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Comment by tunesmith | Hacker News Reader

I liked Soylent for a little while, but something about the mixture of fiber and liquid was something that my stomach very much did not like in terms of indigestion. I eventually gave up on it, and haven't heard much about it at all over the past 2-3 years.

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They drifted from their stated purpose early. It’s little more than a brand now.

Makes sense to finally finish selling out. They let down their core audience a long time ago.

It used to be a powder, exclusively.

They still sell the powder.

The problem from what I read is that the powder market is just too small and there isn’t much more space to expand.

They apparently still sell both the bottled version and the powder version.

(I stopped giving a damn when I got married. Cooking for 3 people is a different story than cooking for 1.)

They sell a powder long diverged from the older formulations.

For better or worse?

Depends who you ask.

Based upon the community that developed around recreating the earlier formulas with a recipe and product lists, I’d say for the worse.

Based upon individual accounts of those I know, largely worse.

Some might like the changes.

It is far easier to buy the liquid form than the powder, so that says plenty as well.

I remember liking the liquid drink they sold back in early 2016. Have you heard anything about the drinks getting worse too?

I have not consumed soylent in years.

Many competitors and community recipes.

I've tried Joylent and Huel. Soylent 1.5 is still my favorite. Probably a similar diy recipe I could try. Speaking of DIY Soylent, I wonder if this new company will still be into that.

Every revision of Soylent made it more unpleasant for me (but better for my wife). They seemed to optimize mouth-feel over taste, and it was undrinkable for me somewhere around 1.5

Their goal was to make it as bland as possible for a while under the premise that if it had any flavor, you'd get tired of it. Though the 1.0 was pretty fishy - in the sense it tasted of fish, not suspicious.

Fish oil additive will do that.

Those were the days.

I enjoyed both 1.2 and 1.3, not sure what it tastes like now but heard the shelf life has dropped due to the changes.

I also tried out Soylent with similar results, but I figured it was just the nature of the product. I then tried Huel, Joylent, Mana, and Super Body Fuel - none had the gastrointestinal problems of Soylent. Good branding, marketing, and distribution; terrible product.

I’ve had the opposite reaction - on days when my acid reflux bothers me and makes eating seem not fun, I have no problem ingesting a bottle of Soylent (Original flavor)

Made my heart feel like it was going to explode.

Yep, me too. The recipe I was drinking had a high amount of potassium in it. There isn’t a strict guideline on how much potassium you should consume, so there tends to be plenty of it in soylent or similar drinks/powders (I’m not sure I actually ever checked official soylent, but those available to me at the time) for some reason probably due to manufacturing convenience.

I always figured it was this high potassium content that caused heart problems for some. Gave up on the concept after realising this and the heart issue never going away.

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