Soylent: Gruel today, gruel tomorrow
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The constant focus on saving time and increasing personal productivity is a recipe for mental illness, in my opinion. Most people would do well to slow down, tune out, and make themselves a decent meal. I suspect that some and perhaps many of the people obsessed with personal productivity and life hacking will at some point suffer from a stress or anxiety disorder and will realize that life is short and there's no point in trying to hurry through it.
This trend towards saving time by sacrificing basic requirements like eating and sleeping is increasingly absurd. In a year or two, I'll open Hacker News and there'll be an article in the top ten that describes how you, too, can Avoid Wasting Time Due To Lengthy Bowel Movements. Don't believe the hype. Have a good night's rest, followed by a leisurely shit and a tasty, gruel-free breakfast you made yourself, and you'll be a better person for it.
In a perfect world, I have time to shop for and prepare elaborate meals. I'd be able to sit down and enjoy these meals with loved ones. Reality is a bit different for many of us. I'm fortunate enough to have the financial means to eat or take out every day if I wanted, but that's not a terribly healthy solution.
The fact is, most of my meals are "utility" meals where I am eating to live. That said, it does not preclude me from living to eat. Food would never cease to be one of life's joys, for me at least. I am pro-Soylent, but I won't participate any time soon. I want to see how it plays out, because putting my body on the line is not in the cards. I hope it works out, because getting back an hour or two every day sounds fantastic.
Many tasty meals can be prepared quickly. Many can be prepared without supervision. You can also prepare meals in bulk and reheat them when you need them.
Are some meals elaborate and time-consuming? Yes. Just don't make those ones.
Sometimes I get bored of pan-seared salmon filet with sauce-of-the-week and microwave-steamed fresh broccoli. After the umpteenth time, I'm not deriving pleasure from the cooking process.
The cook in bulk recommendation is front-loading a time commitment for the kind of freedom something like Soylent would permit without sacrificing part of your weekend. I cook in bulk every so often, but blow half my weekend every week? Not a chance.
Learn a new dish.
"After watching Batman Begins every night for 4 months straight, I got a bit bored with it".
Watch a new movie.
> blow half my weekend every week?
Yet another false dichotomy. As I said above, many dishes can be cooked without supervision. Cook one or two of those. On nights when you feel like cooking fresh, cook fresh. Otherwise pull the stew, curry, chilli, ragu etc etc etc out of the freezer and heat it up.
It's just not that hard. And cost:reward vs drinking sour white water seems pretty good to me.
What? Why do I have to watch a movie?
Static -> Unfilling, sour tasting water
Look, however fast and easy it is to make your fast and easy meals, not having to do that is faster and easier. You've already granted the premise that it makes sense, sometimes, to sacrifice complexity of meals for reduced preparation time. Why shouldn't there be very simple options below "some preparation required", if someone wants them?
And why are you clinging to this metaphor that asserts that such an option is physically impossible?
This sub-sub-thread started over a repetitive meal. Replacing it with a bland soup is hardly going to be an improvement.
> And why are you clinging to this metaphor that asserts that such an option is physically impossible?
I don't follow you on this.
>"After watching Batman Begins every night for 4 months straight, I got a bit bored with it".
> Watch a new movie.
But my problem isn't with Batman Begins. My problem is I don't want to watch a movie every night. I don't want to. Do you get that part? I understand you really like movies, and you enjoy setting up this whole system so you can watch a movie every night and not have it take up your whole day, but I don't like movies as much as you do. Most movies I find pretty dumb. It's boring to sit through the same movie over and over again, and picking out a new movie takes time I'd rather spend doing something I enjoy. I like a good film on the weekend if it's something that really engages me, or if I've got friends over, but otherwise it just seems like a needless time sink.
Why do I need to watch a movie? Why is my only other option to watch static? Why do I need to watch anything?
To dereference, if it is not necessary for my survival[0], why do I need to cook? I know that I can if I want to. And I do, sometimes. Why on earth should I when I don't want to?
[0] Disclaimed because I'm bearish on Soylent-- I don't have that much faith in the USDA. But I think something like it should exist, and I'd jump on it in a heartbeat if it worked.
If you're willing to grant that "chug a Soylent" is as effective a solution as "learn a new dish", and is vastly preferable if learning to prepare and repeatedly preparing a new dish doesn't intrinsically interest me, I have no problem with that.
But if that is the case, the reason I'm having trouble with your metaphor is I don't see how it doesn't make it abundantly clear to you that what we're arguing about is just a difference of taste between us.
That's not my problem with Soylent. My problem is that many people talking about this don't appear to have heard about other liquid feeds, and Soylent claim this is safe for everyone, with plenty of evidence of safety. There is no evidence of safety.
And now you're straw-manning. Cooking in bulk generally takes only marginally more time than cooking the same thing for a single meal.
For example: If you want to do a stew or chili right, you need to brown the meat. You need to do it in batches to avoid crowding the pan. Batches take time.
You have the options of remember to buy nice food that you can take into work, or taking a liquid food. The liquid food might not be tasty, but ensures you're not eating trash and are getting some nutrients.
And, from there, I get that there's a link between Soylent and YC, and so people are really keen to see them do well.
But I can't understand why people seem to ignore the very many brands of liquid feed already being made, which have undergone serious testing.
Soylent in its current form is nothing new. I am no authority, but it probably isn't the best either, with only a few mere months' worth of research. I'm sure this product isn't going to be an impending health disaster -- I doubt anyone would be dumb enough to eat Soylent till they die. But there are alternatives out there (the OP mentions a few) that are likely better-tested. Soylent's one claim to fame may as well be its better marketing (pretty much everyone in that company's a marketer).
Recipe for mental illness? One could argue the potential time-savings could prevent some illness(s).
Maybe soylent-enfused-polyphasic-sleep-pomodoro-lifestyles suit the Hacker of Tomorrow.
Devil's advocate aside, we need long term studies & regulation around these products. And, well, regulation should be up to your local government.
I've seen before this idea that people would lose the ability to enjoy cooking or eating if it weren't literally required to survive. It's utterly nonsensical to me. Where does that idea come from?
Even here in Norway, where food is advertised as "mild" (euphemism for "bland" if there ever was one) people have some concepts of tasty food. You probably know some people who don't enjoy spicy food? Now imagine someone who thought plain bell peppers were too hot (there's no capsaicin in bell peppers).
As for the origin of this culinary anhedonia, Idunno. Maybe poor people who were able to live off gruel without grumbling had better reproductive fitness in the past?
Mental illness? Give me a break! Just because YOU don't like it doesn't mean that everyone else must meet your arbitrary standards.
As it happens, it's much healthier for your colon to squat and have a nice quick shit rather than sitting on the toilet and taking your time. Unfortunately, no one does this in some places because they don't really have squatting toilets.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1596830
I don't recall whether Zed was optimizing for speed or comfort.
Not to be harsh, but your diatribe is exactly the opposite of what HackerNews stands for. Your armchair quarterback position offers nothing
That said I am passing on this until there is way more information.
Says who?
Hey, I love gruel!
I just wish I had more time to make it...
Cutting on sleep is bad I agree, but cooking doesn't feel like something worth thinking about on a regular basis.
The thing is that soylent is a perfect storm of PR.
Lone genius has brilliant insight, develops perfect food. Just like those 60s pulp SF novels where people eat food in pill form! Why did nobody think of this before?
Lots of things that become popular or widespread do so because of the narrative they fit into.
For example, which story will get published:
"22 year old PhD student corrects famous scientist"
or
"14 year old student corrects famous scientist".
People correct famous scientists all the time, that's how science works. But it is the narrative (brilliant youngster vs establishment) that makes it a story worth printing.
And if a story is good enough, journalists won't look too hard at it. They're called "Too Good to Check" stories.
http://examine.com/blog/soylent-is-made-from-hype/
We complain when non-programmers tell us how to do our jobs because it takes a lot of study and experience to do it properly.
Not saying that it's impossible for people outside the relevant field can't make breakthroughs, but to assume that such a result were a much more than improbable possibility, such that you didn't even need to hire one guy with the relevant credentials? That's chutzpah.
Good luck with the 300k. Hopefully they hire a few food scientists/nutritionists.
They were a traditional tech startup. They pivoted when that market collapsed.
> YC accepted our original idea, to build affordable wireless networks for developing countries, for the summer 2012 batch. We spent the entire summer prototyping our technology and looking for a customer. By demo day, we had a white space radio with a Bill of Materials (BOM) of $70 operating around Silicon Valley. We didn’t have customers and were facing an intimidating set of regulatory hurdles. We spoke with some of the valley’s top VC’s but failed to raise. Instead of pushing for investment that wasn’t there, we went back to focusing on acquiring customers and finishing our product as soon as possible. We never found a customer.
It is irresponsible for them to launch a product, with massive publicity, and claim the product is safe for everyone (diabetics? pregnant women? People with Crohn's? Anorexics?) and to claim there is much evidence to support safety.
This is really interesting (from their blog):
"By the start of 2013, we were working on a handful of projects. Sometimes collectively, sometimes independently. One day, Rob said, “There must be a more efficient way to eat.” He researched the human nutritional needs and was frustrated to find that nutrition is not quite a hard science right now. Regardless, he identified the essential ingredients the body needs to thrive and, a few days later, began constructing his alternative diet using supplements purchased on Amazon. Pleased with initial testing, he committed to his newly invented diet for 30 days."
So, despite food science lacking foundations and rigour (in the most neutral way) right now, he still figured out (well, almost, just needed a month of testing and we're good to go!) an unsolved question, without any formal training, in a few days.
In the context of their previous failure it just makes me even more inclined to wonder what they're really planning -- their noble goals seem smell much more like marketing bullshit now.
I hope I'm wrong.
I'm in support of what Soylent aims to become, and if I'm not mistaken, so is the author of this article. All I'm seeing here are very direct suggestions for the next formulation of Soylent, nothing that lambastes Rob for his recklessness and ignorance.
What's more, this article, seemingly written by a nutrition expert, doesn't spread FUD over the potential dangers of exclusively consuming Soylent. Even in its infancy, if all I have to do is take a multivitamin for my psuedovitamin quotas, some extra whey and creatine for my gainz, and maybe a salad and a steak every few days in addition to Soylent, I'm still sold. It would still save plenty of time and effort to get the benefits of optimal nutrition. That is, if what's claimed about consuming Soylent is actually true.
1. Macronutrients, two of which are essential to life.
2. Micronutrients, of which
a. Vitamins are essential to life, and
b. Pseudo-vitamins are critical for health.
c. Other micronutrients with positive effects of various degrees and kinds.
You can absolutely survive for a long time on a reductionist soup. That's what's given to lots of very obese patients in protein-sparing modified fasts. The problem is that there are a metric buttload of micronutrients that improve health in the long term. And new ones are being discovered all the time. The easiest way to get the benefits is ... eat a varied diet. Just like they told you at primary school.
But most of the arguments in favour of soylent are daft. Really, just silly. Save time cooking? Cook something easier. Prevents eating the "wrong thing"? Why is the "wrong thing" even in your house? And so on.
HN is full of people who like to be hyper-rational and so this appeals. But I think it's an example of where myopically optimising one or two parameters leads to foolish outcomes.
To me, what's most interesting is Soylent as a marketing challenge. If people can indeed by optimally nourished by something that is more convenient and cheaper than fast food, then it's bound to become more successful and ubiquitous in the long run. It is, at the very least, the same premise of Chipotle's business: offering something conventionally agreed to as healthy food in a convenient manner at roughly the same cost as other fast food franchises. The ideal outcomes are similar too: healthier people are in a much better position to positively contribute to society.
Do you think that, given the buttload of nutrients we'll need to be prosperously healthy, a complete food product can be engineered? Perhaps the real question is can it be complete and cheap at the same time...
I'm not knowledgeable about nutrition, but if I can directly fund an effort to develop the perfect food, I will. (And have)
But marketing-wise, soylent has already proved itself very successful. It's invented a niche that didn't exist and converted consumers to having a "need" of which they were previously unaware.
That said, I suspect it'll be a niche market. What's more likely is that soylent will be added to other products. Milkshakes ... with soylent! Steak diane ... with soylent!
The classic example is how many obese people discount the calories of "healthy" foods. "Those fruit smoothies don't count, they're healthy". It's a substitution heuristic.
The efficiency is just one benefit of quite a few, many significant.
Different people react differently to different foods, even the same food at different times or under different conditions. His remarks there read a bit like some stuff I've read by the proponents of, variously, vegetarian, paleo and keto diets.
I don't eat breakfast, as a rule. I used to get peckish in the mid-morning, now I don't get hungry until lunchtime. Not being hungry helps me concentrate. I hardly see this as the basis of a new way of life.
We're left to wonder exactly what Rob was cooking for himself when he got off the juice. I support Soylent, but I don't believe you necessarily have to feel this way with only access to mostly whole foods.
Whether or not you enjoy cooking is irrelevant, especially if we stand to gain all that Soylent promises. Soylent won't deprive anyone of the option to cook a meal. If anything it may simply add more value to the act of cooking.
http://ensure.com/ Ensure
https://www.nutricia.co.uk/fortisip// Fortisip
http://www.complan.com/ Complan
http://abbottnutrition.com/brands/abbott-brands Abbott Nutrition Brands
http://www.medifast1.com/index.jsp Medifast
http://www.optifast.com/Pages/index.aspx Optifast
http://www.slim-fast.com/products/ Slimfast
Soylent make some claims about world hunger. As the article mentions Soylent is currently expensive. Their crowdfunding level was food replacement at about $7 per day. That's way outside the range of the 20% of the world population living on less than $1.25 per day. The main ingredient of Soylent is water. Unfortunately, about a billion people do not have access to clean drinking water.
Hopefully with mass manufacturing they can get the cost down. And they could plow back some of the profits into providing clean water.
There are other worrying things about Soylent.
> For anyone who struggles with allergies, heartburn, acid reflux or digestion, has trouble controlling weight or cholesterol, or simply doesn't have the means to eat well, soylent is for you.
> Soylent frees you from the time and money spent shopping, cooking and cleaning, puts you in excellent health, and vastly reduces your environmental impact by eliminating much of the waste and harm coming from agriculture, livestock, and food-related trash.
From (https://campaign.soylent.me/soylent-free-your-body)
Lots of 'problems with digestion' are going to be serious illness for which liquid feeds are used. It is irresponsible for Soylent to claim to be safe for those people without extensive testing.
There's no evidence that a liquid feed replacing all meals will put anyone in excellent health.
The product uses agricultural products. As the article mentions, milk proteins are significant impact.
Soylent also claims to have a shelf life of years. I'm still very curious about this. Many micronutrients will not have a shelflife of years. vitamin C needs to be kept in the dark, in an airtight container, away from heat and moisture.
It was a mild irritant when it was one guy experimenting on himself (but giving out the recipe for other people to follow along). Launching a product from that with these claims, especially that there's "much evidence", is irresponsible.