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Except that those hippies don't raise $100k+ on the web.

"Soylent is perfectly balanced and optimized for your body and lifestyle, meaning it automatically puts you at an optimal weight, makes you feel full, and improves your focus and cognition"

The techniques and the wording seem snake oilish.

Also, if anything those dumb hacker kids build breaks (email, web app, game) etc, they won't hurt you physically.

The body is a weird mechanism: it can put up with lots of abuse and experimentation. It is also fragile at the same time.

Also, where are the ingredients listed? The FAQ is hilarious. I can't believe that people are so gullible. There are mountains of research on nutrition in modern science and thousands of years of accumulated evidence from traditional practices (Indian, Chinese) etc.

"But, hey, there is this magic potion which I can buy. Don't care about the ingredients. Can't be bothered to read up on the manuals for the greatest mechanism I will ever own. "

Whatever happened to extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? In this case, there is a huge chance that a bunch of guys will get rich and some person will get hurt badly.

All of those seem like valid reasons for you to not back the project.

Well, a fool and his money are easily parted.

We have enough knowledge and resources to lead healthy lives without believing in possible snake oil. There is a whole bunch of physiological feedback that they are glossing over. E.g. the act of eating a meal mindfully.

I don't wish them ill. If they have a product which is better than the best thing out there for us, I wish they succeed.

I would not have stopped you if you wanted to invest with Ponzi himself.

Conversely, fittingly enough for YC, a fool and his party are soon moneyed.

monetized?

>The techniques and the wording seem snake oilish.

You know, every time this guy's story has popped up on here I've defended him. I like that he's trying to do something big, I like that he wants to solve a very real world problem, and I like that in his blog posts and updates he phrased all of his results as personal findings needing further study.

However, this:

>>"Soylent is perfectly balanced and optimized for your body and lifestyle, meaning it automatically puts you at an optimal weight, makes you feel full, and improves your focus and cognition"

and

>>puts you in excellent health,

...This I do not like. At all. It's a massive, massive leap to go from "this is something under test," to "this is something that 100% works and will cure [insert list of ailments here]."

It's completely and wholly intellectually dishonest. It's put a sour taste in my mouth over the whole thing. It's gone from personal experiment to fund raiser and company structure in what? Five months? All of the early adopter "testimonials" sound like little more than confirmational bias rearing its head. "Oh, you bought a magnetic bracelet on the internet and you do actually have more energy now that you're wearing it!? Whoa! Amazing that it worked out exactly how you wanted it to!" These testimonials carry the exact same weight.

I feel like there's green in their eyes. Rigor be damned if riches can be had. Also, his ego is now on the line. I'm sure his brain is still being objective about the results.

IF is works, and IF it's safe, and IF the claims can be backed up with ACTUAL DATA, then by god, more power to the guy... but in the mean time, at the very least, can a guy get a trial with some other vanilla flavored sludge acting as a placebo?

Hell, I'll settle for an footnote on the page that says "None of our claims are backed by any form of relevant data."

"None of our claims are backed by any form of relevant data."

But that would be false.

The issue I would see with the placebo sludge, would be that it would immediately present as no the real deal... As I assume one cannot live off of sugar water for very long.

I'm not exactly sure what the control would be, I guess what ever it is they stick in feeding tubes?

I'm not a totally sure what would be a control. I typed that last section with quite a bit of haste, but I assume that it could be tested against a traditional food based meal that has similar nutritional value.

The meal replacement idea is not entirely new, though, they've always been more in the area of supplement, rather than outright replacement. Things like ensure, slim fast, and a host of other meal in a can things exist. A quick googling led to this study: http://www.nutritionj.com/content/9/1/11 which indeed did follow the shake vs traditional food format.

If nothing else, it could be benchmarked against existing meal replacements.

I'm now actually curious how these things do get tested, and over what period of time. I'll have to hit my school's database tomorrow and see how trials have been run in the past

Benchmarking against existing meal replacements is actually something I wish someone will do, and document it properly.

There's Sustagen. A medically-certified full meal replacement powder, used by hospitals and medical facilities in Australia.

I've talked about it in an old thread about Soylent:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5399994

Is it available outside australia? Seems like trying to mail it to europe would be quite expensive.

While this product clearly doesn't meet the risk-reward profile for you (or me), do you not enjoy the idea that a few thousand people are about start an interesting experiment?

One though I had was, if Ben and Jerry are adored for making a product that is delightful but contributes to the obesity epidemic, why can we not also praise people trying to do the opposite?

Yea, a lot of people are already hurting themselves with their regular diets. Might as well try something new.

I like the idea that people can use the Internet to noodle about with weird ideas. That's great.

What's not great is moving from "This is me, noodling about with my own personal weird idea, and here's the information so you can join in" to "Hey! I'm going to solve world hunger, and obesity, and you can live off this with no problems no matter who you are!!! (only $200 per month)"

Rest assured, if Ben and Jerry had a crowdfunding website and claimed their food was balanced for optimal nutrition I'd be very critical of them too.

only - ben and jerrys say theyre selling ice cream and not a cure to everything.

IT´s definitely very snake oilish - in fact - reading his blog posts - the snake oilish tone has been around for a while "I feel my scars disappearing". That said - I do think its an interesting experiment - and if it gets even a few people of the classic - pizza burgers tacos and beer diet that a lot of America and increasingly many parts of the world currently live on - I see no wrong in it. That was his original goal in the first place - to get him off a cheap unhealthy diet - to a cheap healthier diet. The fact that he´s now trying to market it as the ultimate solution is what´s wrong here.

also - I´m not sure about the US - but in many other parts of the world you can eat well for 65$ a week anyways (i mean real food - including maybe a meal or 2 out).

The big flaw with this line of reasoning is that 90% of people are already eating diets that we know, 100% for certain, are worse than soylent. Yes, it could be missing something. You are almost certainly already missing or short on several things. For the vast majority of people, this is going to be a significant improvement.

> it appears that he is taking things are already approved from human consumption, and mixing them together.

...and then saying that the nutrients are stable for years.

> A lot of the arguments here seem to boil down to "Much smarter people are working on this and they haven't solved it, who the hell does this KID think he is?!?"

Mavericks can solve big problems. They show their working; they provide a demonstration; they give a proof. Other people then pick at the work to see if there are any problems. That's how science works. We check the sample sizes, we check the stats, we check the confounding factors, we proceed cautiously.

This guy has gone from self-experimentation (and caution about letting other people try it) to a full blown sales pitch full of errors and over-blown claims.

The actual product might not be the TimeCube of nutrition, but the documentation so far is hopeless.

> This guy has gone from self-experimentation (and caution about letting other people try it) to a full blown sales pitch full of errors and over-blown claims.

So it's exactly like any other campaign for supplements. But he is one of us, so apparently we cannot let him get away with it.

Isn't calling critics "haters" merely another form of hate?

"Finally: this is being presented within the context of "an experiment". If you start eating soylent, and you get sick, STOP EATING IT!"

Really? So if a mega corp drugs company just handed out experimental products to who ever wanted it with out and controls what so ever, you'd not be worried by that? It would be a national, perhaps international scandal. But that doesn't bother you because it is "neat"?

Yeah, sure entourage people to experiment, I agree. Make your own goo, and eat it yourself, fine. But encouraging people to participate in unregulated medical experiments is reckless and negligent.

> Yeah, sure entourage people to experiment, I agree. Make your own goo, and eat it yourself, fine. But encouraging people to participate in unregulated medical experiments is reckless and negligent.

I'm a harsh critic of soylent, but even I'd be fine with it if they said "try this at your own risk! here's the research we're using. Here's what our critics say."

"Finally: this is being presented within the context of "an experiment". If you start eating soylent, and you get sick, STOP EATING IT!"

If you ate a McDonald's said their food was nutritionally complete, and you ate it everyday for a week, and then got sick, who is to be blamed? Of course, given McD's reputation I'd say you're to be blamed. But in this case Soylent is untested, and so far doesn't even substantiate its claims very well. And even McD's doesn't go so far as saying that their food can replace your meals (or maybe they have? I do not get that vibe though), while Soylent here is supposed to do that (the vibe I got from his blogs, at least -- this is supposedly revolutionary, no?).

Although I love cooking to bits I do find Soylent interesting as a concept, but the way they've gone about doing things isn't what I'd approve of myself.

And as I see it, a majority of the arguments here do not boil down to "Much smarter people are working on this and they haven't solved it, who the hell does this KID think he is?!?" or "He's violating ALL KINDS of FDA regulations! [none of which I can name]". For the former, Soylent is simply making unsubstantiated claims, to which much smarter people have not even come up yet. If Soylent is indeed that smart, then they better have good claims to back it up. For the latter, I only saw one commenter talk about breaking FDA rules, and he was only speculating about them, and to be honest it's very likely that there's something about false advertising that they broke.

But then again the FDA probably didn't expect some company claiming that they'd come up with a food to end all foods...

I doubt that even McDonalds would advocate that you only consume McDonalds as a healthy diet

http://goo.gl/b1dXA Seems to suggest slightly otherwise, I remember seeing it on a commercial and just going slack jawed...WHAT?

The irony of this HN discussion literally hours after the "Hacker News Is Depressing" article is so thick I could cut it with a knife.

The language on this product and the pitch deserve quite a bit of criticism and dollops of caution.

Being fair in your assessments means that some days you will rightly give out negative assessments.

Even if they're already approved for human consumption, the end production process needs to occur in a cGMP approved facility to cover themselves legally.

This isn't a cheap or quick process.

What you're talking about is commonly referred to as a "certified kitchen".

Not only is this process simple, but there are community available certified kitchens in most major cities that people like the aforementioned hippies use to make their granola bars.

Here is the first link for "certified kitchen Phoenix": https://www.chefssharedkitchen.com/default.aspx

No, it isn't the same thing - especially as the standards for most certified kitchens don't even touch the packaging requirement conditions of a cGMP facility. There's a big difference between selling food locally and taking it nationally. You don't waltz into GNC, Vitamin Shoppe or the health section at a major retailer with something made in a certified kitchen.

This is why it would have been useful for these guys to consult people with actual experience in the supplement industry.

cGMP appears to apply to drug manufacturers. This isn't a drug, and isn't being marketed as a drug.

It's a food. Similar to the hippie granola bars I mentioned.

edit: are you saying that you have experience in this field? Enlighten me. What are they doing wrong, and how should they remedy it?

cGMP applies to all dietary supplements, which is what this will likely be classified as. This same process applies to Abbott Labs [owner of EAS] as well as small entities.

Here is the compliance guide for small entities: http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocuments...

As of 2010 all SEs must meet these requirements, regardless of firm size.

Re: my experience in this field, it is all indirect - research for those interested in developing products in this area, alongside business partnerships and friendships with those who produce a wide range of dietary supplements.

EDIT: I will note that they now claim the product will be produced in a FDA-approved facility. Whether this facility's certification is applicable to their specific case is not made clear but this is at least a step in the right direction. There's also the matter of labeling/ad claims with the FDA but hopefully they have the foresight to dial back the hyperbole before pushing the product to a wider audience.

I would also suggest caution with what "industry experts" one works. There's quite a few less-than-desirable elements in the dietary supplement game. Case in point? The lacing of the Craze/Detonate pre-workout supplements with amphetamines just a few months ago. (http://patrickarnoldblog.com/craziness-over-craze/)

Do you really think that they will start some approval process? I think they will licence this stuff to some company that already has such approval. Other way they can probably order ready mix based on their recipe in some company. I don't think they will mix it by hand in kitchen.

None of the people on the team have a nutrition background. That makes no sense to me.

The body is complicated and stopping eating this diet if you feel sick doesn't necessarily mean that you won't have ongoing health problems even when you go back to a normal diet.

> "Soylent is perfectly balanced and optimized for your body and lifestyle, meaning it automatically puts you at an optimal weight, makes you feel full, and improves your focus and cognition"

If he tempers his claims and recommends it as a time-saving meal, the danger to consumers should be mitigated and the reactions here would likely be a lot less violent. Say,

"Use well-balanced Soylent for 1 to 2 meals a day to save yourself a great deal of time. You should have varied diet in other meals to ensure even more complete nutritional composition for your body."

This is clearly parody. This is clearly parody. This is clearly parody.

I am genuinely surprised that the people of HN can not see that. I expected the conversation to at least be about whether it was parody vs. not, not about whether it was healthy or not.

A few of us are discussing that, at least... much, much further down the page (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5747100).

> What he's selling (although selling is a bit of an incorrect word here) is effectively a big power bar, except his comes in powerdered form. There are some hippies that sell power bars at my local coffee shop. They are terrible.

do these hippies claim you can replace your entire diet with just those power bars?

hey I'm all for this project btw, and really not having to deal with preparing food a few times a day sounds ideal (I do love cooking, but I have a lot of other things on my plate (haha) recently).

one thing I simply do not understand is how this guy went from being a single dude experimenting with food replacements on himself, to expanding his team with five other people, and NONE of them has a background in nutrition, medicine or even biology. why?

sure you can figure out this stuff by reading up on it, looking things up, but someone who has studied even slightly related subjects for 6 years knows things that you don't even know you didn't know, or know you might want to look up something on a particular subject that you would never have considered. that's what education is useful for, crazy idea I know.

I'm not saying doing this with only technical computer and marketing people on your team is going to make you fail automatically, but he is definitely cutting himself short on some valuable knowledge and ideas.