Soylent reaches $1M in pre-orders | Hacker News Reader

Soylent reaches $1M in pre-orders

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I don't understand why I should trust a food product produced by a team[1] that has NO EXPERIENCE WHATSOEVER with nutritional science. And someone please explain why a dietary supplement needs a CTO?

[1] "The Team" section of this page https://campaign.soylent.me/soylent-free-your-body

But they have a VP of customer success.

People eat things like Pop-Tarts, Skittles, Grape Soda and other "food products" like that without researching the team behind them. Does it really matter what the team members' positions are?

I would trust a company like Soylent over General Mills until I have reason to believe otherwise.

edit: By the way General Mills also has a CTO: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sue-simonett/5a/829/8a

Because Pop-Tarts and Skittles aren't being sold as a food replacement. I don't know about you, but I'm going to hold someone making a "snack" to a much lower standard than someone selling a product marketed with, "Here, you can use this instead of eating."

Yeah, that's sort of true... but I think people do see these snacks as real food. Pop-tarts are marketed as a breakfast food - this makes it seem as though you could eat pop-tarts in the morning before you start your day instead of a fruit salad or something more "time-tested"

It is not expected that you live only with Pop-Tarts, Skittles or Grape Soda.

You might not expect that, but people people still try. I can only speak of my New Zealand education but I didn't learn what a macronutrient was until I was 21 and researched it myself.

Didn't your mother taught you that you have to eat your vegetables?

You don't have if you don't want to. If they aren't closing any need you have.

Most of the crap people eat nowadays is far worse. If you take a poll of the most consistently eaten food on a daily basis you'll get results that make you wonder how we even survive.

The creator of Soylent even goes so far to say that it's not a dietary supplement but an alternative to the coffee/tea/soda that people drink on a regular basis.

I love the idea of Soylent, but I'm super wary of the risks. The wrong ingredient mix here could have significant impacts 10+ years down the line. The past 20 years of science is starting to show some very strong evidence that too many antioxidants prevent cancer cells that otherwise wouldn't proliferate from dying, and too much of many types of vitamins and nutrients feeds tumorigenesis -- leading to faster-growing and more aggressive cancers.

For references, look up the SELECT trial (vitamin E and omega-3 supplements significantly increased prostate cancer rates), the ATBC trial (beta-carotene, an antioxidant, significantly increased lung cancer rates), the CARET trial (Vitamin A and beta-carotene significantly increased lung cancer rates), the Cochrane Database trials reviews in 2004 (vitamin A, C, E and selenium supplements increased intestinal cancer mortality)...

It seems like eating a repetitive diet tends to come with risks. The safest approach, IMO, is diversity (few things will harm you in moderate doses).

It's almost a guarantee that Soylent will eventually found to be lacking or harmful in numerous significant ways, compared to what is provided by a varied and not-pre-processed diet (greens, veggies, fruits, diverse healthy fats & complete proteins, nuts, fish, poultry, etc). I would bet a fair amount of money on it.

You probably don't need to worry too much about the risks. It's almost certain nobody will eat it for longer than about a week.

> who helped him find an factory in Modesto certified by the National Science Foundation.

Its much more likely they found a factory in Modesto certified by NSF International, which is in the business of certifying food safety stuff, than the National Science Foundation, which is in the business of giving research grants.

I love the idea of Soylent and I think it'll be a big success. One thing I'd love to see is a protein-fat-carb customizable version. That is, one person who is building muscle should be able to get soylent that's 40-20-40, while someone doing a keto diet should be able to get a 30-60-10.

Also, I didn't know they were the LevelRF guys. If any of the founders are reading, care to share why that startup didn't work out?

Different colors Soylent? :)

This can probably be done with simple food coloring. The base mix doesn't have too extreme of a color to interfere with making it green or red or something else.

As a person who lifts weights frequently, I'm not sure I like the idea of soy based protein in general though.

This statement piques my curiosity. Why not?

Presumably due to the high phytoestrogen content of many soy products.

Food groups with decreasing levels of total phytoestrogens per 100 g are nuts and oilseeds, soy products, cereals and breads, legumes, meat products, and other processed foods that may contain soy, vegetables, fruits, alcoholic, and nonalcoholic beverages. Soy products contain the highest amounts of isoflavone, followed by legumes, meat products and other processed foods, cereals and breads, nuts and oilseeds, vegetables, alcoholic beverages, fruits, and nonalcoholic beverages. Decreasing amounts of lignans are found in nuts and oilseeds, cereals and breads, legumes, fruits, vegetables, soy products, processed foods, alcoholic, and nonalcoholic beverages.

from here - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16898863

There was been suggestions that soy consumption in men can reduce testosterone and increase estrogen levels. There has even been some research done in this area [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

[1] http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/16/4/829.abstract

[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10798211

[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11103227

[4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19524224

[5] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17908338

This is just a story but a friend of a friend who had been fed soy milk as a baby, developed all kinds of food allergies even from things like chocolate, sugar, etc. She can't eat anything!

'bro science' - apparently there's chemicals in soy that have similar names to estrogen. A bunch of people claim that's why Asians are 'less manly' or something. I've not seen any credible evidence that this is any more scientific than 'neuro linguistic programming' (or the idea that the average asian dude is 'less manly' for that matter.)

On a more personal note, I'm a big white guy who looks like a big white guy who was raised on more soy than your average Asian dude (hippy parents.) I call bullshit.

Your being a big white guy visibly unaffected by soy is strictly anecdotal evidence - perhaps you aren't affected by it.

The plain reality here is that we don't yet know the full effects of a diet high in soy has on the body, so I'd err on the side of letting studies come out with something more conclusive. In any case, shouldn't we be consuming within moderation anyways?

>The plain reality here is that we don't yet know the full effects of a diet high in soy has on the body

you could replace the word 'soy' with 'meat' or 'eggs' or 'bread' there and the sentence would be equally true, and equally useless.

Well, soy is a staple part of the traditional Okinawa diet, so it can't be that bad.

> The company has been posting updates of modifications to the Soylent formula, including changing the protein source to a vegan one derived from a rice or pea protein isolate.

Well, it's not a soy protein source anyways... "soylent" is a cheeky reference to a film.

As far as the "is soy protein good for you" debate, I'll stay out of that.

EDIT: Not sure why this is being down modded. They've never had a soy protein source, they switched from whey to rice/peas.

They should have premixed Soylent vending machines, and put them in business districts in cities. I bet workaholics would love to spend $5 to work through lunch without feeling hungry.

Oh god, we're living in a sci-fi book. Welcome to City 17, it's safer here and we have soylent vending machines.

You probably don't need 40% of protein for building muscle. The known evidence points to 1.5g per kg of body mass (~=.75g/lb) being more than enough. In my case that works out to about 20%. I doubt that it would reach 40% unless you have a very unusual diet.

http://mennohenselmans.com/the-myth-of-1glb-optimal-protein-...

I honestly believe this is going to be a huge success (with the right marketing). It seems to be a snake-oil-wonder-tonic that actually isn't. It's astonishing how non-obvious it apparently is to a lot of companies that making a _good_ product is a good way to build a company.

McDonalds etcetara jumps through countless marketing hoops to assure everyone their products are healthy, instead of just making something that is actually healthy. I mean, they must know what this 24-year-old knows. There's no secret to Soylents apparent succes but good dietary research.

Maybe my pondering will be answered once Soylent starts adding lots of fat, sugar and strawberry flavours to save some nickles. McDonalds probably started out with good intentions as well.

McDonald's Food is tasty (borderline addictive with the amount of salt they use) and cheap as hell to make. I would bet they make more money by spending on marketing and keeping operating costs down.

> There's no secret to Soylents apparent succes but good dietary research.

There wasn't any good dietary research. All we saw is a series of amateurish blog posts by a guy who seems to have nothing but ambitions in the way of credibility.

Who cares. I mean, despite this not being software, "ship early and iterate" still applies. They've now hired 5 professionals to help them out.

In any case, whenever something related to diet comes up on HN, it seems like no one really knows anything anyway. If nothing else, this project is interesting because of him putting his own body on the line, for a litmus test on current health recommendations.

No dietary research, but they DO have a gullible youthful demographic that has a pathological distrust for authority and love of underdogs.

I consider myself somewhat advanced in cooking and nutrition and I can tell you that much that powderized foods lack certain elements that make for a healthy nutrition. There are certain macro structures that do disappear from food when it has been processed in variety of ways.

Also there is was an article about some scientist who has been promoting megadosing on vitamin C caps and there are studies that point to consumption of synthetic vitamins as being one of reasons people develop cancer. After in veggies viamin C comes in a variety of combinations and as they are absorbed there are different supporting nutrients that enable higher absorption.

What has been noted too that people that partake food in a social and positive environment digest it much better then those that just consume it and get on with their day.

I have trouble seeing usefulness of this product for wide spectrum of uses. However if it is a somewhat full meal-ish kind of product if I have little time, for example on my way to an interview and hunger - that would be the killer application for me of said product.

> He’s more of a believer that we don’t really think about or even consciously care about the vast majority of our meals.

I'm busy. I'm not a good cook. I'm even worse at "keeping a kitchen". I rarely have food around. I want to make food a priority, but it loses against my startup, bouldering, and photography.

I often find myself in scenarios where I /need/ to eat, but have no food. Getting burritos and making pasta gets old. I /love/ eating good food, but for a number of meals, something that takes the thinking out of it would be good for me.

Only an engineer could think it's a good idea to remove the experience of eating.

You need to look at the bigger picture (disclaimer: I do not agree/disagree with what Soylent is/does). Imagine if something like this actually worked, you could feed many people cheaply. Not everyone has the luxury of enjoying their eating experience.

> Imagine if something like this actually worked

What about military rations? Ensure? The stuff they feed the people doing hunger strike in Guantanamo? There's plenty of "prior art"

That's a bit unfair - when you grab a bowl of cereal in the morning, there's not really that much "experience" there - it's just fuel. I'd be a fan of eating something like Soylent (if it was cheap+healthy+tasty+easy enough) for those fast and boring meals, while still cooking and eating real food for dinner and socially.

Not to mention the benefit for emergencies, foreign aid, the malnourished, the infirm, etc.

It could actually enhance eating!

For work-at-homers:

1) Drink soylent for breakfast

2) Drink soylent at lunch, work through your normal lunch hour

3) Use the extra time and money you saved to eat a delicious dinner at your favorite restaurant

You could literally eat out nicely every day if you used your lunch money for it. When I'm working, it sucks to stop in the middle of it to make lunch. Instead of stopping my train of though, I can just sip on some soylent and keep going. Then unwind for dinner a bit earlier since I saved some time at lunch.

1) have some yogourt for breakfast 2) each a bunch of trailmix etc ... 3) same

same.

EAT FOOD!!!

Yeah, but you won't get all the nutrients you need from that, and probably won't feel full unless you eat a bunch.

Hope they get good liability insurance.

Could anyone actually (successfully) hold them liable? I'd think it would be their suppliers that would need liability insurance, since they're just repackaging already-approved food items.

Yes, it's basic tort law. They're not just repacking food items, they're combining them in a non-reversible manner. This essentially makes them the manufacturer. Consequently, they will have opened themselves up to liability for every ingredient they use. (But they may be able to go after a supplier for indemnification depending on the circumstances.

Thanks for the clarification! That makes now that I think about it more. I was thinking more along the lines of product manufacturing, which I think is less stringent (honestly I may be wrong there too).

Supplement companies get sued all the time.

No. Products liability. Everyone in the "chain" can be liable including retailers and manufactureres.

Your comment is precisely why people write the next twitter for facebook instead of curing cancer or solving hunger.

Soylent isn't curing cancer or solving hunger. They're selling meal replacement drinks, which is a large, established market.

Computers were large established market once, but you could not buy one home.

I don't see meal replacement drinks in food stores around, don't think those would be off-the-shelf no-brainer anyway.

It creates a new market.

It would be interesting to see how well it compares against the existing full meal drinks that hospitals use for people who are having problems with solid food.

Yea, I'm not sure how can they compete with other "research-based scientifically-proven nutrition" products for example from the healthcare division of Danone: http://www.nutricia.com/our-products/nutrition-for-elderly/f... Probably the story will sell the Soylent and not the product itself.

I think having just 1 final formula will be a mistake. Different people have different needs. I remember reading somewhere on his site that women testers complained of hunger, for example. Activity levels and age may cause different needs as well.

It's a bit of this TED talk about having alternative recipes because there's rarely one ultimate recipe that everyone likes. Some people like smooth peanut butter, others like crunchy, etc. http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce...

It worried me to read that most of the customers are men (young at that too, along with all the founders), since the other half of the population of Earth have differing nutritional needs. I'm kind of afraid that not enough testers are women or from different walks of life than your average hacker, too.

I used to be iron deficiency anemic for the longest time and general multivitamins didn't even come close to addressing the iron deficiency. It's no longer a problem but I still tend to buy products like vitamins only for women now as a result.

Regardless of your opinion of 'should they' or 'shouldn't they' regarding Soylent, there is no doubting the disruptive nature of the project.

At least there seems to be some transparency in the discussion and the results. That's a lot more than can be said about some of the bullshit claims about how things are 'good for us' because the peddler in question lacks enough morals to broadcast falsehoods.

Allow me to post a link to a website based on humor that recently talked about the problem: http://www.cracked.com/article_19485_5-outrageous-lies-compa...

Those of you that like eating, nobody is trying to take your fork away. Those of us that would like the option of popping a food pill that eliminates what we consider a hassle, this takes us one step closer.

Or maybe this is the next big Fanboi war: Apples versus PC (Personal Concoctions).

Watch for their pivot when they find out they're giving everybody scurvy!

why not just eat a banana?

tastes like cancer.

needs more aromatic compounds and conditioners.

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