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The Register puts Soylent to the test

theregister.co.uk

38 pointsoneandoneis256 comments

Wait.

Wait wait wait.

Is there a chance, however fleeting, that a chunk of the Register's staff could come down with food poisoning, or be hospitalized for malnutrition?

Maybe 2013 isn't so bad after all.

Regardless of what anyone can think about the actual product, I find it remarkable how the author managed to get such resonance in the media.

It might be the name, it might be that the subject matter generates strong opinions in people, but in terms of generating buzz and getting attention it has been quite a success.

I agree. Especially since he isn't the first. None other than Scott Adams of Dilbert fame marketed a burrito with the exact same goals a while back. Combined with water it was to be a complete food source with first adopters potentially techs who didn't want to bother with food. The name (no joke): "Dilberito". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilberito

Personally, I'm slightly surprised that it's proving to be so popular. Making and eating awesome food is a great joy in life; why would you try to work around that? Interesting concept, nevertheless.

A perfectly balanced meal in a glass? Of course it's popular. Most people don't come close to "balanced meal", and suffer the consequences via various illnesses. Most people have other things to do most of the time than making and eating awesome food; for a great many it's more an inconvenience of making hunger pains go away for a few hours.

Soylent's creator makes it very clear he still enjoys making and eating awesome food - he just doesn't want to deal with doing so 1,095 times every year. If anything, he appreciates good food even more.

Not everyone enjoys preparing food (I don't, for example. And the popularity of restaurants and prepared foods indicate to me that I am not alone) and not every meal is a great joy, especially if you want it to be healthy. If I could reduce the time wasted on cooking/eating 2/3 of my meals, and then truly savor the last 1/3, I would be quite happy.

I get that, but I'd consider it a fairly rare stance. Perhaps I muddled things up in the comment by including cooking. I happen to enjoy both, but I'd argue that most people enjoy at least the eating part. To try to save time on it sounds like a terrible trade off (unless other people eat for hours on end?).

Cooking, eating and cleaning up after it take time. If I can prepare a daily meal in 10 minutes, with no washing up, consume it on the go, and it turns out healthier than what I would otherwise eat (I'm no good at healthy cooking)... I don't see the drawback.

I suppose I'd still eat recreationally, at least from time to time. And on social occasions, obviously. But saving up even half an hour every day is huge.

I have gall-stones and another unidentified digestive problem that does not allow me to eat very much sugar or fat in any of my food, essentially knocking out about 99% of foods found in the world today out of my diet.

I mostly eat protein power drinks with almond milk, basic grains, vegetables, very lean meats, etc. etc.

I used to be a professional cook. I now cannot eat anything remotely fun or tasty. But soylent seems like one thing I could actually add to my regimen.

Not every meal is a gourmet experience that you savour with friends. Sometimes, you just need to refuel your body. Soylent could be perfect for that.

What if every meal is an experience to savour with friends and/or family? (well ok, every evening meal)

I like to live that way.

But then I also couldn't eat the same thing for lunch every day. Stuff that has actual flavour and texture gets boring fast. This would be boring before I'd finished the glass.

Then this is not a product for you. But I'd say you're the exception, at least from my anecdotal experience.

Exactly. There are times when you want to enjoy the experience, but there are also times (I dare say this is the majority of cases) when food is just a time-wasting distraction from the things you want to do at the moment.

I think Michael Pollan described it well when he said food in America was undergoing a process of 'nutrification', i.e., breaking it down into its nutrients, and trying to create supplements with those nutrients. The studies in the book, though, say that we haven't yet cracked the code. I.e., taking the equivalent of one apple's nutrients isn't the same as eating an apple. The reasons weren't quite known yet. I read the book a long while back, so my recollection may be spotty.

I read that in the case of C vitamin, for instance, the body simply doesn't recognise it as C vitamin when it doesn't come directly from fruit. Just ignores it and passes it onto urine.

A nootropicist friend I have suggested that C vitamin only works in combination with Magnesium supplements ... etc. It gets pretty complicated. I'd rather just eat a stupid piece of fruit. It's tasty, efficient, and awesome. Why complicate things with dystopian future pills?

> I read that in the case of C vitamin, for instance, the body simply doesn't recognise it as C vitamin when it doesn't come directly from fruit. Just ignores it and passes it onto urine.

If it's getting absorbed but excreted, it sounds like you're taking more than enough. Usually absorption is limited by cofactors. Allusions to fruit being better than isolated Vitamin C should be backed up by evidence.

Same reason as always, when we study nature. If we can understand and reproduce it, we can do better.

I've been struck by the decades-long change "health food stores" have made from raw bulk fresh/dried produce to endless rows of little white plastic bottles.

I can't find anywhere what it's actually made of (not on the campaign page either). And none of the people listed in the company has any training regarding food or medicine. #slightlyworried

Other than that, could be awesome. You could just have a cup with you all day and drink some whenever you feel hungry.

Question then remains, why isn't it green?

They do list the ingredients, but not the sources of those ingredients.

There are existing alternatives if you want to try liquid feeds but want rigorously tested QAd product from existing reputable manufacturers.

Or Soylent, but be aware that it's fun self-experimentation.

Here's one of my (grumpy) posts listing alternatives (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5876219)

It's hard to say which products of listed companies are supposed to be nutritionally complete (i.e. meal replacement, not supplement). Do you know of any?

Browsing through the pages: Complan - explicitly states you should have normal meals in addition to the product ("Avoid missing meals completely − you may not feel hungry but your body still needs nourishment") Medifast - want you to eat at least 1 cooked meal daily Optifast - not available for retail (or at least the webpage claims so)

I'm looking for a replacement for the main meal, not breakfasty/lunchy things, which none of these seem to provide. Though perhaps I misunderstand their ads?

The ingredients list is over here: http://robrhinehart.com/?p=424 It's been modified repeatedly since then, but that's what it started as anyway.

So it's basically a pricey bag of sugar, protein shake and mineral drink.

So are you.

But I am worth every penny and there is no cheaper alternative offering the same degree of satisfaction.

Here's a list of what soylent is composed of http://robrhinehart.com/?p=424

Because it's, pretty clearly, Soylent Yellow? That's like asking why Coke isn't Sprite.

Question then remains, why isn't it green?

Because it's not made of people.

Start the soylent diet. Then take some pill to suppress your libido. Know that now you lost all joy in life, not only half of it.

Hmmm so this and a combination of my anti-depressants should make for a real treat. I don't see how food is so fundamental to enjoyment.

Regardless, the man behind this admits it's not about completely removing the traditional meal but rather removing the time spent in trying to find a nutritional meal. So meals become more about enjoying food, the textures, the smell and the company rather than worrying whether that $30 lunch is going to be enough to satiate your hunger and nutritional requirements.

If eating is half the joy in your life you live a miserable life I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies.

Hogwash. If you have the good grace to eat food that makes up half the joy in your life, then you have a good life indeed.

In my experience, good food is everything that joy intends: gardening, growing food from nothing, spending time outdoors, connectedness with the land, creativity, quality process, science, creation, enjoyment, collaboration with others, socialization (especially when combined with good booze of many varieties), nutrition, survival, health, and certainly joy.

In fact you could say that eating and everything that goes into it makes up the a good chunk of life, and a good life at that. Certainly a hundred years ago, if you could do everything required simply to eat and eat well, then you had a life better than most. And in fact, you could certainly say the same today. Eating is a luxury, and the choice of what to eat an even greater luxury. You are lucky for it, and you should be damn joyful.

Doing that when you want to, and to the extent that you want to, is enjoyable. But subsistence farming is not. There's a middle ground, you know? It's nice not to be forced to think about your next meal several times every single day. You can relax and focus on a few meals a week that you actually care about instead of being stressed about food all the time.

True, that's a luxury too. There is balance in all pursuits.

All I know is that my favorite memories and the most joyful times in my life were camping in Yosemite, where the only concern of the day is where we were hiking to, and what we'd eat when we got there, and when we'd hike back, and what we'd eat for dinner.

That's about half of the concern dedicated to the food of the day. And it was joyous.

I find that lack of concern for food is generally caused by a lack of joy, or a lack of freedom; and in cyclic turn also results in it.

As someone who enjoys food a lot, I still think that half of the joy in your life is way too much.

Maybe one third, at best. Reading, traveling, playing sports, driving and videogames are other fun things really fundamental in my life.

I don't want to think about 100 years ago. I want to think about 100 years in the future!

Sure sure, same order of magnitude though.

I'm interested in shelf life.

What's the shelf life of the beta product? And what's the expected shelf life of the released final product, in the correct packaging?

Are they going to sell it as a monthly subscription, delivering each week as individually bagged days? Or do they deliver a huge box of the stuff?

The World Food Program has a Specialized Nutritious Foods Factsheet, and that lists shelf life as 12 or 24 months. (One product, Wawa Mum, is listed at 6 months.)

(http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/co...)

I'm still strongly against the way it's being sold at the moment. Other people on HN have said that they enjoyed the idea of Soylent when it was self-experimentation.

As Kurtz79 say, they've done a remarkable job of generating media buzz about something that is not new or disruptive or innovative. I'd be interested to see what they could do with a real product.

I still don't buy into this being a real product. Everything about it is far too generic and uniformed. "It comes in a large unmarked baggy". Really? No. This can't be true.

They have branded stainless steel mixing / drinking cups on their pages, and they're working on branding.

Is anyone else suspicious about the amount of money that they raised in their first day (around $130k)? The company's crowdfunding site doesn't let you see who contributed to its campaign and that's a lot of money to raise in one day.

How is this different / better than any other shake-based diet powder?

Edt: As my wife just put it, "It sounds like guys are too insecure to drink Slim-Fast, so the idea is being re-branded to be more manly. Like the Axe of diet shakes."

It's not a cheap diet-oriented meal replacement (little more than protein, sugar, and vitamin mix) intended to provide satiating filler with minimal meaningful content but still requiring "a sensible meal". It's a serious attempt at providing EVERYTHING a body needs, including hard-to-manage micronutrients.

In that case, how is it different from the stuff hospitals feed old people with no teeth? For example:

http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-shakes

http://www.amazon.com/Nutrament-Energy-Fitness-Drink-Banana/...

Ensure Complete describes itself as "Provides balanced amounts of macronutrients and essential vitamins and minerals." Lacks the micronutrients needed. Strikes me as intended for "we really don't have any other options at this point" and consequential symptoms will be treated as illness.

Nutrament describes itself as "This nutritional drink is ideal as a snack, an occasional meal replacement, or a perfect post-workout drink." Note the "occasional"; it's filler augmenting an otherwise sensible natural diet.

Soylent is intended as "you can live on this stuff full time", which its creator does. He's suffered some pretty painful & weird symptoms of not getting everything right (like inadequate micronutrient supply causing bizarre cravings), and felt profoundly satiated when he did get it right.

Anecdote: I once worked on a portable IV pump intended to "feed" people lacking most of their GI tract, injecting nutritionally complete "meals" directly into the bloodstream. Each "meal" cost about $300.

There are solutions that claim to be nutritionally complete (Sustagen Hospital Formula) and anecdotally are sustainable for months: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5399994

I'd first wonder about cost (hence my anecdote about $300 nutritionally complete goo-in-a-bag meals), then about completeness (side effects may be preferable to alternatives). Other products may exist which are what Soylent aspires to.

Seems a big part is that the Soylent guy just decided to DIY for fun, it went viral, and he went entrepreneur. If you've got would-be customers banging down your door, you don't respond with "somebody else makes something like it", you monetize the opportunity.

I don't think anyone's blaming him for starting the company. The reason I raised this line of questioning isn't to criticize him, but rather to figure out if this is a new idea, in a space that hasn't been explored before, and thus worthy of our interest and excitement... or just an age-old idea with a bit of new marketing.

Not that different, other than the recipe being public and the ability to make it yourself. The purpose is mostly the same, though Soylent aims to be sustainable, while most of these meal-replacement concoctions warn against prolonged usage. That might just be playing it safe though.

No it is not a serious attempt at proving everything a body needs, not in the slightest.

If it was a serious attempt the soylent team would be composed of scientists with expertise in nutrition. Instead their website lists a lot of people with absolutely irrelevant skills. I can't think of anything associated with y-combinator which is quite as embarrassing as this.

Sadly one part of hopes this takes off, so that in 10 years time we have an idea of the long term results of a diet of this kind of nonsense. It will have been tested on the kind of people who have the arrogance to believe that because they understand business / computing the can 'solve' the worlds nutrition problem.

I agree with everything you say. But I am also reminded of all the highly accomplished people, who, looking back on their lives, say that "the only reason who took this on was that we had no idea how hard it was going to be."

Soylet has done a great job with getting media attention. Thumbs up for that!

As an environmentalist I want to know, how green is it? O.o

Soylent, the man food :)

I completely forgot about the original blog post about this and was thinking "they couldn't possibly mean".. I must need to catch up on sleep.

The article fails to mention how much product is in the bag you get (weight) and it's kcal/day ratio. The bag looks really small in the picture... Also, think about how much you will hate the flavor after a while. Anyone who ever bought cherry flavored protein powder by mistake will know what I'm talking about. Have fun forcing the stuff down your throat the 10th or 20th time. I going to eat my steak an laugh at you.

That said I would be really interested to use the product on expeditions IF it provides a significant advantage. So - how is this superior to a load of sugar(s), whey protein and a micronutrients supplement?

Wow. The marketers have done a good job to get such an insipid product so much attention in diverse media outlets. Meanwhile, there are probably dozens of more substantial products failing because their creators don't know how to sling bullshit. #FailuresOfCapitalism.

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