Heading of the conclusion: "The Core Problem: We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know"
Most sections could be summarized as "We don't know that Soylent is doing things right therefore it might be unhealthy." It's just a FUD piece.
Haven't tried the stuff in near a decade personally but IMO Soylent is reasonably well researched and a good faith effort to try to create a healthy food, whether it ultimately is or not. "We don't know" doesn't cut it as a counterargument.
As for long running randomized trials, sure, there aren't any. However, none of the hidden deleterious effects the author suggests might happen have been observed in consumers over the past three years since the article was published (that I know of), so, if there is a problem, it's really subtle.
IMO the burden of proof for whether something is truly healthy for a human being over the course of their lifetime is on the new product rather than lack of evidence to the contrary.
Just my two cents’, and I think reasonable people can disagree.
Maybe we're going too far into a discussion on epistemology here, but I don't think it is FUD to call out that we cannot clearly say the same thing about Soylent that we say about a serving of cruciferous vegetables. One is healthy and the other is unknown and ambiguous.
However, if we still want to call this FUD, I'd argue that maybe FUD is necessary when thinking about what we put into our bodies. I'd also practice FUD when thinking through whether I should approach a mountain lion, and I'd encourage everyone else to do the same.
There's a difference between _knowing_ and _believing_. You _believe_ this, it's not an absolute truth.
It's the same as most people believe they must drink 2L of water a day, where in reality there's zero scientific basis for the assertion.
It could be that there is scientific basis that ground up plant material of which Soylent is comprised is not nutritionally similar to "leafy green vegetables", but you don't _know_ that. You merely _believe_ it. I'm not even a soylent fan (although I did try it), but I am a fan of critical thinking.
I am also a fan of critical thinking, so I'd love to hear your opinion beyond nitpicking over words (knowledge vs. belief). What do you think about how fear and uncertainty should be incorporated into diet or, say, what kind of predatory animals a human being approaches?
There is very good reason to believe leafy vegetables are healthy based on oodles of medical evidence spanning decades.
The 2L of water never had evidence behind specifically that quantity, and was only a reasonable general guideline for men, with it well known that the requirements vary enormously from person to person.
edit: To put it better, 2L of water a day as a good goal for the average person to shoot for is a public health message, it's not a clinical statement. There is a difference, in that public health advice needs to be easily digestible and not confuse people, even if it is leaving out nuance.
From the Mayo Clinic's site[0]:
You've probably heard the advice to drink eight glasses of water a day. That's easy to remember, and it's a reasonable goal.
Most healthy people can stay hydrated by drinking water and other fluids whenever they feel thirsty. For some people, fewer than eight glasses a day might be enough. But other people might need more.
[0] https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...
Thus, unknown benefit or harm which probably isn't huge either way. It's like taking an untested drug that probably isn't dangerous but probably doesn't have a huge effect either. The precautionary principle is the usual rule with such things.
To really know, we'd need multi-decade longitudinal studies of large numbers of people. Soylent obviously doesn't have that kind of evidence.