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Comment by jasallen | Hacker News Reader

I think for this parallel to be valid he'd have to be eating McDonalds or what-have-you every day. The point is variety (mostly) ensures we get everything we need from somewhere. I think it's almost assured that in the long run 100% (or so) soylent will turn out to be more detrimental than even the 'average diets' out there. BTW, I'm kinduva healthy eating nut myself, but this just isn't 'healthy eating'.

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Right, thats precisely my point: I think you underestimate how many people eat McDonalds or what-have-you every day. The interesting thing about this phenomenon is that I think it takes place all over the spectrum: the poor do it as well as the rich. Perhaps you do not see this as much because you are a self-described health nut (and thus this diet probably isn't for you, the same way an Alienware computer isn't for someone who knows how to build a PC), but in my developer circle I see eating trash food every day for all meals quite often. And what I've found is often the problem is that you forget about food and then are starving and make a bad decision so you can keep working, not necessarily because you love pizza or whatever. If Soylent can deliver on immediateness, then it has a chance of competing with this lifestyle. And, if the end result is people thinking more about what they eat, it may be a win either way.

haha, I really hope you are right about the problem space. I'm currently building a company that hopes to solve exactly the "forget about food and then are starving and make a bad decision" problem. Not ready to say more yet, but again, sure hope you're right :-)

Anyway, if it's that thing to have on stand-by, I'm sure its ok, but so is an Ensure, a Balance Bar, a Slim-Fast, etc, so again, no real innovation here.

Note that your argument began with "It's too radical, it won't work!" and ended with "It's boring, there's nothing new here." When I see this particular pattern of cognitive dissonance, I take it as a sign that the phenomenon being dismissed has real merit. Not to single you out, either--this pattern describes perhaps the majority of arguments I've heard against Soylent.

to eat one thing 100% of the time "is too radical it won't work". yep. To eat one thing as your 'go-to' filler is fine. but neither new nor radical. One addressed one argument, the other addressed a different one.

Do you have a sign up form yet so I can get notified when your product is up?

I'd also be interested in a signup form

If you email us at previews _at_ fudi.st , we'll be happy to keep you updated.

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