easy and palatable (I sort of enjoy the plain flavor when chilled enough) snack a couple times a week.

I would be inclined to agree that it's a poor solution to lifestyle/mental health issues. otoh i have appetite problems which soylent DOES solve.

I guess it depends how you use it. I keep it in my car as a replacement for fast food when I'm short on time and I'm healthier overall

Huh? I've tried a competing product just for fun to see what it was like and for convenience when I was short on time, not a daily replacement. If you're using this to not get out of bed, I agree with others that the problem is a wholly different one than Soylent or any other product such as home delivered hamburgers that allows you to not leave your home.

N=1 here. After Soylent found its way into my home I started drinking it for lunch (chocolate shake). Previously, I'd have ordered in or run out to grab a salad.

With the extra time I found myself, instead of rushing between lunch and work, wandering around listening to audiobooks or podcasts. I started enjoying these walks so much I extended them. On one podcast I heard about Blue Apron. I've never liked cooking, but the release of lunch's tediousness pushed me to give it a try.

Dinner is now, three times a week, a home-cooked meal for myself and one other. (Together, Blue Apron and Soylent reduced my daily caloric intake appreciably, at least on weekdays.)

I got started on Soylent and Joylent while depressed and it kept me (more than I would be) healthy while I went along. I eventually turned back to cooking when I was out of depression and craved varied, richer taste and more control over the sugar/carb/fat levels in particular meals.

I think Soylent was a great crutch during my downtime. I don't think it encouraged depression. In my case I argue it kept my body healthy while my mind wasn't, which is itself a bonus.

Eh. I think it very much depends on what your problems are. If you want to stop eating fast food, but don't believe you can rely on yourself to food prep, plan, or cook, you can probably do a lot worse. Wanting more than something very straightforward from it probably isn't a recipe for success, though.

No, it's not.

But it is a convenient solution for when you want a quick, kind of nutritionally complete meal that's convenient.

Of course, the founder didn't really position it that way? The hype was all about it being a meal replacement for ALL your meals - which is what caused your problem.

Cocoa soylent was just a better alternative to what I had as options for breakfast. Typical breakfast sandwich or cheap cereals were not particularly great.

I'm honestly not sure how healthy it is, but I'd be very surprised if it was worse than what I'd do otherwise.

Now I agree if you have 5 bottles a day as your only food source, that's probably not great. We don't really understand human food needs as well as we say we do, and we kind of just get by as a kind of coincidence through variety. Having the same thing over and over and over almost garentees you get it wrong, no matter what it is you have.

Very interesting comment. Definitely food for thought.

One thing to keep in mind is it's not only depresssion that could cause the poor time management that Soylent benefits from. The whole "gotta be working every minute of every day" ethos of SV can feed into this very easily as well. Which isn't also to say that the two can't be intertwined...

You were depressed so everyone is depressed? I don't think that follows.

Long-time lurker, first time commenter. I've seen several people mention that there have not been meal replacement products like Soylent ever. The nutritional profile reminds me of EAS Myoplex + additional vitamins. Myoplex has been around since the mid 90s and was always marketed as a meal replacement. Learned about it from a bodybuilder website when trying to gain weight and easily "eat" extra meals. They have never marketed in the way Soylent has but it serves the same purpose. I took it to replace at least one meal a day for about two years. Blood work during that time period was normal and it worked well imo. Nothing against Soylent but the product is not a new concept.

Soylent does look similar to EAS Mypolex (comparing the nutrition from here: https://www.amazon.com/EAS-Myoplex-Original-Protein-Chocolat...). One issue is that to get 2,000 calories of EAS Myoplex you'd have to drink about 7 bottles. If you drink 7 bottles you'd be getting way too much of some vitamins and not enough of others.

The purpose is not completely replace all of your meals with it. I realize some use Soylent as such but in general having one item be your sole food source is probably not the best idea. If I'm not mistaken even the packaging of Soylent state that it's not intended to replace every meal.

Doesn't seem to matter to investors nor consumers, so why care =) Baby formula has been around for long (I don't think it's as good as mother's milk, but seems geared towards "complete nutrition as far as survival goes, as best as we know today" --- same as Soylent then), ready-to-drink raw eggs have been around for our entire pre-history (but who likes to make a mess, that'd be too primal), etc..

The new cacao Soylent is so much tastier than I expected it would be. Despite all the mocking Soylent gets, the product is excellent. Maybe it's groundbreaking and maybe it's not, but it's definitely helpful to my life.

The cacao is pretty good, but the other new flavor, nectar, is terrible IMO. Tastes like liquid pez. I still prefer the original flavor for meals. Cacao tastes more like a treat than a meal.

It's my favorite. Tastes like the milk leftover from a bowl of Fruit Loops.

I don't like any of the flavored versions... Cacao was way too sweet, Nectar tasted like drinking a bottle of Windex, and while I actually kinda liked the Coffeist version, it tasted more like chocolate than coffee to me, and my understanding is that there isn't any actual coffee in it, just artificial flavors... so I would rather have a cup of coffee with my normal Soylent in the morning.

I'm with you on the Nectar. I nearly threw up when I finished my first bottle.

Nectar seems to be super polarizing. I think it's the best one personally and drink it about every day, roughly 3x more than original + coffiest combined.

I ordered one case of cacao but don't really care for the way their chocolate flavor tastes.

Got a case of Nectar - I sort of expected it to be bad but we'll see. May go to 50/50 regular and cacao.

I love the cacao, its sweetness is tremendously useful to me as a replacement for desserts and unhealthy snacks.

Love that one. Def don't like the coffee though :(

It's funny how different taste is.

I love the flavor of coffiest. If not for the high amount of caffeine (and reasons of general food sanity) I could have it all day every day.

The crowds here saying that Soylent is "just" rebranded Ensure/Slimfast/etc sound like the same voices that said Dropbox was rebranded rsync/scp/ftp. The arguments are cookie-cutter and wrong for the same reasons they were with Dropbox.

Ok, so what are those reasons exactly?

I actually don't believe your analogy holds. My mom uses Dropbox but she would never use rsync. But my mom can drive to Target or open her Amazon app and buy Ensure just as easily as she can order Soylent.

I do think Soylent is just rebranded Ensure/Slimfast and there's nothing wrong with that. For the most part, Ensure targets baby boomers, Slimfast targets gen-xers or people who want to lose weight, and Soylent targets millenials/professionals. Again, nothing wrong with it (so long as you don't act like Soylent is some revolutionary/brave-new-world product).

Yeah because in this world Ensure/Slimfast are Dropbox, and Soylent is rsync. The way they make this stuff scares me. The photos of the plant, the mold, the suppliers they use. It's like the paypal of meal replacements, we deal with money, but we're not a bank, they make "food" but they don't really have much quality control.

But Dropbox wasn't just rebranded rsync; it made remote backup easy-to-use for the average person. Rsync requires other servers and command-line expertise.

Soylent's difference is in marketing and positioning, not nutrition.

They are wrong because of the marketing aspect at least. An expensive shoe can be the same as a cheap shoe in quality.

On the topic of raising/burning $:

I remember seeing that they had a position open for a software engineering role. If I remember the job description correctly, they've built out their own online store?

I recently saw that you can buy their products through Amazon - I wonder if it was money well spent to roll out their own web store versus using Amazon/Shopify. As a past customer I don't remember seeing any particularly unique feature that made hiring in-house staff for this aspect necessary.

If you order through the website, they have a subscription product with a decent set of features, like different pricing and pausing subscriptions.

It amazes me that VCs find this type of business interesting because it's not defensible in many of the ways a software company is. I am also not sure why the company wants to raise this much money -- they need to continue growing like crazy (outside of tech regions where engineers who are unwilling to cook live) or go bust.

Nonetheless, the drink is ok. I tried it for a few months. Instead of avoiding cooking, I have embraced it, and now cook incredible meals for $3-$4 using my Joule sous vide. Eating real food has changed my mood significantly.

If anyone in SF wants to buy a whole box of Soylent Original (white bottles), I will sell an extra I have for 40% off. Must pick up, located at Chavez/Bryant.

> it's not defensible in many of the ways a software company is

As a customer, I don't think about that at all. They may open source their recipes and products, but buying bottles from them is still relatively cheap and by far the most convenient option. Also, whenever mistakes do happen, their support is excellent. This is why they'll continue to get my business.

you will begin to consider alternatives when they are available, and at a lower cost

I'm not so sure — alternatives at a comparable price are already on the market. I could make it myself and save more but it's not worth the tradeoff of time and inconvenience to save $1–2.

Personally my price sensitivity for it is pretty low. At $2–3 per meal, it's cheaper than any other meals besides breakfast throughout the week.

> It amazes me that VCs find this type of business interesting

There are a lot of companies out there that aren't run of the mill tech companies but are still able to massage their way into that category (another example is We Work). There is so much money chasing outsized returns that companies/founder with a good plan, strong team, large enough addressable market and the right network are close enough for many VCs.

Sorta. To my understanding WeWork has largely been funded by real estate groups looking for more return. I guess Soylent could find funding from CPG/consumer funds, but I'm amazed software VCs are interested.

I've owned an Anova for a bit more than a year. Amortized over all the meals I've cooked, mostly super cheap cuts of meat that have been cooked over 24-72 hours to incredible quality, I would say that it is probably the essential tool in my kitchen.

> mostly super cheap cuts of meat that have been cooked over 24-72 hours to incredible quality

People getting excited over devices that do what ovens or hearths do at a 24x slower pace? Figures the popularity of soy formula.

(And yes, my oven turns even the toughest cut into "incredible quality" in 3h tops =)

I would defend sous vide by saying that I've been able to have much better control of the internal temperature. For example, I can cook short ribs at 72 hours at close-to-pasteurization temperatures to get a very unique consistency.

What meals are you cooking for $3-4 on the Joule? Looking at getting a Joule soon.

Any meal you can cook without the Joule using other cooking methods. 8 oz of chicken breast (~$1.50), 6 oz of brussel sprouts (~$0.75), 8 oz of potatoes (~$0.25). That's a $2.50 meal. Add half an onion, some bell pepper, some spices, and oil for cooking and it probably comes out to less than $3.

Of course, those are average food prices in the US so YMMV. If you're in NYC or LA/SF, it's going to cost more than that no matter where you shop.

Sous vide burssels sprouts?

I mean, sous vide is amazing, but have you ever had your sprouts crispy? I used to be pretty indifferent to them until my fiancee cooked them up crispy.

Hmm... Now I'm thinking about food, oh look, its lunchtime.

Sounds reasonable and delicious. I'm in Atlanta and those prices are similar. Thanks!

I have a sous vide, but it doesn't have bluetooth or whatever Joule has. It seems unnecessary to make all appliances smart when a knob to set the temperature and a timer on the phone works just as well.

To hopefully short-circuit a lot of pointless debate, the product you're about to mention is not equivalent to Soylent unless all of the following conditions are true:

1. It contains enough calories for an average healthy adult to live on (2000/cal/day, give or take)

2. The sugars used are high glycemic index

3. You will incur no major nutritional deficiencies/toxicities by long term use

4. It costs no more than $14/day (or $8/day for the powder) while satisfying all above conditions

Most diet drinks fail on condition 1, most meal replacements you're aware of like Ensure fail on conditions 2 and 3, and the leftovers usually fail on condition 4.

I'm trying to understand what Soylent's business moat is. My inclination is economies of scale to drive cost of goods down, like many food companies.

To that end, I don't see their product as all that unique or difficult to replicate, and I also foresee headwinds for them if/when they try to market to a broader base of consumers who already have powders, shakes, bars, and hundreds of other meal substitutes to choose from.

They don't really have one. If you go to https://www.completefoods.co/ , you can find a bunch of meal replacement recipes many of which are soylent inspired because they couldn't get soylent shipped to them. Some people also ship their custom blends.

/r/soylent is a popular place where people talk about meal replacements.

I think they are kind of like Kleenex, they will become the common name for the genre.

As for taste, I tried Soylent and it tasted like wet cardboard to me. I ended up switching to Schmilk (you mix the powder with milk) and the now discontinued 100% Food.

Brand defensibility also seems to be a real thing when you have food products reaching 100m+ people (e.g. Coke, Mars, Pepsi).

So brand defensibility + economies of scale. Though somewhat tenuous.

IIRC Soylent is not patented and the creator has said that if someone can create the same thing, then that's fine because the goal is to help people.

So... it doesn't matter.

I can't imagine that the creator of Soylent really feels that way, at least from a business perspective. I doubt investors would put their money into a business that was fine with getting beat in the marketplace as long as it helps people.

>>I can't imagine that the creator of Soylent really feels that way, at least from a business perspective.

Why not? Elon Musk did the same thing by basically saying Tesla's patents are "open-source" and free to use:

https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you

You could ask the same thing about dollar shave club. companies pushing subscription based services benefit greatly from peoples desires not to change something that works well enough.

Supportive case: Huel in the UK.

Soylent as a company has been run terribly. They've had numerous recalls and the recent price increase for Canadian customers is highway robbery.

That said, Soylent has improved my diet significantly. My entire life I have struggled to consume enough calories. Adding one serving of Soylent per day has allowed me to do two things:

1. Increase the number of calories I consume so I am in a daily surplus (I've gained a healthy 13 pounds since 2015 thanks to Soylent).

2. More importantly Soylent has accustomed me to eating larger meals. I can actually go to a restaurant and eat a full meal. I'm sure you can understand how much that has improved my social life.

Prior to Soylent I was consuming Ensure daily for more than five years but it's not enough calories to make a difference plus it's way more expensive.

> the recent price increase for Canadian customers is highway robbery

Could you explain? I just checked the prices for 12-packs of original soylent is CAD$3.56/bottle in Canada and USD$2.69/bottle in the US. That's an effective exchange rate of 1.36 CAD/USD, and the current exchange (as I type this) is 1.37 CAD/USD.

Or are you just complaining about an overall recent price increase? I have been paying CAD$29 per 12-pack since April 2016.

The $3.56/bottle you see on their website when switched to Canada as your location is not CAD, It's USD.

I just ordered a 12 pack at $3.75 a bottle ($45/case - the price shown when you're not subscribing) and was charged $45USD which turned out to be $61.64 on my credit card, or $5.14CAD a bottle.

Wow, jeez, the ratio was so close I just assumed. You select a Canadian flag on the website, pay with a Canadian credit card, deliver to a Canadian address, and they charge you in US dollars without mentioning it anywhere (and all prices unmarked USD vs CAD). Unreal.

A question to Soylent customers:

Do you use it as the occasional convenient meal replacement or how far do you go into replacing all real food?

I suspect there is both, but what I am getting at is how much Soylent's long-term success depends on people seeing eating as a nuisance that should be optimized away versus something that should be savoured and enjoyed.

To me this is in the context of the larger question of personal utility maximisation. In the grand scheme of things, we have just started being able to really monitor and improve all aspects of our lives (in terms of time spent, convenience), and there is the question of how far we (most people/potential customers) ultimately want to go. It has become clear that there is the potential to optimise away friction/time spent in almost all human habits, but it is not yet clear if we really want to keep going down that route.

Will we keep optimizing things like meals just because we can until there are (conceivably) nutrient implants that make eating unnecessary, or will we sort of revert and see that maximising utility of every interaction does not lead to overall greater satisfaction?

In one world, Soylent could eventually dominate, in the other, it will remain a niche product because eating and food is too important too most, also culturally speaking.

>Do you use it as the occasional convenient meal replacement or how far do you go into replacing all real food?

I replace the majority of my meals with Soylent, but the point isn't to replace all meals...

>I suspect there is both, but what I am getting at is how much Soylent's long-term success depends on people seeing eating as a nuisance that should be optimized away versus something that should be savoured and enjoyed.

In my opinion, eating real food is an indulgence, not a nuisance. People who are very busy frequently cannot find the time to prepare nutritious, healthy meals from the bare ingredients, and purchasing ready-made food that is nutritious and healthy can be prohibitively expensive for some people.

Soylent is meant to replace a fast food burrito or a McDonalds breakfast sandwich, not a home-cooked steak dinner or a meal at a restaurant with friends and family. In my view, Soylent is not about minimizing the amount of time spent on preparing and eating food, it's about providing a convenient, nutritious, and (relatively, compared to fast food) cheap source of nutrition for those times that I don't have social obligations and I don't want to/don't have time to cook something for myself.

I've mostly replaced lunches at work with Soylent and I also have it for breakfast most of the time. Occasionally, I supplement Soylent with granola.

I love food, but I don't care to make it. I used to make turkey or krakowska (Polish meat) sandwiches for lunch the next day, but I don't care enough about those things to go to the deli every week or two.

Once or twice a week I'll get lunch at a Halal truck or the deli next to my office, but this is much more expensive than just soylent. Bought lunch turns into my "big meal" and I end up having very little for dinner.

For dinner, I'll make some food but it's never elaborate. Very often, my dinners are peanut butter sandwiches. Sometimes I'll make some ramen and throw an egg in there. I'm also really into gourmet burgers so I go out a couple times a month for one.

I suppose the takeaway is that my lifestyle and eating habits didn't change for Soylent. It was just a better solution for me than what I was already doing. I prefer to have a cheap eating routine and Soylent helps prevent me from eating garbage food with basically zero effort. Not to mention that I'm borderline "chocoholic" who cut out buying sweets and the cacao flavor soylent really hits the spot.

I have done both in my time with Soylent.

When I first started I went 100%, then was one of the first people to get horribly sick of the bars, eventually quitting.

Now I eat Soylent as a replacement for meals in which I usually eat crap foods. If I was going to get a sausage mcmuffin from McDonalds, instead I eat a Cookies and Cream Soylent "shake." I think that Soylent's big play is in a healthy meal replacement that is scientifically formulated to be healthy. They have fought with that and being environmentally friendly, but I think it all comes back to being a healthy food in the end. The 3 people I know who eat it, do exactly the same as me. Most tried 50% for a bit, but eventually it is used as a convenient mildly healthy meal replacement when needed.

My 2 cents. I think of it as a min/max problem. I don't care about my lunch so I want to minify the effort and degrading effects of it and I use Soylent for that. On the other hand, I absolutely love food and love to cook so I tend to cook dinner every night and really enjoy the experience. When I care, I care a lot, when I don't care, I want to minimize the effort involved.

I eat Soylent whenever I would otherwise have to buy or prepare food alone. I eat a lot in general, as I'm trying to "bulk", so I end up eating a lot of Soylent.

Concretely, working at Google, this means a weekday eating schedule of: Soylent breakfast, Google lunch, Google afternoon snack, either Google dinner or Soylent dinner, Soylent before-bed snack. So usually 3-5 bottles (1200-2000 kcals) per day. (Google breakfast ends too early for my night-owl schedule.)

On weekends, it depends on my social schedule. For a day with friends or the girlfriend, most meals will be eating out or delivery, with only 1-3 Soylents in between meals/before bed for extra calories. For a day home alone coding or gaming, I'll eat exclusively Soylent, around 6-10 bottles (2400-4000 kcals) per day depending on how much I can push myself for those gainz.

As someone who doesn't particularly crave the sensation of eating, this seems like maximal utility to me. I get the other benefits of eating (socialization) when I can, and when those aren't forthcoming, I just get a (relatively) cheap, nutritious, fast source of calories. (I do enjoy eating, just not overmuch.)

And it's been a godsend for weight-gain; I have a very hard time stuffing myself with normal food or shakes, but Soylent just goes right down.

> ...people seeing eating as a nuisance that should be optimized away versus something that should be savoured and enjoyed. > In one world, Soylent could eventually dominate, in the other, it will remain a niche product because eating and food is too important too most, also culturally speaking.

This is a false dichotomy. I savor and enjoy food, but not all the food I eat. If every frozen burrito was replaced with Soylent, Soylent would be far more than a niche product, yet society would not have lost it's appreciation for the cultural, social, and culinary aspects of food.

I've tried Soylent on and off since it was new. Overall, I'm a fan of it.

Currently I have a Coffeeist for breakfast 2-3 times a week, and Soylent 2.0 as a work-lunch 4 days a week.

This current trend is coming in as a replacement for what had become some pretty bad eating habits. Stopping at McDonald's or a coffee shop for breakfast 2-3 times a week. Fast food or restaurants with coworkers several times a week, that sort of thing. The social aspect of lunch with coworkers is great, and I try to set aside at least a day in the week to do just that. But that habit is expensive and unhealthy.

I'm a pretty good cook. I tend to eat home-cooked dinners. I'm fine with preparing a big batch of food and freezing/refrigerating it to eat for many days. But I've never found a food that works for this that's great for breakfast or taking to work as a lunch.

Soylent fulfills my exact needs in this regard - and the other meal replacement options don't fit the macro-nutrient profile I strive for. All over this thread there's references to SlimFast (too much sugar in the regular, too few calories in Advanced), Ensure (too much sugar), or protein powders/shakes. I've tried literally all of these.

Protein powders are always a go-to of mine when I'm trying to bulk up. So is plenty of meats and vegetables.

In the end, I just totally have a use for Soylent - and so long as they're the only ones providing what I want in a form I enjoy, they'll continue to have me as a customer.

I initially tried soylent in order to replace my lunch meals, but now I use it to supplement my diet. I am trying to gain weight and soylent helps meet my caloric goals without depending on junk food. I can maintain my previous eating habits and simply add 1 or 2 servings of soylent to bulk up.

It's great for breakfast but I could not see myself living off of it only. I think the idea that subsisting only on Soylent is something a lot of people do is overblown. That idea is just a great media angle for Soylent because it seems crazy and it would be crazy for most people.

Occasional meal replacement. I keep a couple in the fridge at home and work and will grab one if I'm looking to save time and/or money. Bought one case each of Coffiest and Nectar on Amazon.

> how far do you go into replacing all real food?

Why do you make a distinction between Soylent and "real" food? Its ingredients are not terribly different than other stuff I buy at the grocery store.

Most breakfasts (I was eating Oatmeal before so very similar) and the VERY occasional lunch/dinner.

It's a food company, and its product is fully baked. Why aren't they bootstrapping? Are they not profitable? If so, how do they have a business? If I sold ketchup at a loss, would I be able to close a $50M financing round?

If you call it Ktchp.io, you pretend you're using a better recipe generated through machine learning, you create an AR solution to serve it better and more effectively, [insert easy quip about startup culture here], then maybe yes.

Even if -- some would say especially if -- you are profitable, you might take outside money to speed up the process. Not that unusual.

Speeding up is useful for many reasons. Just to name a few: you have a lead and want to maintain it; you suspect the window for product adoption is limited; you want to grow the business and sell it so you can move on.

They could grow slowly for the next 10 years, or throw lighter fluid on it and grow more aggressively, giving investors a cut along the way.

Rob says in the post that they will be using the funding for faster expansion:

> "This funding will enable us to expand our current product offerings, support our expansion efforts into traditional retail and international territories, and further our goal of bringing Soylent products to people around the world.”

I find it odd how popular Soylent has become. I always considered it to be the product that it was in the movie: the absolute minimum of nourishment given a lack resources. A dystopian nightmare.

A popular argument seems to be "I don't have time eat something proper". To me, that just replaces the lack of one resource (the ones in the movie) with another (time).

I just completed the Everest Base Camp trek with my wife - I used Soylent (version 1.4) for the hike. So I basically subsisted on Soylent for 2 weeks of hiking/climbing up to 5,500 metres above sea level.

I did 1 packet per day (2000 calories), supplemented with some snack food on the trail (dried nuts and fruit, Stinger-brand honey waffles, muesli bars etc.).

Motivation was firstly as an experiment (to see how I would cope), secondly because I wanted to accurately control/measure my caloric intake, and thirdly, because I was somewhat paranoid about getting food poisoning on the trek. (I used a MSR Guardian to provide clean filtered water for mixing up Soylent).

I didn't really notice any odd effects - and it went better than expected well. Didn't get food poisoning (wife got diarrhoea, but she ate local food) - was a bit hungry on some days (in hindsight, 2,000 calories was a bit low - I upped it to 2,500 calories on the day I climbed Kala Pattar).

All I can say was, Soylent was great for this use-case, and I'm a firm believer now. At home, I only use Soylent for when I have no time to cook, and need a reasonably healthy/complete meal - if your alternative is going out for a late-night kebab, or 24-hour fast-food, it's not a hard choice for me =).

That was a great review of the product, demonstrating real-world use case and benefits. It was fascinating to read, even though I have no personal interest in Soylent at all as a meal replacement (happily married to a wonderful cook), I will remember your story next time we go hiking and I'm complaining of the weight of all the food I'm carrying.

I've never tried Soylent, but I do have to drink Ensure many times a day.

Ensure has a massive market, $billions in annual sales, and medically proven results.

The medical market is not where Soylent is going right now, But it is massive and proven.

If they could market to younger, hipper folks who've been prescribed Ensure, but would spend their own money for something nicer... That'd be me.

(BTW: I finally ordered some huel just now... Really sick of Ensure, will give that a try)

I have been using Soylent for breakfast for roughly 1.5 years and it has been great. I've lost weight and I feel healthier. I haven't got sick during this time either from a flu or serious cold. It's a great time saver when used as a breakfast food and will help save you precious time in the morning before you go to work. Time that you could spend sleeping rather than stuck in a drive-through or making something. Works for my busy lifestyle. And I like the fact that I am getting all those nutrients. While I realize it's not perfect now, it's nice to know that they are continually trying to improve it with the different versions. If it's at least half as nutritious as Soylent claims it is, that's a win in my book. And to think it might actually get to that holy grail where it's genuinely great for you then that will be something special. Realistically, this is probably a slow march, but one that I am proud to be a part of. Mixes great with fruit, peanut butter, honey and other food items too which I know is healthy for me.

I too have used soylent for breakfast, for maybe the last 4 or 5 months. And funnily enough, I've gained more weight! Which was the goal for me, as I'm a little underweight and needed to stop skipping breakfast.

I've been using their coffiest drink, and kill two birds with one stone. I do sometimes miss the experience of making my own coffee though, so I may try the powder instead.

I will say though, at the beginning I was not a fan. Bowel movements changed, felt weird and bloated, and so on. But it stabilized after a few weeks.

How is Soylent different from meal replacement or protein powders that have existed for years?

Soylent was fine. I maintained weight, and was eating better, and the food was easy.

But I'm in a medical weight loss program now, and I'm loving it. It's doctor supervised, I started out at 400 pounds, and I'm down to 360 after five weeks. It's medically supervised because I'm in ketosis, which can be very dangerous. So best to have blood drawn regularly, etc.

But the food is great. You can also get them as your own supplements / replacements.

http://www.robard.com/products/

Right now I'm eating 1,000 calories a day. I'll be going down to 800 calories per day. And I'm burning about 2,000 calories of my own fat every day (that's a pound). Again, this is a dangerous diet, but it's medically supervised.

I feel great, I don't feel "hungry" all the time. It's awesome.

> Again, this is a dangerous diet, but it's medically supervised.

I'm glad it's working well for you, but I'd just caution that plenty of quackery is "medically supervised", as were fen-phen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenfluramine/phentermine) and the Tuskegee trials.

Keto might not be for everyone, but unless you're a type 1 diabetic it's not nearly as dangerous as you're describing. It's just a low carb high fat.

3,500 calories is a pound

This is a play on the large soft drink beverage companies who are literally thirsty for companies to replace their soda portfolios. Bai was recentesly aquifed by Dr Pepper for almost 2 billion. So a 10x return for this round is certainly possible.

I am one of those people who got horrible nausea eating a couple of batches of the Soylent bar. I really liked the taste and the nutrition profile. But I simply cannot tolerate any Soylent products after the episodes of nausea. There is only one other food (an obscure Indian snack) that ever created a similar aversion in me. I don't know when, if ever I'll get over the association of Soylent with nausea in my head. I wish it had never happened so that I could have continued using their products.

What people gloss over about soylent on their way to the oft-repeated "it's just like slimfast wtf" point is that it's not the specific product that's interesting/innovative/valuable (it is kinda like slimfast...), it's taking that product to an entirely new and arguably larger market - I have no idea many 20 to 30 somethings working in tech were out there buying slimfast 10 years ago, but I'm guessing (and I could be wrong!) it's fewer than the number of folks who buy soylent today. assuming it can maintain appeal to "hard-working tech folks", then it's arguable that they can also successfully appeal to other professionals in other markets who, again, I would guess were not buying slimfast or other meal/diet drinks. it's all about marketing and "telling a new story", and i don't mean that in a bad way at all - sure, any company can quickly copy the ingredients, but they will also have to sell the same story, which is totally possible but arguably harder to do as well. that all being said, marketing IMO is only so good of a moat and there's only a few co's who really dominate relying mostly on it (coke, hermes, nike to name a few), so i'm not sure the new market and their story is worth this large of an investment, but who knows it very well could be!

I've been trying out alternate-day fasting (alternating between 500-600 calorie "fasting" days and normal eating days). Primarily to help me lose a few pounds, but also in response to all of the recent publicized studies about how fasting and calorie restriction may have other overall health benefits.

Usually on my 500 calorie days I'll just drink a couple Boosts. I'd like to consider Soylent as an option for the fasting days as well, but from a cost perspective it can't really compete with the other alternatives out there (Boost, Ensure, and various no-name store brands available from places like Sam's Club and Costco). Liquid Soylent runs between $2.69-$3.09/400kcal, whereas high protein Boost (which is not even the cheapest option if you're willing to go with no-name brands) runs at $1.93/400kcal. Going with Soylent Powder can bring your costs down more in line at $1.54/400kcal, but the added hassle of having to mix it yourself doesn't make this a very attractive option in comparison.

I guess what I'm ultimately getting at is, assuming you are just using Soylent to supplement an otherwise normal diet, I don't understand its appeal over other less expensive nutritional meal supplements like Boost and Ensure.

I've been drinking Soylent every day for breakfast for the past year (the bottles). I find it really convenient, and unlike SlimFast and other shakes, it doesn't seem overly sweet to me. It gets rid of my hunger with no fuss, no mess, and no fanfare. Ideally, I could eat a healthy breakfast, but in reality I know that I'd just be pounding down some cereal bars or something, which would arguably be worse nutrition-wise than Soylent.

Because of all the negativity in Soylent threads I always feel obliged to add my opinion. Soylent has been an extremely positive addition to my life.

The idea that nutrition can be boiled down in this way feels that it will inevitably be missing something severely important that the modeling doesn't account for. The modelers afterwards will excuse the oversight by saying look this thing was so small, who would've thought to measure in such and such a way? Nature.

They just bundle the known "essentials" for actual survival (plus carbs), based on the current status quo medical majority opinion. However, thrival (the next strival after survival ;) is more subjective and much less well-studied in terms of: micro-nutrients, co-enzymes, certain protein-chain configurations, preformed vs substitute-for-own-conversion fat-soluble vitamins (DAKE) or ascorbate, etc. Another "complete food that you can drink" would be raw eggs, but in this age and place, that idea freaks folks out a lot more whereas such soy concoctions don't in the least. So, go for it ;)

Does this mean they're going to make their own product? Currently, Soylent, the company, is just a marketing operation. Everything else is outsourced.

That's not an unusual strategy for hype-based products. Skyy Vodka and WD-40 were completely outsourced. Skyy Vodka was originally made by Frank-Lin Distillers Products in San Jose, the company that makes most of the low-end booze on the West Coast. Frank-Lin buys bulk ethanol by the tank car load (they have their own railroad sidings), does a little post-processing on the ethanol, takes in tap water and runs it through a deionzing plant, mixes them, adds flavoring, and bottles. They have a really fancy automated bottling line which can handle about a thousand different bottles and can change bottle types automatically. This is called product differentiation.

They don't outsource their formula development or testing, which is the difficult part. You could say they outsource the manufacturing, but that's common in every industry these days.

Did anyone else have this problem: you enjoyed the product at first but after X number of bottles (like case 2 for me) your body started to react poorly to it and the taste became repulsive?

Not trying to badmouth soylent, I had a similar experience with a brand of granola bars.

I never was particularly a fan of the taste myself and what helped me was drinking it ice-cold. The colder it is, the less pronounced the flavor is.

Oh boy, another Soylent thread.... Here is how the comments are going to go: Half the commenters are going to say Soylent is not supposed to be for every meal, it's just for when you are too busy to eat. The other half cannot fathom ever using Soylent because if they are too busy to eat they will quit their job first, no exceptions. Neither side can bridge the gap, as food culture is very unique to each person. Let the market sort it all, props to Soylent for letting that happen and not wringingtheir hands over all of it.

(For the record, I would quit my job before skipping meals; they are actually that important to me staying sane)

Is there any long term effect medical study about this product?

I think our body has organs which releases various gastric juices to digest the food we eat. It is not only about how much calorie/protein one is consuming, there are also some useful by-products which helps in overall functioning of the body as well. A very simple analogy is only drinking fruit juice instead of eating them raw. We are not taking in fibers which helps in digestion, slow decomposition and good bowl movement.

I am very skeptical about approaches like this where we measure our food just in terms of calories, vitamins, protiens and then consume them directly in that format.

That would be extremely interesting, indeed.

Soylent has said they were looking into having studies done, but I don't recall what the details were or when it was planned for.

While anecdotal evidence isn't enough, it's fairly common to see people posting results of their blood work after a few months of Soylent. But I'd personally love to see some more details and unbiased tests in an "official" study.

Ensure wrapped up in a nice minimalist package.

There's no saying more true than you are what you eat (or drink). Soylent drinkers are definitely Soylent people. I prefer a world of flavor, spice, and variety. I also wonder if it's a coincidence that the funders of the Juicero (solving a problem no one knew they had for people who clearly have too much disposable income) are the same as the funders of Soylent. I know there's a high overlap of HN readers and Soylent drinkers, but I think there's a big disconnect with the rest of the non-Silicon Valley populace.

As an anecdotal/tiny success story, I drank Soylent exclusively for a month and lost 10 pounds - of course, this was by dramatically reducing my calories and exercising, not by virtue of Soylent alone. That said, I did find Soylent to be great on two accounts - it is not something you will consume for fun/pleasure/killing boredom, and it is easy to measure your calorie intake if you are consuming it solely. Side note: I am not a doctor or nutritionist, do not take my story as scientifically-grounded advice.

Anyone know the difference between Soylent and a good quality weight gainer like Reflex Instant Mass Pro?

Nutrition Facts

Reflex Instant Mass Pro https://www.reflexnutrition.com/instant-mass-pro/

Soylent http://files.soylent.com/pdf/soylent-nutrition-facts-1-8-en....

I wonder how long it will be until some VC forces the inevitable rebranding of the Soylent name.

"We need to reach out to a larger demographic with a name that communicates the value proposition of the product. Liquid Lunch focus-groups well in the demographic of females 18-30, which is where we see our growth trending in future..."

I've always liked the cheekiness of the Soylent name and it's really the only thing that's made me pay the slightest bit of attention to the product.

Serious question: how many people in that demographic group do you think have ever seen the movie/read the book that it's based on? I'm approaching 30 myself and never heard of the source material before all the news articles/comment threads on this new powder I was buying.

Which is to say, I don't think the name is as problematic for the real-world target audience as some people make it out to be.

Coffiest easily exceeded my modest expectations. Quick, easy to digest when I'm nervous, and the combination of caffeine and theanine is... nice. My diet is trash, and it's vastly better than not eating or stopping for an Egg McMuffin at the drive through.

Soylent has gotten me off fast food entirely. I keep a few bottles at home and at work, so that I can get a meal during my commute that doesn't come from a drive through.

I can't stand reading these posts about Soylent. There is so much irrational hate backed up by nothing more than incomplete and irrelevant arguments. People recommend virtually any other product even if it misses half the qualities of Soylent; things like nuts + fruits, whey protein, ensure, clif bars or even cooking.

I'm fairly certain it's due to an astroturfing campaign, but I don't know who would pay for such a thing.

I drink a lot of coffee, and for me the Coffiest product is cheaper and healthier than your average Starbucks drink. I also really like the taste of the Cacao drink, which satisfies my sweet tooth whenever I feel like reaching for a bar of chocolate. I don't necessarily view it as a meal replacement, but rather an upgrade to unhealthy things I already eat regularly.

I still don't understand the strong reactions Soylent gets on either side. There's plenty to criticize and to like but reactions to it cluster around it being the end of the world or solution to all your problems.

I'm a fan of the breakfast Soylent (Coffiest). To me it's the best form of the Soylent idea.

If Soylent were a good idea it wouldn't need a $50M funding round at this point. People know about it. Most people I know who've tried it after a while didn't like it any more and abandoned it.

And now they've brought out flavors, basically turning it into an expensive meal replacement. It's ridiculous.

Live a restrictive life, careful, watching, planning and get life expectancy of 85yrs ? A bad turn of luck could be the end is right around the corner

Live a wild debauched, taste everything, free for all, no care whatsoever and get a life expectancy of: 80yrs? A somewhat lucky draw could see you beyond 90

Hard choices :)

I'm reserving judgement until I know exactly how Soylent affects our microbiome. This study seems to just have gotten started: https://mycrobes.berkeley.edu/the-study/

As a person who has researched Soylent, I would not describe it as cheap or healthy. Most of the people with opposing opinions seem to think it's a magic weight loss supplement. In reality, the properties that cause weight loss seem to be the low quality ingredients.

One thing I'm curious about: do liquid diet like Soylent change the brush border in our intestines in an appreciable way? If I went completely soylent for a few months, and then tried to eat something more...raw, would there be any changes in digestion?

"Everything the body needs..." - the Matrix next we get implantable nutrient packs that last for a year. Hey, YCombinator idea? Go fund that. (this might classify as a troll post as its not particularly relevant but just had to, sorry)

If Forerunner didn't participate in this, then Soylent doesn't have a chance. I'd trust Forerunner over GV (or anyone) on a new consumer brand - and that's what Soylent is, going up against everything from Hint water to Ensure.

I'm curious about the naming choice as the end of the movie with Heston reveals that eating "Soylent Green" is a form of cannibalism. Does the term "Soylent" signify something outside of the movie?

In the movie "Soylent Green" (the book its based on is different, in fact I don't even think there's cannibalism in it) there are a variety of meal-replacement foodstuffs known as Soylent, including red and yellow, that are made from soy and algae. Green is the only one made from humans.

No, the name is directly referencing the movie. It's a tongue-in-cheek and self-deprecating, much in the spirit of programming culture.

Well, a large part of what makes up Soylent is soy protein isolate. So there's that.

It's intended as a reference to the novel that the movie is "based on", Make Room! Make Room!, By Harry Harrison.

Which doesn't involve cannibalism, but is an odd choice in other ways.

Does anyone know the valuation of the company? And more importantly, what justifies that valuation? I have trouble believing that the meal replacement market is all that lucrative.

I used to get annoyed by all the negativity Soylent received from people. Now I just get amused by it. Soylent has been nothing but a positive addition to my life.

The future is food that tastes and feels like real food but with the nutrients that your genetics and physical conditions tell that you should eat. One day...

I've been wanting to try Soylent but have not done so b/c of the price. Is there an HN promo code or something? I'd try it for a full month.

Soylent offers 50% off if you "refer a friend", so you can get it for ~$16.

http://soy.lt/r/bbyysMpsFN

Note, though this is a "referral link", I do not get anything out of it, but they do donate to World Food Program USA: https://www.soylent.com/refer/

How is Soylent better than buying a quality blender and fresh veggies and protein powder and coconut oil? Or is for folks who live in a food desert?

The best food advice I've read: don't eat or drink anything that humans haven't been eating or drinking for at least 500 years.

Off topic, but have anyone tried 'Soylent Coffiest'? How do you like it for breakfast + coffee replacement for few days a week?

I couldn't stand it. It tasted bitter and fake to me. I have colleagues who swear by it though.

Congratulations.

I have been drinking Soylent 12 bottles a month. This alone has freed me up from thinking about what to eat for lunch.

Does anyone know of any clinical trials showing health benefits of Soylent? or adverse health consequences?

Have they figured out the vile angry flatulence problem?

Maybe... you're not as busy as you believe you are?

personally I love soylent. Curious what the hard numbers are on sales growth/units shipped per month.

Soylent and Juicero

Rather surprised that nobody, as yet, has made a connection between Soylent and Juicero.

* 1st: Juicing & Nutrition - There’s very little evidence that liquid food / juicing has any benefits for most adults. Most nutritionists worth their salt will advise against juicing. Juicero (and other juice makers) take perfectly good,healthy, nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables and make them less healthy. Ditto for Soylent. Crushing natural foods (vegetables, fruits, any other in their natural form) together to seek out their nutrients, and reconstituting them in powder/liquid form is, by any other fancy name, a juice. “The skin on an apple, the seeds in raspberries and the membranes that hold orange segments together — they are all good for you. That is where most of the fiber, as well as many of the antioxidants, phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals are hiding. Fiber is good for your gut; it fills you up and slows the absorption of the sugars you eat, resulting in smaller spikes in insulin. When your body can no longer keep up with your need for insulin, Type 2 diabetes can develop.” [1]

- I wonder if people who see the benefits of Soylent/juicing have read Michael Pollan or Marion Nestle. See [1], [2], [3]

* 2nd: Silicon Valley and investments Both Soylent and Juicero are funded by marquee investors. Here’s a brief list for Juicero (Total $118M raised) [4] GV (nee Google Ventures) KPCB Abstract Campbell Soup Thrive Capital

Here’s for Soylent (Total $70M raised):[5] GV (nee Google Ventures) A16Z Tao Capital Index Ventures YC Lerner Hippeau Initialized Capital

What do these have in common? Apart from being in the food business? It is the Food-as-a-Service business model. That is the essential ingredient (no pun) of the business, not the nutrients per se.

In effect, both Soylent and Juicero are products targeted towards high disposable income, busy professionals who want convenience, and perhaps the glow of “save the world from hunger”. (whatever that means). Any health benefits are inconsequential at best in the grand scheme of things.

If you value your nutrition and health, you are far better off relying on the tried-and-tested advice from Michael Pollan: Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants.

All other rationalization of time/effort/nutritional benefit of Soylent/Juicero in “save what world from hunger” is, well, just plain old rationalization by any other name.

[1] [People think juice is good for them. They’re wrong. - The Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/04/26/...) [2] [Books | Michael Pollan](http://michaelpollan.com/books/) [3] [Marion Nestle - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Nestle) [4] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/juicero/investors [5] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/soylent-corporation#...

Nerds will buy anything if trendy Silicon Valley ‘thought leaders’ endorse it.

Aside from brand, how does soylent differ from ensure?

There isn't an Ensure product that is formulated similarly to Soylent at the moment. Ensure has two products with a similar calorie count compared to Soylent (Ensure 350g vs Soylent 400g). Here's how they break down:

Soylent Drink: 400cal, 21g fat, 20g protein, 36g total carb. 9g sugar.

Ensure Plus: 350cal, 11g fat, 13g protein, 57g carb. 22g sugar.

Ensure Enlive: 250cal, 11g fat, 20g protein, 45g carb. 22g sugar.

As you can see, Soylent has more fat, which provides 9 cal/gram compared to 4cal/gram from carb/protein. This allows it to hit its calorie goal without adding nearly as many carbs and sugars.

Soylent gets millions of dollars from tech investors.

Don't know why GV would invest in Soylent after so much fiasco. Seems like they earn money so easily that they are content to throw it away.

Weird. You need food during an eight hour shift?

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14266209 and marked it off-topic.

Lots of people prefer eating smaller servings more frequently, some people need a snack to get through the day. Yet others have varying schedules that cause may fall between meals in a way that makes them hungry.

It is normal for people to eat lunch halfway through the work day.

I want my doctor to be well satiated.

Do you not eat at all during work?

Lunch?????????

That's quite a chunk of change for rebranding SlimFast for the urban millennial set. I wonder how many other eight figure venture-fundable concepts could be exploited by lurking in the grocery store aisles with a label maker.

You don't quite understand what the deal with Soylent is.

You couldn't live on SlimFast if you had to. It's an appetite suppressant/meal replacement for short term use, given that it's not nutritionally balanced.

Neither is it similar to Ensure or most other meal replacement drinks for the same reasons. They're usually absolutely loaded with fast, low-index sugars that'll spike your blood sugar.

Basically, it's the food equivalent of water. Neutral, nutritious, has what your body needs and nothing more. The carb source they're using is high-GI, meaning it won't cause that spike. The idea being that when you CBA'd to cook, when you'd normally run to the local burger joint's drivethru, you shake up a glass of this stuff, and you're back to doing whatever you're doing for cheaper (about $3 a meal) and in less time.

Basically, it hits all of the right notes that most of the on-the-shelf competitors do not. It's relatively cheap, it keeps a long time, it's actually good for you, it's convenient as food could ever possibly be.

I personally love the stuff.

It was hard to find the right nutrition data, but:

Slim Fast:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/125563-slim-fast/

http://www.fathead-movie.com/images/slimfast.png

https://tamafitness.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/shakeology_v...

Sounds like you could probably survive entirely on Slim Fast. It's got Iron (which the original Soylent didn't have), Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin B, Vitamin D, and Iodine, and a bunch of other micronutrients. You probably wouldn't have a great time but I doubt you would on a Soylent-only diet either.

Solyent doesn't seem to differ much:

http://files.soylent.com/pdf/soylent-drink-nutrition-facts-e...

You overlooked the calories: 180 in Slimfast, 400 in Solyent. And that's just the premade drink. One pouch of the powder is a flat 2000, something I don't think Slimfast even has an answer for. Also, pay attention to the ingredient list: Milk, water, sugar, in that order.

Slimfast is a diet drink as the name implies, while Soylent is a meal replacement. If you wanted to get a reasonable (non-starvation) amount of calories from Slimfast to live on it and it alone, Soylent then wins on balance and cost.

Have you actually compared Soylent to SlimFast? They have practically nothing in common beyond being a liquid. Why all the hate?

Shame you're being downvoted. You can find powdered meals or ready-to-go shakes with similar or better nutrient profiles than Soylent in most grocery stores .

"similar or better nutrient profiles than Soylent in most grocery stores"

Really? Slimfast and Ensure have much higher amounts of sugar; what are you thinking of?

I feel like I'm the only who has ever read the nutrition facts. It's a garbage product full of ingredients I wouldn't aim to put in my body. Love the idea of it all, just not the science behind it.

Do you have the time to talk about what you found specifically wrong with the ingredients? Outside of the allergy risk of Soy, many of the ingredients aren't uncommon in a variety of dietary supplements and weight gain targeted products. I found soy lecithin is one of the more controversial ingredients over how it's derived, but the process isn't much different from how orange juice is extracted.

You piqued my curiosity. Here are the nutrition facts from their drink product:

    Calories 400
    Total Fat 21g 32%
      Saturated Fat 2g 10%
      Polyunsaturated Fat 2.5g
      Monounsaturated Fat 16g
      Trans Fat 0g
    Cholesterol 0mg 0%
    Sodium 300mg 13%
    Total Carbohydrate 36g 12%
      Total Sugars 9g        
    Protein 20g

The ratios don't seem that bad. The top ingredients are water, soy protein, maltodextrin (a filler/preservative with a high glycemic index), and algal oil.

Which ingredients do you have a specific problem with?

Out of curiosity, what did you see that disturbed you?

Can you elaborate a bit? What exactly is garbage about the ingredients?

Yes, eat real food. It's hard to believe there's no much interest in another industrial product.

Soylent - We've put SlimFast on the Internet.

And this after JuiceBro. Amazing.

I feel like more people should read this book

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/315425.In_Defense_of_Food

Serious question -- do they have an FDA approval?? Can they produce and sell it without it?

Recently learnt about some Amish selling home made honey without FDA approval; now awaiting trial on a 20 years jail charge.

Soylent is "regulated as a food by the FDA".

I don't know if it was intentional, but your description of the Amish and honey is not completely accurate. The gentleman in question was informed he could not claim a salve he sold cured cancer without evidence. It's not honey, it's a mixture of herbal remedies, some of which are toxic.

It's hard to get any true factual information about this specific case because the coverage is almost entirely in heavily biased "news" outlets that focus on "Natural Healing Remedies".

Can you point to that story? I know some got caught putting "cures cancer" on the label and that is a big no-no.

Well first you have to ask where the product fits into the FDA's spectrum. https://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/Transparency/Basics/ucm194879.h...

This is not a supplement or additive so it's a food. It's not a pill you take in addition to your meal but a meal replacement. The best route from here is to see if ensure is fda approved and if it is, what's the value of that stamp? Is it objective 100%? You can't make many assumptions so we must continue on from this point. I"m not sure there are regulatory requirements for a product like this and if there are what is the value? Does an FDA stamp on this supplement mean 100% that a product can replace all food forever?

It's just food, and food doesn't need FDA approval.

They've stopped making medical claims for the product.

> Recently learnt about some Amish selling home made honey without FDA approval; now awaiting trial on a 20 years jail charge.

I'd be inteested to read that case. Most of the cases I've seen people were making clear medical claims ("cures cancer") or selling raw milk.

Total hypothesis, but don't they not need it since all of the ingredients are already FDA approved?

Thanks for everyone correcting me.

No word for downvoters. I'm sure you never been once wrong in your lifetime...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com