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Comment by ynniv | Hacker News Reader

I suspect that the interest comes from the radical branding. "Ensure" is associated with hospitals and the aging population, whereas "Soylent" is historically associated with dystopia and recently with some ambitious kids. One exit would be to create an energy drink-like (young target market) product that's just a re-branded Ensure.

But if you're currently using Ensure, perhaps you know of other ways to improve on it? They're both basically ramen for the well-off.

(And +1 to tlb: simply removing sugar is an improvement in my eyes.)

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Have you tried Ensure Complete? I got so impatient while waiting for my Soylent order to arrive that I actually did. First of all, it's loaded with sugar, and lacks Soylent's heavy dose of fiber to balance out the glycemic index. Result: sugar rush followed by a nasty crash. Secondly, it lacks some of Soylent's extras like creatine and MCT fats. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it's expensive: it would be almost $465/month, or $15/day to get 2400 calories from these ( http://www.walmart.com/ip/Ensure-Complete-Chocolate-Nutritio... ). Whereas the Soylent team is working to get the price down to ~$200/month, or ~$6.50/day.

Soylent will be not only one of the highest-quality products in its category, but also perhaps the first one that isn't "for the well-off." I anticipate that it will shrink my food budget substantially. Not to mention the future savings on food-related things like dishes and silverware. Hell, if I really switch to it full time, I might even be able to save on electricity by unplugging my refrigerator!

> heavy dose of fiber to balance out the glycemic index. Result: sugar rush followed by a nasty crash

Good God, man, that is not at all what fiber does, and has nothing to do with the role of fiber in diet. Please stop consuming this before you hurt yourself, and please stop talking about it before you hurt others.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11858448

Wouldn't want to actually stfw or anything.

Oh, you're one of the people that believe that a perceived "sugar rush" has something to do with diabetic glycemic excursions? They're entirely different phenomena. Dismissed. But thanks for the irrelevant link!

What is it that you think sowhatquestion means by "sugar rush"? My guess is you think he means hyperactivity.

What is the difference between a diabetic glycemic excursion (what you said) and a postprandial glycemic excursion (what I linked)?

I'm going to answer your first question with a question: what do you think he means by "nasty crash"? Because I guarantee it's not what happens post-excursion.

There's no difference -- postprandial excursions are a diabetic phenomenon, and have nothing to do with what non-diabetic individuals think of as the effect of sugar and fiber on their health and mood.

To add to this: I was in the same boat. Tried Nestle Boost because I didn't want to wait for Soylent.

It left me hungry.

Reportedly, Soylent doesn't do that.

I also tried Ensure very briefly, and got the same impression, but I'm only like 98% sure that, like Boost, it will also leave me hungry.

I've been having Glucerna for breakfast every day for the past two months and it hasn't left me hungry. I don't know how well it works out as a complete meal replacement, but at least as a breakfast it's filling (and I'm normally a heavy breakfast eater whose very sensitive to hunger).

With a bit of patience, you can also just train yourself to break your fast later in the day.

Was that an attempt at a pun, or a serious comment? I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're saying.

Serious comment. I meant, skipping breakfast in the morning ain't all that hard, if you can endure a few days of hunger in the morning until your body adapts.

Fasting in any form is something you get better at with practice.

As someone who recently moved to Paris, I can confirm. Parisians don't eat breakfast. It's weird, and I miss my big north-american breakfast, but I'm getting used to it.

French breakfast: black coffee and a cigarette.

I get extreme rage/anger and think somewhat suicidal thoughts when I skip a meal, so I don't think this would be such a good idea for me.

Edit: In fact, if I eat an early enough breakfast, I will need a snack before lunch hour to be able to remain focused.

That's your current state. And my (admittedly uneducated) guess is you probably have very swinging blood sugar levels.

Depending on diet and training, you can get over this (not that you have to).

Try Glucerna. It tastes pretty good, has a good glycermic index, and is pretty filling.

At $200 a month I wonder how Soylent would compare to, say, beans and rice. If Soylent wants to market itself as an affordable product, it should be at least comparable to a home-cooked diet that can be had for $100 a month (which should also be able to include fruits, vegetables, and occasional meat [1]).

1. http://www.onehundreddollarsamonth.com/mondays-with-mavis-ho...

Soylent's main goal isn't to be cheap food, but to be fast, fairly nutritious, foodstuff for people who don't want 'waste' their time cooking.

Creatine? Creatine is not even absorbed unless you do a strength workout several times a week. And it takes some for your stomach to get used to it.

Oh god no http://examine.com/supplements/Creatine/

> I suspect that the interest comes from the radical branding. "Ensure" is associated with hospitals and the aging population, whereas "Soylent" is historically associated with dystopia and recently with some ambitious kids.

And people. It's associated with people.

Nice. It is an extremely good name for what it is, and it might (sadly?) succeed based on that alone. Countless energy drinks have paved the way.

Really?

Soylent sounds like it's made of soy, but the name essentially means cannibalism. I'd expect the former to kill enthusiasm from the energy drink market (where the cannibalism angle makes it sound more extreme) and the latter to put off everyone else.

The literary evocation is far more powerful than the word-part "soy". Even so, given soy's ubiquity I suspect that no one would seriously be turned off by it at this point. The name doesn't "essentially mean cannibalism", it refers to a fictional future company that makes the bulk of the worlds' food in the form of Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow. In the movie Soylent introduced a new product Green that you refer to, which means that the only people who are disturbed by the name are those who take things too seriously and also didn't actually watch the movie.

> Even so, given soy's ubiquity I suspect that no one would seriously be turned off by it at this point.

I actually know many more people that would be turned off by the word part "soy" than by the literary reference.

I haven't seen Soylent Green in a long time and all I remember is "Soylent Green is people". I'd guess that many people who haven't seen the movie know that line and nothing else.

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