Soylent hits its 1.0 formula, nears release | Hacker News Reader

Soylent hits its 1.0 formula, nears release

arstechnica.com

44 pointsshawndumas76 comments

I've been supportive of the idea of soylent, but this article actually made me worried, is it accurate?

Only rice protein? Not complete... there's a reason it is usually paired with beans.

That amount of carbs does not match the early human diet, but rather the modern one. Not the end of the world, though.

Also a physician isn't a dietitian/nutritionist. The fact they've brought the former on board instead of the latter is another unfortunate red flag re: cluelessness. Hopefully I've missed something.

Wow, where to start. You are seriously repeating the protein combining myth? In 2013? Protein is measured by scaling its amino acid profile compared to the ideal for a human. 100g of rice protein provides 100g of usable protein for a human, the same as 100g of beef protein does. That 100g of rice protein is just significantly more than 100g of raw ingredient, as there's a bunch of "wasted" amino acids.

We have little to no evidence to support the paleo fad. Human beings have consumed grains for at least 100,000 years.

A physician is not a dietitian or a nutritionist. They are far more qualified. A dietitian requires simply a bachelor's degree in pretty much anything (social sciences is fine) and then a short internship where you learn to repeat what the book says. Nutritionist is just something anyone can call themselves with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever. Picking a doctor over those options is not a red flag.

As a sole nutrition source as soylent is, the increased biological value of vegetable protein combining would be a valuable improvement in efficiency. The "myth" is that micromanaging every meal is necessary (it's not), ... unless of course you are on a meal replacement product for weeks at a time.

A higher number of nutrition sources is better than a single one... a varied diet.

Grains, not in large quantity. Agriculture is about 10,000 years old. Yes, the diet of ~4 million years is a "fad" while the one 400 times shorter is normal. Taken to extreme, the modern diet, where everything is pumped full of sugar has lead to an obesity epidemic.

Also, physicians are far more qualified in other subjects and take only a fraction of the nutrition courses a dietitian would. There's a reason a doctor will refer you to one--it's not because they are less qualified.

Efficiency of what? You need X protein. They provide far more than X. There is absolutely no problem with their protein source. The fact that they could use slightly less raw ingredient to get there doesn't matter if that other ingredient is hard to source consistently.

We've had proof of grains being milled 100,000 years ago for several years now. The 10,000 myth that is used to promote fad diets is not accurate.

Dietitians require barely any training. Just a degree in whatever and a brief "read this book and learn how to repeat what it says". You can do it in two weeks. They are absolutely less qualified than doctors. Doctors refer you to them because doctors have limited time and teaching people the food pyramid is not a valuable use of it.

Astroturfer or troll?

"Rice protein is high in the sulfur-containing amino acids, cysteine and methionine, but low in lysine. Pea protein, on the other hand, is low in cysteine and methionine but high in lysine." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_protein]

Lysine is an essential amino acid, i.e. humans cannot produce it and need to ingest it from a protein source - otherwise, they can't synthesise protein.

There's a nutritional reason why pea protein should have been there - by taking out their lysine source, Soylent just got nutritionally less complete.

Why respond if you don't bother to read what you respond to? Lysine is the lowest in rice. It is not absent. You therefore get "complete protein" up to the amount of lysine available. You absolutely do not need to combine it with anything else, you can just eat more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_Digestibility_Corrected...

The link you quoted directly states that the quality of grain protein is relatively very poor and limited by lysine content (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_Digestibility_Corrected...)

I don't dispute that man can live on rice protein alone. But, this decision clearly doesn't have any foundation in good nutrition.

>The link you quoted directly states that the quality of grain protein is relatively very poor and limited by lysine content

Which is why it is corrected rather than reporting 1:1 like with proteins that are close to an ideal ratio. That is the entire point, you literally just complained that I provided evidence supporting my claim.

> One is that the carbohydrate mixture has been nailed: one 500g bag of Soylent will contain 210g of oat flour and 132g of maltodextrin. The protein mix has also shifted—our beta Soylent contained a mix of rice and pea protein, but production Soylent will contain 102g of brown rice protein isolate.

Anyone else tried Brown Rice protein, and found it's undrinkable, harsh, and indigestible, probably because they use also the bran and germ to derive the protein from?

Maltodextrin pretty much made me feel terrible and weak when I took it in the past.

And eating oats in the morning these days for some reason messes with my ability to fall asleep later on.

> This has been simplified, with the main oil switching from grapeseed to canola.

I consider grapeseed oil to be the perfect oil. It's light and easily digestible. All other oils have been known to give people headaches and migraine that have sensitive digestive systems. Especially when mixed with whatever you're eating - causing digestive issues with that food.

They've turned their product into 1 big allergen for me. Though that's just me, you might not have any problems with it.

But in any complex system there can be various factors that lead to things being out of balance. I know someone who can't take multivitamins because there's too much iron in them and it upsets her system. If she were getting too much iron somewhere else, though, and cut that back, then they would be fine.

The point I guess is that perhaps these things aren't bad for you, but rather they're bad for you in the current context of your environment, health, and current dietary intake.

On the other hand, maybe they're just a bunch of things that are awful for your specific metabolism. Given the issues you posted, I probably wouldn't want to try it out if I were you.

They've also done a REALLY good job of addressing peoples' critiques.

For instance: manufacturing. They've contracted with an experienced, FDA-certified manufacturing facility that Does This Sort of Things.

Can't wait to get my soylent!

(My girlfriend has been trying to create DIY soylent, so I'm really curious how hers will taste different than the "real" thing. The experiment from last night: soylent flatbread!)

The hype around Soylent is unbelievable. You realize you don't need to wait for it if you want, you can just go out and buy Ensure and similars?

I'm no expert, but as I understand Ensure is a supplement for your meals, Soylent is a replacement for them.

You shouldn't consume only Ensure, but you could do it with Soylent. They are completely different products.

> You shouldn't consume only Ensure, but you could do it with Soylent.

[citation needed]

Malnutrition can have effects years down the line. A bunch of early-adopters with confirmation bias trying it for a couple months proves little about its long-term safety.

Sure, but if your regular meals are pizza, hamburguers, instant noodles, junk food and the like then you are on your way to malnutrition already. Soylent could be a very positive change for those people.

It's not like meals are an arcane science working some unknown magic on your body, it's about biological needs and chemistry. And it's not like there are chefs cooking healthy food in every home. I don't claim anything about Soylent, I have never consumed it, but it sounds like a possible solution to a big problem. Time will tell.

If you subsist on fast food, you're obviously on your way to health problems, but those problems might not include malnutrition because even fast food inputs are complex compared to something engineered from the most primitive possible inputs to specific macronutrient ratios.

> Soylent could be a very positive change for those people.

It could also be worse. Without long-term, scientifically valid studies, no one knows for sure.

> It's not like meals are an arcane science working some unknown magic on your body, it's about biological needs and chemistry.

The workings of the body are not fully known, even today. There are many unknowns in nutrition, which is precisely why none of the pharmaceutical companies have a "replace all meals!" product.

Again, I'm not disagreeing (at least completely) with you. Research is necessary.

I would like to try this for those times when I'm short of time to cook and resort to ordering a pizza for example, not as a complete replacement. And I think it would be advisable for the people interested to do that as long as there's not serious research.

However, currently there are serious studies about the bad effects of fast food on your health, it's not an unknown. The way I see it, you are more worried about something that could be bad than about something we know is bad. It doesn't add up to me. Sounds like neophobia. And I'm sorry in advance if I seem rude.

The risks of fast food are a known quantity, and folks eating it as a large component of their diet tend to be folks doing so for financial reasons. Soylent is comparatively expensive.

> And it's not like there are chefs cooking healthy food in every home.

You don't need a chef to quickly cook healthy food at home. In fact, most chefs tend to overcomplicate food by aiming for taste instead of healthiness.

Throw some vegetables in the steamer, add some tofu and in five minutes you got yourself a healthy lunch. This is just one example.

Believe it or not, if you're eating a variety of junkfood you are probably not on the road to malnutrition. A diverse diet of pretty much any quality of food is likely to get you every nutrient you need, including the ones we don't understand. Most of the cases of people getting malnutrition from junk food seem to be from people who do something like eating nothing but ramen dry packs every day. I think that's usually part of an eating disorder, as people tend to get bored of the same food all the time.

This is why the concept of a general meal replacement (as opposed to an occasional meal replacement) is scary. It has absolutely no diversity. If it's missing something it's missing it for every meal, and it takes a long time to find out that something's missing.

You probably shouldn't consume only Soylent either, unless you're prepared for a transitional period [1] if you ever need to eat solid foods again.

[1] http://discourse.soylent.me/t/effects-of-re-introducing-soli...

I'm talking about supplements and products for enteral diet.

They are used on people with malnutrition, eating disabilities or digestion disorders, effectively replacing meals, but never marketed as such for the general population by Abbott and co. because 1) they know about nutrition, 2) know it's shortcomings and 3) know it's bad idea.

Ensure has been used as a complete replacement for decades. It advertises as a supplement because nutrition is not a one size fits all* kind of thing and being too aggressive about positioning it as a long term food substitute would end in lawsuits.

*Seriously, not one size fits all. Changing elevation will cause you to need more/less potassium for instance.

>Ensure has been used as a complete replacement for decades

No, it has not. An ensure contains a mere 11% of your daily potassium for example. Has anyone ever actually recommended that someone drink 9 ensures a day?

> An ensure contains a mere 11% of your daily potassium for example.

If you are referring to Ensure Complete, (rather than regular Ensure, which is not intended as a complete replacement), it may be low in potassium because complete replacements may be used by people with various medical conditions for which reduced potassium intake, below the usual-stated Adequate Intake, is recommended [1] (its possible for other users to supplement potassium, so that design choice would make it more broadly usable.)

Nutrition is more than one-size-fits-all values.

[1] See, e.g., the special considerations that apply to Potassium here: http://www.iom.edu/Global/News%20Announcements/~/media/442A0...

They are the same product. People live for many months on Ensure when their jaws are wired shut and for other health issues. Ensure is just smart enough to properly label and market their product without opening themselves up to damaging claims. Soylent is still in the phase where 23andme was where they put whatever they want on their web site and haven't been smacked down by regulatory agencies yet.

It is absolutely ridiculous - if you want a real cutting edge diet, check out keto or paleo. Too many carbs, too processed, not enough (or any? not sure) animal protein.

That he would be quoted talking about "saturated fat" as if it is evil, shows how clueless he is.

Soylent is not a diet; it is a food product. I don't think you understand the problem they're trying to solve. I can't go online and order a supply of keto, can I?

You can go online and order a supply of 50/30/20 carbs/fat/protein, though.

Again, that is not the same thing as ordering Soylent.

You could do it by ordering Soylent, so it would be exactly the same thing. You could also just order Ensure, if you don't have as much of a desire to risk your health. The macro balance might be slightly different, though.

Which I can poor into a blender and make and consume as a meal in less then 5 min? Is it cheap? Does it require minimal consideration on my part? Then you are pushing something totally different and irrelevant.

Yes, it's more expensive than cooking but less expensive than eating out, yes, rude.

Animal protein is not remotely important. A proper mixture of vegetable proteins is as good or better.

Not sure if that's actually the case with Soylent, though.

There is a lot of debate about that, I wouldn't call it a settled issue on either side.

I have read enough that I have my position, that animal proteins are superior in practice (because vegetable proteins are theoretically good but the combination is trickier - a porterhouse steak requires no combination, having complete proteins throughout); but I accept that I could in the future be proven wrong by new findings.

You were proven wrong in the 70s. Your understanding of protein is effectively nonexistent. Rice protein contains all essential amino acids. You do not need to combine it with anything. You simply need to eat enough of it so that you get enough of the amino acid it contains the least of. Protein labeling requirements already account for amino acid profiles, and as such 10g of protein in a food is going to be at least 10g of usable protein for a human being, regardless of the source of protein.

Do you have a citation for the requirement that labels underreport protein mass? It would be surprising to me if you could not actually discover the macronutrient balance of a food by looking at the label.

You do discover the macros from the label, that's the point. They measure usable protein, not amino acids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_Digestibility_Corrected...

I've been thinking some about Soylent and the criticisms leveled against them, mainly that we still don't know as much as we'd like about exactly what types of food the human body needs to survive.

One the one hand, it was my understanding that most nutritional deficiencies are relatively slow to develop, and whatever happens as a consequence of them usually goes away after the sufferer resumes normal eating. So if there is a problem with it, whoever notices it will probably be able to just go back to whatever they were eating before and be no worse off.

On the other hand, what better way to learn more about what the human body really needs than to create a food like Soylent and have a bunch of people try to live off of it long-term? If it turns out that there's some vitamin or something that we need a little bit of every so often and didn't know about, then we'll find out about it from people eating Soylent, and they'll add that to it and keep going. So good for them on actually getting out there and trying it, instead of talking about how impossible they think it is.

A really big contribution to the effort to get to Mars and other destinations farther from Earth would be to have a bunch of people try to eat nothing but stabilized foodstuffs for a period of time like 2 years. It would be something like: nothing but Soylent and MREs for two years.

Seems like they have plenty of people willing to give it a try already. If you wanna try it now you can. If you wanna wait a few years to see if it is safe, you can do that too.

I'm concerned about the macronutritient ratio... I mean, 50% carbonhydrates? Half of which (132g of 500g, according to the article) is maltodextrin (which has a higher glucemic index than SUGAR)? I don't consider a diet healthy if it consists of 25% sugar.

If they changed the ratio to perhaps 20/50/30 or similar and elimitated the sugar, I'd be interested.

I still don't understand the excitement behind this, but apparently everyone here can't stop talking about them. So I guess they are doing something right.

It's the ultimate in appeal to the geek crowd. It optimizes away a process which is a balance of expensive, inefficient, time consuming, and often unhealthy.

Breakfast and lunch are throwaway meals for me; I eat because I have to in order to live and be productive and healthy, but none of my choices seem optimal. I can eat a fresh, healthy meal at work (expensive), I can reheat yesterday's dinner (microwaved food is less appetizing and often not as healthy), I can grab a quick meal (unhealthy and often expensive), or I can prepare a proper lunch ahead of time (time consuming).

The promise of soylent is simple: from now on, you can eat meals because you want to, not because you have to. On top of that, you only get what you need, and not what you don't want.

I compare it to, say, Linux. You can compile all your software from scratch, install dependencies, and customize absolutely everything, and some people do that because they enjoy it. Many people don't, and don't want to deal with it, and we have distributions like Ubuntu that take away 80% of what you used to need to do to get a proper Linux distribution running.

With Soylent, you still have the option of other meals; it's entirely up to you. You can drink it as your sole nutritional intake, you can have a Friday dinner out, or you can eat dinner with the family and just replace breakfast and lunch.

They have meal replacement shakes out, and have for years. They have much more attractive sounding names.

Wow this is great news! unless I read wrong it should be totally vegan now as the fish oil is not required? I love the idea of cooking being a collaborative ritualistic experience you engage in for holidays/celebrations and soylent being something you use the rest of the time.

The EPA / DHA fatty acids from fish oil are incorporated directly into the oil blend now.

Sounds like the fish oil is still there, it's even pre-mixed so you can only avoid it by replacing the oils entirely.

They really need to redo the source footage of their intro video. The audio is awful and the green-screen they used had some not-great lighting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSkOVkgd8hY

Hopefully they got all of the rats [1] out of the production facility.

[1] http://www.vice.com/motherboard/life-after-food/

They addressed this here http://blog.soylent.me/post/66807143901/this-morning-vices-b...

>> We would also like to emphasize the fact that Soylent 1.0, the product for which we have accepted over $1.5M in preorders, will not be manufactured by hand by our executive team. We have signed a purchase order with RFI Ingredients, a contract manufacturer with over 20 years of experience producing FDA-approved food products.

I was extremely skeptical of these guys, but they seem to be addressing some of the major concerns I had. I still think there's a lot of testing to be done before this lives up to all the promises, but they get some definite kudos for their quick responses.

So, average male's daily need in one 500 gram bag... How much does this cost again? I mean I'd be interested in replacing one or two meals with something like this, but only if it's not too expensive.

Why don't you start using some of the ones currently on the market then?? Why wait?

Could you link some of these products available for purchase for purchase please? I've heard a few times times that there are soylent equivalents currently available, but from my searching I've only ever been able to find meal supplements and not complete replacements.

There is a section at lots of health food stores for "meal replacement".

I bought some a few weeks ago while out sourcing ingredients for some DIY soylent.

It was disgusting.

This is one

http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-Life-Meal-powder/dp/B0001...

No, that is not one. That is the whole point. Look at the label, you would need to eat 29 scoops of that per day to get your daily potassium. It doesn't even mention all the vitamins and minerals we know we need. That is not a balanced, complete source of nutrition. Every time soylent is mentioned people make this claim, that all sorts of not even close to complete products are already filling the role soylent is intended for. They don't.

Hmm, I looked pretty hard several times on Amazon for a soylent type product and that was the best one I found. It could be that type of thing doesn't sell well, but we will find out once soylent hits mass production. I like the idea because I am addicted to food if somehow I can just cut food out of the equation, avoid it entirely maybe I could tame my addiction.

http://abbottstore.com/jevity

http://www.nestlenutritionstore.com/departments/therapeutic-...

http://abbottstore.com/sub-brand/Ensure-Complete-31.aspx

Ensure Complete has an interesting nutrition panel: it's 25% of everything listed, if I remember correctly. A four pack is 1400 calories and everything you need for a day. In my local stores, it's about $8. Jevity isn't marketed in grocers like Ensure Complete is.

>it's 25% of everything listed, if I remember correctly

You don't. If you tried to live on ensure complete (which they seem to only sell in the US?) you need to add potassium, choline, more fat, more calories in general, more fiber, more sodium and chloride, but unfortunately not in the ratio they are found in salt (that was bright) and you now have diarrhea all the time from the magnesium. All that and it is more expensive than soylent. This crap is precisely why people are stoked about soylent, we've tried the existing products and they suck.

Ah, quite right, I see that's on their site:

http://abbottstore.com/adult-nutrition/ensure-complete-milk-...

But, this crap is not why people are stoked about soylent, since the vast majority of people who are excited about soylent don't seem to be aware that there are a bunch of products that are pretty close (or possibly better in some cases) already.

But there aren't a bunch of products that are pretty close or better, that's the point. The only 100% complete nutrition products are medical products for tube feeding, and they are expensive.

This is exciting, especially the updated texture.

I used Soylent because my dinners were so depressing (crumbled tofu with deactivated yeast) that I figured I might as well just gulp liquid nutrition. But, honestly, that was even more depressing. So I just learned to make some nicer simpler dishes, and I've been fine.

"Dr F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer, a professor of medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and senior attending physician at St Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital and the New York-Presbyterian Hospital."

- that's one handful of buzzwords and reinforcement degrees to hush the infidels

This is definitely looking much better. The marketing folks at Soylent seem to have kicked in. The packaging looks sort of like space food. The texture looks more "substantial", and the color is a step up from beige. I wouldn't be surprised to see flavoring coming next, with more color varieties.

I believe the color was added by the author for the photo; it still comes beige and unflavored. But, the author also experimented with adding flavoring, too, to reasonable effect.

Like many of you, I have some pretty serious concerns about soylent. I encourage you to check out http://diy.soylent.me/ and consider mixing your own formula or trying one of the others that have been developed in an open-source manner.

Anyone who would willingly forgo food for Soylent on any kind of ongoing basis should have their Homo Sapiens card revoked.

Eating healthy, delicious food (not mutually exclusive, for the record) is one of the simplest, most fundamental joys of existence.

Like sex, delicious food is a fundamental joy of existence. But also like sex, eating 3 delicious meals a day is past the point of diminishing rewards.

I find I enjoy life most when I eat real, delicious, handmade food a few times a week in a relaxed setting with friends or family, and something quick and healthy I don't have to think about the rest of the time. Currently I alternate tuna+beans with protein shakes for the quick meals, but I can't wait for my Soylent to get here.

(I'm a Soylent investor)

Eating 3 delicious meals a day is diminishing returns only if you consistently prepare one off meals with no leftovers. I understand using Soylent as an an occasional meal replacement, but Soylent's message has consistently been one of "food replacement" which while certainly provocative, I find antithetical to optimizing enjoying being alive

So is gardening. And running. And napping.

And a million other things that people enjoy but whose importance is entirely opinion based.

I'd being willing to go out on a limb and say that eating cuts a little closer to instinct than anything on your list. Napping is pretty damn great, however.

I find the idea of a foodstuff reaching a '1.0 release' somewhat... offputting.

Top notch chefs have been doing it for decades just without the gimmicky software versioning nomenclature.

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