Show HN: MealSquares, our whole food Soylent alternative | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: MealSquares, our whole food Soylent alternative

mealsquares.com

51 pointsnazgulnarsil86 comments

I have the same reaction to this as I did to Soylent: I'd be a lot more inclined to try it if there was somebody involved with it who had some demonstrable background or expertise in nutrition, health or medicine.

The human body is a complicated thing, but while it's hard to improve, it's very easy to screw up. And screwing up someone's health can have consequences for them that last for years or decades. It can literally ruin their life. If that happens it won't be much comfort for them that their sad story has led you to pivot to a more promising approach.

For all the intellectual firepower of people in the tech community, there is a curious strain of anti-intellectualism that comes forth in projects like this; an eagerness to discount the expertise of people who have studied a subject for their entire lives, just because they weren't CS majors. It's like trying to send a man to the moon without working with any aerospace engineers. I honestly do not understand it.

Agreed, this is why we went with whole foods. I was already basically eating the ingredient list of MealSquares everyday.

Just because its whole foods doesn't make it inherently nutritious.

Additionally -- just because I eat all of the ingredients in a MealSquare every day, that doesn't mean that I can be health ONLY eating those ingredients every day

You're right about the lack of variety but you shouldn't discount this as a useful backup food.

Rubbish.

Firstly, nutrition science is not real science - we don't have a full understanding of how our body processes foods, etc to be able to model it properly. So it's not real science.

Secondly, having a balanced nutrition isn't nearly as complicated as you make it out to be. Variety and everything in moderation. Humans would have evolved to be able to live off a variety of different diets and foods. Most of our history involved a food shortage and so a very specific set of nutritional requirements would definitely not have been selected for.

I tend to agree with you to some extent, although I have to take issue with this reasoning:

>we don't have a full understanding of how our body processes foods, etc to be able to model it properly. So it's not real science.

We don't have a full understanding of anything, but science is what lets us get closer. The problem I have with nutrition science is rather that a lot of its results are presented with far more confidence than the evidence bears.

Yes, I think we are on the same page.

We don't have a full understanding of fluid dynamics either, but we still fly in airplanes.

Perhaps my original statement was a bit strong. I guess I should say that our level of understanding is not proportionate to the types of conclusions we accept when it comes to food.

Compared to our understand of fluid dynamics, our understanding of nutrition is almost non-existent. Are eggs good for you? Should I drink cows milk? Do multivitamins do anything?

Any answer that a nutritionist would give you be couched in a whole list of qualifiers (if you have low cholesterol, if you're over the age of 65, etc) since you're asking questions about the interactions between very complicated systems like any good scientist should. If someone did give a binary answer to any of the questions you asked, they're probably wrong or trying to sell you something. Don't interpret that as lack of understanding, there is quite a bit known about human nutrition in the modern era.

> nutrition science is not real science - we don't have a full understanding of how our body processes foods, etc to be able to model it properly. So it's not real science.

So, does this mean science is happening only when we have total understanding of something? What have these physicists been doing all these years!? Of course we don't know it well enough. Science is pretty simple, though: cause and effect. If someone eats only celery, they will die (lack of calories). I don't know what you're talking about when you talk about "real science".

>Variety and everything in moderation

And this is exactly the point op is making. You don't get that variety by eating only these. So the options are:

1. Have total faith that their good enough for you to eat every day (and thus trust the makers)

2. Don't eat them at all (don't trust them)

OP wants to trust scientists, not just some guys making food in their kitchen. So he chooses the latter option.

See my replies below regarding "not real science". I'm happy to accept your point in that regard.

As for #1 and #2 - we've created a kibble/pellet formula for virtually every other animal on planet earth. Why not humans? Seems incredibly narrow minded to me.

Not to mention that the average american diet is atrocious so the bar for an improvement is pretty low.

It would be reasonable to trust us slightly more than all the bars with similar ingredients at the supermarket.

> For all the intellectual firepower of people in the tech community, there is a curious strain of anti-intellectualism that comes forth in projects like this

I think a lot of people in technology scene have a strong undercurrent of anti-authoritarianism and distrust of traditional institutions, this coupled with a philosophy that many of shortcomings of the world can be recast as problems of inadequate connectivity or insufficient technology is a big source of the phenomenon you described. At it's best it gives people a different perspective on how to change things for the better in the industry, at it's worst I think it manifests as full on anti-intellectualism.

I don't understand how this transfers through though.

Hypothetical Bob distrusts the medical industry and science, but then tKes fish oik supplements for heart health. Science tells us that fish oil has no benefit over placebo for heart health, and supplements are produced huge mega businesses who are out to make profit.

I know I am subject to my own biases, and I'm using an example where I am aware of my biases. But still, I don't get it.

Of course I don't have an answer. But I guess you'd have to ask how Bob might have become first conceived of the thought that fish oil supplements are good for heart health in the first place and ask why he puts faith in the source of that information. I think a lot of it is carried by word of mouth, which I think just innately tends to carry more weight with us as humans then the conclusions of some nameless scientists, but that's just speculation.

I strongly agree that having dieticians or nutritionists around would be helpful. I hope they have someone who understands the problems with the science.

Having said that it's harder to screw up the nutrition if you're eating real food rather than supplements, especially if it's a range of food.

It is a great idea and it's the kind of thing I'd be interested in. They'd have to be idiots if they provided a worse diet than the food I'm getting now.

I suppose products like these are positive, though I find them profoundly depressing. That eating well has become such an after-thought that no-one takes time to actually make themselves a whole meal, and rather than reprioritise their lives they'll ask a group of people with no discernable nutritional credentials to send them a square of food that they cut into 100 calorie segments, and eat day in, day out.

Scarfing down pastries or energy bars when you don't have time to think about food? You can do better.

Yeah, you can.

Actually, my ability to enjoy food hugely increased when I started eating my prototypes. Focusing on one meal a day means that meal can be awesome.

If you like spending time and effort preparing healthy meals for yourself, more power to you. The MealSquares target user is a busy startup founder whose diet is currently made up of microwavable meals or something like that. You tell someone like this to eat healthier and they say "yeah, I really should", but it's hard to fit in the time for cooking, nutrition research, and meal planning in between all of the other important stuff they're doing. Personally, I like the fact that people are doing important stuff, and I'm hoping that MealSquares will allow people to spend their time doing lots of important stuff and eat healthy while they're at it.

Personally, I like the fact that people are doing important stuff

But that's exactly my point, eating well is "important stuff". I suppose it reflects the general mentality that crunching away on your mobile photo sharing startup is "important" while eating well, being healthy and being happy are optional extras.

In my case, the general idea draws me because I have a kitchen the size of a shoebox with poor ventilation and a fire alarm that goes off at the drop of a hat. Cooking an even fractionally complicated meal quickly becomes an exercise in frustration.

Cooking doesn't necessarily mean heating, what's wrong with raw?

You don't have to stop eating meals. I see this as a once-a-month standby when you don't have time.

Not everyone is interested in taking the time to make themselves a whole meal every day. I know I'm not: I don't derive a lot of pleasure from food of any kind beyond a limited amount from a very small selection of specific food items. As a result, I find myself more, not less, aware of the effect my eating habits have on my health. If I could away with it, I'd eat McDonald's for every meal not because I find it to be some pinnacle of culinary superstimuli but because it's that much easier. I don't, because the health and mental effects of eating fast food much more than once a week are immediately obvious (to say nothing of the probable long term issues).

Food is a deep topic with really excellent geeking out potential, but it's not something I'm interested in reprioritising my life over in the way you suggest. To put it in an HN friendly metaphor, people like me are eagerly awaiting things like these squares or Soylent for the same reason Apple has been able to so hugely disrupt and capture the smartphone market: no one is selling a good experience to the people who aren't interested in revolving their life around the topic.

So yes, I can do better. I can shotgun a litre of Soylent and spend the extra time wandering foggy seashores with my wife, or tweaking up my RC airplanes, or working on something opensource. Not everyone wants to be a food geek anymore than you're going to convince your grandma to switch to Linux and then care what bootloader she's using (syslinux FTW!).

Has it occurred to you that we don't all find food as entertaining as you do and would rather do other things with our time? I could just as easily say I find it profoundly depressing that such an extraordinary amount of time is wasted on satisfying the basest of biological needs, to eat.

I agree with you on the anti-intellectualism front and the need for real experts, but please don't be so dismissive of the desire to escape the menial daily tasks forced upon us by biology.

What I love about this is it's less an alternative of Soylent and more an alternative for the terrible meal replacement bars at the convenience store. Those are packed with sugar or sugar alcohols and rarely have oats or other ingredients I prefer. Although MealSquares does have a sizeable amount of sugar, I can't wait to try MealSquares if it's a decent price since I like the ingredient profile otherwise.

Edit: Price looks to be fair.

This looks great! I'm currently vegan and have known for a while that it is not the best I could be doing nutritionally or morally. Rather than make my diet more complicated, I've been looking toward a primarily whole foods diet, sans animal products. With all the convenience, sugar, etc. of processed foods, making the jump has been much harder than I expected.

I'm excited about Soylent, but I'm not fully sold on the ingredients being primarily from supplements. I very much look forward to a vegan version.

Please continue researching, and try to gain the volunteer support of some nutritionists, then be quick to hire one when your Kickstarter succeeds!

Thanks for bringing your idea to everyone!

P.S. I also think this idea will be great for those who cannot afford the luxury of researching and buying healthy foods. Convenience is a huge reason the junk food industry is so large, especially in low-income areas. The price of $12/day is a nice starting point, and the lower it becomes, along with the more in-store availability - the healthier our population will become.

Despite all the controversy, soylent did show there is a market for this. If MealSquare can actually deliver to early adopters in a timely fashion, I'd imagine they could capture a lot of the Soylent market...

Looking forward to the crowdfunding and more timeline details!

Hey Romeo,

This is incredible. I love this idea and hope it can come to light.

Quick question, I took a look at the price in the FAQ:

"We're looking at $12/day as our absolute ceiling and aim to hit significantly lower than that. MealSquares will come down in price as we scale. At $12 a day a MealSquare costs $2.40, which is very competitive with other options."

Is this for 1 day worth (2000 calories) of MealSquares? Is this assuming a bulk purchase (1 week or month)?

2000 calories. We don't really know how bulk pricing will work out once we are in production, our current costs are retail.

Right now, our family's meals cost ~$3.70/day (plus the "free" labor of preparing it). Until it's within a dollar or two within that price, I won't be able to try it out.

I'm usually on a low carb diet and I jog/weightlift a lot. Normally, I aim for about 4000-5000 calories/day, so I may be atypical of your average American. Also, my nutritional goals are high poly/mono fats, high protein, high fiber, and low sugar/starches.

The carb content in these bars bother me (42g/bar x 5 bars a day), and I'd prefer bars with more fiber and significantly less sugar even if that means it'd taste more like bark.

Compared to the same weight of almonds, for example, these bars have 25% less protein, ~4x more sugar, 1/3 the fiber, slightly more saturated fat, and significantly less mono/poly. Now I know almonds aren't substitutes for meals, but when I'm lazy to make or buy a meal and am looking for convenient finger food, this is what you'd be up against.

I understand that meal replacements that look and taste like chocolate chip cookies are appealing. These bars seem like a tastier version of your typical chalk-like protein bar. I think if you cut back the carbs, you might be able to stand out in that market.

we're at a 40/40/20 macro split C/F/P for our V1, a low carb version might happen in the future.

40/40/20 is a very good macronutrient target. Kudos.

It's unfortunate to see that the product uses animal-based foods, and eggs at that. Something like Soylent should in my opinion be vegan (for the environment and the animals). If I recall correctly, Soylent was pretty close to vegan.

Unfortunate for you, but I bet most people (like myself) don't think this is a problem.

Not a problem, more an missed opportunity. There are a pretty large market of Veg*n folks, why exclude?

I find it unfortunate that it doesn't contain more animal products. I do love me some tasty animals.

A bit offtopic, but I'm always sad that more research hasn't been done in making eggs/milk cruelty-free - that the "cruely-free science" went straight to synthetic meat. I'd love to see more research in mass-cloning female chickens to avoid the "sexing" problem, or painless alternatives to de-beaking, or hormonally-induced lactation in cows. Even the ideal pastoral rural hobby egg-farmer has intrinsically cruel aspects because of the useless male chicks and occasional violence between chickens... but it feels like these would be lower hurdles to overcome with technology than weaving synthetic beef on a magical meat-loom.

I think it's because cruelty-free is already quite easy to get: just buy food from local, organic farms that actually raise animals instead of mass-producing them.

But my point is that even local organic farms have to deal with the useless males problem. For eggs: if they have a rooster to breed more chickens, they kill the male hatchlings as soon as they're old enough to be sexed (which can be at birth or a few weeks later depending on the sophistication of their sexing techniques). If they purchase their chickens from a breeder, the same problem exists there.

I mean, simple respectable pain-management could help with de-beaking, but the existence of unwanted male birds is a hard problem.

I'd be a lot more comfortable with ovo/lacto vegetarianism (which is what I do) if those problems could be solved, and I'm no luddite - if there was a high-tech solution to these problems using crazy cloning techniques or somehow inducing parthenogenesis or something, that would be great.

I agree. The good news is that there's Hampton Creek Foods, who are researching egg replacements: https://hamptoncreekfoods.com/

We see vegans as a huge potential market, because right now being a vegan is a ton of work since you have so many restrictions on how you get vital nutrients. But in the same way being a vegan is a ton of work for you, a meal replacement bar for vegans is also a lot trickier to develop. So we're definitely going to prioritize veganism for future MealSquares product lines if we get there.

That's excellent news! Thanks!

One of Soylent's marketing points is that it's 100% vegan, IIRC. My criticisms for Soylent aside, I would actually be willing to try it. I'm sure those of us who object to an animal product-based meal replacement are in the minority though, and I'm sure this product will carve its niche right along Soylent.

because most people, myself included, don't really give a shit about that.

The Vegan option for Soylent is to order it without the otherwise included fish oil additive.

These have quite a lot of sugar and cholesterol. And are a bit higher on sodium than Soylent. Maybe I've not been following the recent recommendations but aren't these things we're supposed to avoid?

I can understand the effort and I can support it if the main idea is to prevent people from starving. But I cannot understand people reacting whole foods as it is invented couple of years ago. My 4 years old kid don't consume food other than PediaSure[1] for two years. He really did well until this time and blood, urine test suggest everything is normal. So food replacement is not miracle and works under some circumstances.

[1] http://abbottnutrition.com/brands/pediasure

There's a product in the Australia and NZ market called One Square Meal which seems exactly this (which would seem to raise the spectre of trademark conflict). http://www.onesquaremeal.com/productinfo.html

For something that's 1/3 DI, it's pleasant enough, though a can get a bit tiring on the jaw if you're trying to wolf it down, which you often are if you're in a situation where you need a meal substitute...

It would be good to have more information on what these taste like, what the mouthfeel is, and, possibly most importantly (since it's a prereq in my mind to ever buying any at all), how long they last in the pantry or refrigerator.

That said, the idea already appeals to me much more than Soylent, not particularly because of the whole foods part but because the image and info given suggest that a MealSquare will have some chew, crunch, and contrasting textures to it.

We're still working on shelf life, we're within reach of a month and might be able to do significantly better.

Texture/taste wise they are like a cinnamon bran muffin. We were actually surprised we were able to get the prototypes tasting so good.

Hi, this is Romeo Stevens, cofounder of MealSquares. We’re really interested in feedback.

Since Soylent is a similar product in our space, I wanted to discuss some points made by Rob Rhinehart in his post "The Fallacy of Whole Foods": http://robrhinehart.com/?p=874

Rob likes to compare Soylent to medical meal replacements. But medical meal replacements have taken a long time to mature. For example, it took a while for professional nutritionists to realize maybe they shouldn’t pump newborns full of soybean oil [1]. This may sound silly today, but that was the best nutritionists could do based on the science available to them. And that's the problem I see artificially constructed meal replacements running in to--if you do the best you can based on the science available, that still may not be enough.

Different forms of the same nutrient do seem to affect the body differently. We see negative health outcomes from substances such as beta-carotene, vitamin E, and folic acid in supplemental form [2], while high levels in whole foods demonstrate no such harms. So bioavailability is complicated, and for whatever reason whole foods seem to have consistently healthier profiles than supplements.

Many examples of strong nutrient synergy have been discovered. Vitamin D and calcium, vitamin C and iron, the fat soluble vitamins and dietary fat are some of the most well established. It seems likely that we've still got more to discover. Rob himself seems to acknowledge this in his inclusion of many non-essential nutrients like lycopene.

Even given these points, we don’t consider Soylent a bad thing. Rob is right, the average diet is terrible, and anything that improves on that is great. We know MealSquares aren’t perfect. Nutrition science has come up with no substitute for regularly eating fish for example; supplements don’t cut it [3]. But including MealSquares in your diet means you are getting a solid dose of healthy, nutrient dense foods from a variety of sources. We don't think nutrition is settled science, and we look forward to becoming a multi-billion dollar corporation so we can improve the state of knowledge with our research department. :P

On the topic of longevity in general, you can read some of my research here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jrt/lifestyle_interventions_that_aff....

[1] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130814101429.ht...

[2] http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=205797

[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12848287

Hi Romeo, something to keep in mind. Most "Meal replacement" type bars (cliff, power bar) etc.. are super sweet, lots of sugar. I'm actually not a fan of sugar in general and would love an alternative that is more neutral or even on the salty side. I see on your site what look like chocolate chip cookie chunks and that turns me off. Maybe you can come up with something that has flavor but is not sweet?

Yes, we ran into this complaint a lot when researching existing options. Our current beta version is very mild, so it's pleasant to eat a lot of it.

This. Although I have a bit of a sweet tooth, for a meal replacement (as opposed to a treat) 25grams (two tablespoons) is quite a bit of sugar. The fiber might offset it a bit but finding a better balance between the two would make me more likely to buy the product.

This stood out to me the most. 125g of sugar in a day's supply seems really high.

+1 to this.

I would be very much in the market for meal replacements like MealSquares or Soylent, but they both have lots of sugar and carbs. I try to follow a paleo diet, I don't always succeed at following it closely, but the most important thing that I try to do is avoid sugar, sugar substitutes, and artificial sweeteners, and second I try to avoid carbs from grains. This pretty much means that I have to buy free range eggs, grass fed beef, grass fed butter, and make my own meals, or I have to eat at restaurants, but buying meal replacements is out of the question. There is nothing out there yet that eliminates sweeteners and carbs.

I know that there are people who want the carbs and the sugar, so here is a suggestion. Why not refactor the current MealSquare into two parts, one that is salty and paleo, and one that is vegan and low fat? That way people who like them as they are now can eat one of each and get the same result, but those of us who are paleo can get the sugar/grain free square separately, and people who are vegan can get the animal free square separately as well.

+1 on this, i have lived on a light lchf diet (60g carb per day) for more than a year and would never go back to a sugary carby diet again, since if i do, i start to feel really bad in just a few days.

And just as you describe, it takes a lot of hard work!

Are there plans to release a version that is free of all treenuts (and peanuts)? Very few bars available on the market are free of nuts. I'm not sure of the prevalence sunflower seed allergies, but perhaps sunbutter could be a suitable replacement for the walnuts you include now?

For comparison of nutrition:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=100+grams+sunflower+see...

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=100+grams+walnuts

Yes. We're not positive V1 will have the walnuts. But if it does then our second version will be tree nut free.

Are the walnuts whole or ground? I'm not a fan of nuts in general, but whole walnuts are the worst offenders!

I really like this idea; I think it's complementary to Soylent. Are you planning on making vegan or keto versions?

We are focused on getting V1 out the door right now, but we're open to lots of possibilities for different versions as soon as that's feasible.

...so basically no. Soylent was vegan from day one, in comparison.

This is a definite advantage of engineered food -- you're not stuck in the past pulling embryos out of birds living in torture conditions.

Are you guys going to consider a low sodium version? I noticed it appears to be gluten free which is good, but there's a significant portion of the population that's on low sodium diets. Most people don't follow them because it's incredibly hard. Organic food is just about as bad as processed foods (or worse sometimes).

I can't participate in any meal plans either because of this and it definitely sucks.

This along with tree nuts will probably be priorities for our alternate versions.

That's awesome! I don't like the idea of soylent (I can't eat a lot of things so I want to like the things I eat), but this seems cool.

If you could keep it at or under 200mg (preferably FDA low sodium of 140mg) I would try some.

I'd like to be able to click on the "About" link and see your advisory board, chock full of nutrition experts who've studied existing medical meal replacements.

I think you guys have an edge over Soylent in that this actually looks somewhat appealing, as opposed to a generic beige liquid.

Feedback on the website. It's too much text and the "action" is not well defined or prominent. Do a video. Give just links to the extra info, prominent not hidden in the link list (mobile). Make your call to action the focus. The images look stock, need improvement.

I'd be glad to elaborate on any of these points. Email me

Is there any reason that your compare page adds the qualifier "not from soy/rice"? I get the soy part, even if I don't agree about its significance. But why does rice as a source matter?

bioavailability of plant proteins is much lower than from milk/eggs/whey.

I like this idea a lot, but honestly what are you showing us here? The campaign hasn't started yet and there doesn't appear to be any actual product created.

MealSquares exist and myself and beta testers are getting significant portions of our calories from them.

Ok great, but you posted a "Show HN" pointing to your product's web page. The only thing that web page does is collect emails to notify when your crowd funding campaign starts.

I just don't understand what you're showing us.

We're looking for feedback both on our website and the core idea.

You can see the proposed pricing, ingredients, and a bit of the supporting philosophy. Seems like enough to get some feedback.

(Other MealSquares cofounder here)

The reason we haven't started our crowdfunding campaign yet is because our following isn't big enough yet. Soylent hit its target within the first 24 hours because the DIY recipe already had a huge following, and the general wisdom for kickstarters seems to be that you need at least 30-40% of your funding nailed down before you hit the "go" button. So in addition to feedback on the product itself, we are curious if HN has any thoughts for things like slogans and other product messaging, and customer verticals that we might be able to market the product to.

I like the concept, but unfortunately people like me cannot eat it because of food allergies (eggs and tree nuts).

Why is <50% of carbs listed as an advantage?

While it's true that studies have repeatedly shown that macro splits don't matter much for body composition, we felt that the existing options were way too sweet. So much so that eating more than one was actually unpleasant. Also, quite a lot of people try to limit their carbs to something reasonable.

Very interested. If there is a way for me to buy some early samples for beta testing, I would love to know.

"Nutrient deficiencies are common, and supplements don't always work."

*Citation needed

My wife has a PhD in nutrition and is also a registered dietitian. She's not on Hacker News, but she would agree with that statement.

The vast majority of Americans are chronically deficient in vitamin D, for example.

And many "Walmart-quality" supplements are so badly made that you gain no measurable benefit by taking them.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=15672

Magnesium, calcium, potassium, fiber, vitamin C, D, and E. Potassium is a good example, as supplementation is impossible, supplements are limited to 99mg by law. Vitamin E supplements have shown harm in clinical trials.

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