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Comment by kuida0r3 | Hacker News Reader

Per https://faq.soylent.me/hc/en-us/articles/200789315-Nutrition - The Soylent recipe is based on the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and is approved as a food by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Soylent 1.2 was developed under the close guidance of our nutritional advisor, Dr. F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer, M.D., MPH. Pi-Sunyer is professor of medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. At St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center he serves as chief of endocrinology, diabetes, and nutrition, and is director of the New York Obesity Research Center. Dr. Pi-Sunyer is also a senior attending physician at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital and New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

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Being created by a nutritional advisor and a professor of medicine is legitimately credible.

I just want to add that this:

> is approved as a food by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Is utterly meaningless. All that means is that everything that goes into the product is "food grade" and that it was prepared in basically sanitary conditions. Nothing more. I highly doubt the FDA has examined their health claims (namely that you could live exclusively off of it). And likely won't unless there is public or political pressure to do so.

As an aside, I wonder if they could get a military or relief effort contract? Seems like the type of product perfect for both, as you "just add water!"

> As an aside, I wonder if they could get a military or relief effort contract? Seems like the type of product perfect for both, as you "just add water!"

A lack of readily available clean water may be a challenge for use in relief efforts. There are also already products out there e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut

The relief will have to bring in water regardless (so people don't die). If they add it to the product that isn't "wasted" water as your body just re-extracts the water and uses it like normal.

> as you "just add water!"

(Which might be highly ironic to people in some places of the world.)

Are these guys the idiots that ban haggis from the US?

(You guys don't know what you are missing).

Haggis isn't banned. Importing it from Scotland is banned. You can produce Haggis within the US and sell it.

OK, my friend from Chicago misinformed me.

It's very much more expensive than existing products.

WFP needs a variety of different foods. Sometimes they just need calories. Sometimes they just need micronutrient. Sometimes they need a specific micronutrient.

http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/re...

http://wfp.org/nutrition/special-nutritional-products

http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/co...

Their recipe relies heavily on added vitamins and minerals. As I commented on the other thread today, it's possible to get all daily nutrition from just 5 cups broccoli, 1.5 cups peanuts, and 3 cups milk.

Couldn't you just take any smoothie recipe, blend in a multi-vitamin, and claim it's a food replacement? Don't products such as Boost already do this? I don't understand Soylent's edge here, except marketing.

Soylent Recipe: http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0421/5993/t/12/assets/files...

> it's possible to get all daily nutrition from just (...)

How do you know you're not missing a few micronutrients? We don't know yet all the micronutrients our body needs, so how can you really say that?

The problem is that we're still very much in the dark regarding nutrition:

"This formula contains what we know we need but not what we might need and don't know how to measure or quantify yet," said Ayoob, at Albert Einstein. "There are hundreds of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds, for example, that we're still learning about." (1)

The danger with Soylent is that they don't acknowledge these limits of our knowledge. Rather, "You can live on Soylent alone, Mr. Rhinehart claims" (2). Given the nutirition field believes differently and he really has no expertise in the field, a statement like this is mindbogglingly irresponsible. This is my basis for the accusation of hubris. (This also doesn't touch on the obvious monetary incentive he has for believing this/making this claim.)

(1) http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/DietNutrition/46983

(2) http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/technology/personaltech/th...

The only affordable (in time and money) alternative to Soylent is crappy fast-food and microwave meals. Surely Soylent is better than a diet comprised of those alternatives?

Really?

1) Buy slowcooker 2) Buy a bunch of cans of beans, veges, ground meat, couple spices 3) Drop that slop in slowcooker 4) Turn on and go to sleep for 8 hours 5) Turn off, put in separate containers

Boom, chili meals for a week.

People who believe cooking needs to be expensive and time consuming really haven't put much effort into looking out for alternatives until some marketing scheme makes them believe they've solved a problem that didn't really exist.

I can literally put water in a pot and steam days worth of veges in mere minutes while I pick my nose. Or I take a roast and drop it in a slowcooker, or butter chicken, or any other myriad of choices that involve a highly nutritious set of ingredients. Bulk cooking can be extremely cheap and quick. If your priorities are time/money then put some effort into solving the issue.

"As I commented on the other thread today, it's possible to get all daily nutrition from just 5 cups broccoli, 1.5 cups peanuts, and 3 cups milk."

That's pretty random. Provided you're not just being facetious, where are you getting that information from? I'm genuinely curious.

The USDA.

Food database: http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/

Someone built this webapp that uses all that above data: https://cronometer.com/

I don't eat this exclusively but when I would otherwise be too busy to eat or shop properly, this is an easy solution.

Beware: I'm not a doctor or expert

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