Announcing Soylent 1.2
blog.soylent.me
blog.soylent.me
Oreos version 2.3: Reduced count from 36 to 34. Increased price by 15 cents.
Pepsi version 3.0: Swapped sugar for high-fructose corn syrup.
For everything else, it would be impossible due to the nature of cooking itself.
EDIT:
There is also DIY Soylent [1] with some popular recipes, detailed nutritional information and versioning of each formula. People Chow v3.0.1 [2] seems to be one of the favourite recipes.
[1] http://diy.soylent.me/recipes [2] http://diy.soylent.me/recipes/people-chow-301-tortilla-perfe...
I don't think you are wrong per-se but whenever I see, let's take a more illustrative example, statutes and laws added to GitHub I can't help but think they are introducing a rather misleading narrative to the information. In this example, developers--especially on HN--have a cultural quirk anyway where they believe that the legal system can somehow be reduced or modelled as some sort computer program (when the reality is quite different) and having levers such as pull requests, review systems and diffs encourages this kind of thinking to some degree.
* price/unit * caloric_value/unit * other_nutrition_label/unit
...and with that we could control which food companies are resorting to tricks.
11. BECAUSE THE FOOD IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE FOOD, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE FARMERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE FOOD "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR CONSUMPTION. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE FOOD IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE FOOD PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
Lots of things do have versions, but they just call them products, rather than Soylent DE and Soylent Algae, they're just increasing version numbers. I imagine this probably fits well with their target audience too. Unlike every_other_food_stuff versioning, people eating Soylent are usually not eating a bunch of other products so the versioning is meaningful.
Requiring a change log is probably overkill, but I've long wished that versioning was required on any food that is required to have a nutrition and ingredients label. The versioning would probably be most useful if it were simply the date of the last change to the ingredients or nutrition information.
Then all I'd have to do when buying some packaged food item that I've had before is take a quick look at the date, note that it is earlier than the last time I read the complete label and approved the item, and I'm good to go.
Such a requirement should be cheap and easy for the producers. If they have changed the nutritional or ingredient information, they have to make news labels anyway.
"$brand cereals 2.1.3.201411010: uses cheaper corn from a new producer, coloring of the red ones comes from a different horrible thing than the last one."
It all sounds wonderful, but I'd like the chance to actually try it.
I had no idea that you could produce oil rich in Omega-3 fatty acids from algae. And looking it up lead me to learn that you can also product more traditional fuels from algae as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel
For those who do care though, definitely examine the origin of your algae products. Most of the spirulina / haematococcus (for astaxanthin) / nannochloropsis by volume is grown in rather disgusting conditions in China and India. The US, Japan, and European products are much cleaner but are often GMO if that kind of thing matters to you.
[1] For example, http://www.foodemissions.com/foodemissions/Calculator.aspx [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_carbon_diet
What do you mean "if"? Those aren't really common nutritional issues specifically because they are so easy to "deal with". Vegans take a b12 supplement. The end. Obviously soylent also contains b12.
I'll try it some day when I can get 2 day shipping.
Sure it isn't THE soylent, but tons of people are collaborating on that one too.
Edit: Nevermind, read this comment: http://diy.soylent.me/recipes/people-chow-301-tortilla-perfe...
The amount of vitamins are dangerously higher than 100% recommended daily intake. Unlike Soylent which has mid-range http://diy.soylent.me/recipes/people-chow-301-tortilla-perfe...
I'd stay away from this recipe.
No they are not. Your comment link doesn't work, but the only comments I saw complaining about excessive micronutrients were baseless fearmongering. None of the micronutrients are even close to the TUL. All of the very high ones there are B complex vitamins that simply do not have an upper limit on intake. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin
> subjects taking vitamin A supplements were more likely to die from lung cancer than subjects taking a placebo. A third trial, SELECT, found that dietary supplementation with vitamin E (400 IU/d of all rac-α-tocopheryl acetate) in healthy men significantly increased their risk of prostate cancer. When I see recipes that contain micronutrient levels that are orders of magnitude higher than the recommended daily intake"
> This recipe has off-the-charts values for some nutrients, including 3000% DRI of thiamin, 2483% DRI of riboflavin, and 2583% DRI vitamin B6. Here’s a fun quote from the NIH office of dietary supplements (link below): “taking high levels of vitamin B6 from supplements for a year or longer can cause severe nerve damage, leading people to lose control of their bodily movements.”
He backed his claims up with citations.
His vitamin A study is completely irrelevant. Those studies are people taking 100 times the daily intake, which is well above the TUL. That is literally studies saying "if we poison people they get sick". 2.2x the daily intake is not 100x.
B6 is still way below the TUL, which is set at 10% of the amount that has been shown to cause damage. You would need to eat 30 times what this provides to be at risk. As I said, that is all fearmongering nonsense.
BTW the taste is not as bad as many say, but it can be difficult to resist a trip to [your favorite restaurant here] for lunch every once in a while.
First, it fits my lifestyle. I work from home as an independent contractor, so no issues with having it for days at a time without hassle of bringing it to work with me every day.
Also, for the first week or so your body is adjusting to it, so in terms of social interactions you may not "be yourself". For example, for me, I would get tired randomly after a glass. After that first week or so things start getting back to normal.
I sometimes go on work binges depending on what I'm trying to accomplish, so in those circumstances the last thing I want to do is get up from my computer to spend even 1-2 hrs preparing and eating, then cleaning up after a meal just because my stomach is growling.
Second, my personal experience so far has been that it truly does give you that "full" / "satiated" feeling after you've had a glass of it. More so than pretty much any home or restaurant-prepared meal I've ever had. It lasts a long time as well. I don't have stats, but when I'm really busy and involved with a project I would say the number of times I get up from my desk to take a break, stretch my legs, etc. for one reason or another has decreased dramatically.
Third, generally speaking for a quick meal in the past it would be a trip to a restaurant, or some processed / high sodium, low in nutrition meal (ie. your mac and cheese, pizza, canned soups, etc). Now there's a basic peace of mind that I don't have to compromise nutrition just because I don't want to put the time and effort into preparing a healthy meal.
Fourth, general energy levels / focus throughout the day. Probably because overall I'm eating healthier during busy times, and the formulation is meant to maintain things like steady levels of blood sugar, etc. You don't get the peaks and valleys you sometimes can get after eating a heavy meal.
I'm no fan boy, though it might sound like it. It's one of those products I can seriously spend some time promoting to people because I truly do believe in it. If I had to guess, I would say (barring disaster) this is going to be a multi-billion-dollar company.
Keep in mind, I'm not actually trying to be sarcastic or annoying, but these are points I've actually thought about on my own that add up when you really think about it.
1) shopping (it takes me approx. 1 min to go onto my front porch to get the boxes of Soylent and bring them inside). If I'm making soup on a weekly basis, you have to figure for - Gas for car to travel to grocery and back. Time spent shopping. If you're in a complex, lugging the groceries up flights of stairs, unpacking and putting into refrigerator. Possibility of long lines at check out. Bad weather.
2) Refrigeration / spoilage (With Soylent, there is no need to refrigerate until you mix it together). If you want to purchase 1 month supply of ingredients for soup, perhaps some of those ingredients will go bad by end of the month. They almost certainly won't be as fresh as they were at the beginning of the month. That is if you're trying to make a healthy soup.
3) Nutrition. I am unaware of any soup whose ingredients are engineered to contain all the vitamins, minerals, nutrients, etc. that a human body needs in a day. Granted we don't know everything there is to know about human body and nutrition, but I'm going to guess I'm far less knowledgeable than the staff at Soylent given that it is their job to know.
4) Preparation time. I have eaten canned soups before, so if heating refrigerated soup is anything like that, you're spending at least 3 min at the microwave per meal, so though it's minimal it's more than it takes to (a) open refrigerator, (b) get a glass, and (c) pour.
5) Cost. For 1 month supply (on subscription) Soylent costs $255 (shipping included). This is technically 28 days worth, so this comes to a little more than $3 per meal. To make a soup as nutritious as Soylent, you will almost certainly spend more than this.
These are the main points I can think of.
No. I would not want soup for breakfast. A nice glass of Soylent with some Black Cherry (or other flavor) Mio stirred into it would be much better for breakfast. And that is what I do. And for lunch. And frequently for dinner. There are some very easy ways to quickly enhance the otherwise bland flavor of Soylent.
Don't purchase 1 month's worth. Purchase 1 week's worth.
It is trivially easy to make a soup that contains 100%+ of everything. Potato soup is the best if you are intending to just eat that one thing unless you like milk and eggs in your meat soups (I don't). I usually do a beef soup and have eggs for breakfast and cheese on the side with my soup but that's a taste preference.
The microwave doesn't require assistance. You can just turn it on and go back to what you were doing until it beeps at you.
I spend $65 a week including delivery fee and that's for two people.
It's also nice not having to worry about food, especially if you're busy. Knock off to the fridge, pour a glass, sip as you go.
Personally, I had a yearly check-up after a few weeks of Soylent and everything was fine, so I'm not too concerned. I'm definitely eating more appropriate portions and getting more diverse nutrients than I had been when stuffing my face naturally.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Burger
Unlike so many unhealthy "normal" foods, Soylent is at least trying to be healthy and nutritious. Worst case, it probably won't kill you any faster than a Doughnut Burger.
I've tried a bunch or recommendations in the past (magnesium pills, potassium pills, bananas, hydration, etc..) to fix this problem but nothing ever worked. After an hour my legs would always cramp and I'd have to end an otherwise good session.
I've only been in the water three times since starting Soylent, but so far no cramps. It must be giving my body something it wasn't getting before and I had a pretty healthy diet.
That sounds like getting the fish oil is more costly than getting it straight from the algae.
The price is just a question of scale since fish oil is often a byproduct or co-product with fish meal production for livestock, and millions of metric tons of fish meal are processed annually.
Fortunately for Soylent, a KG of wholesale Omega-3 from algae costs roughly $150/kg and they're only using 2.5G per serving, so you can figure maybe $0.30 - $0.40/serving depending on the concentration of Omega-3s in the powder they're buying. It is pretty interesting that maybe 1/10th of the cost is tied up in Omega-3s though.
According to WP [1], this somewhat (?) obscure book was the inspiration for the name, not the extremely well-known movie that I need not name here. I assume this is sanitization by the marketing department?
(Though that goes to the age-old question of whether human is vegan or not :) )
I just ordered another 30 day supply last week. I've not yet received a shipping notice for that order. So I am hoping that it will be 1.2 rather than 1.1. I wasn't too fond of the idea of the added enzymes in 1.1.
And, while I'm not vegan, it sounds like the oil blend change will make things simpler on their end by no longer needing a separate sku and/or packaging process to eliminate the fish oil blend for vegans.
A simple google search indicates 488 mentions of Soylent on Hacker News, to be precise [1].
[1] https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...
This shouldn't be a mystery at all, and I'm suspecting it's not really something you "never understood".
They also crowdfunded millions of dollars worth of orders, another aspect of the tech industry that gets people on Hacker News interested.
Personally, as someone who is very into fitness, I've been looking for something like this that is healthy compared to all the meal replacements in the store (which are not very healthy in big doses for a variety of reasons and aren't neutral-tasting enough to consistently eat). I've enjoyed my Soylent experience a lot despite not loving the ingredient mix 100%.
For starters, it's a Y Combinator company (host of Hacker News).
Secondly, it was developed by hackers.
Third, it is one of the foremost examples of hacking diet.
Fourth, the HN audience is a key audience of early adopting efficiency seekers.
Finally, people in the community have strong opinions about it both ways.
Never understood? Really?
> Fourth, the HN audience is a key audience of early adopting efficiency seekers.
There is nothing new about Soylent, apart from the unethical crowd-funding[1] and easy access to the public.
Liquid total meal replacements are common and have existed for a log time and are available from Amazon. They don't always push the total replacement aspect because lawyers and I guess because they never expected anyone to want to do so, but people live off existing products and have done so for years.
[1] "puts you in perfect health" and other unethical claims which seem to have been quietly dropped.
That is the main thing that is quite new. And also that extended meal replacement has not typically been marketed to this audience. Both of these are pretty huge, IMO.
This stuff absolutely nails the taste although the texture is more in line with a Skippy or Jif than with better peanut butter.
It's made from peas. It's not quite as close to the real thing as the one that's made from soybeans, but it's pretty good.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/calebmelby/2013/06/07/a-week-wit...
Seems like people describe it as a liquidy bread dough or pancake batter taste.
[1] unlike during the kickstarter when they made a few.
I would love a "what's new"
The defense rests.