Hacker News Reader

Comment by AlyssaRowan | Hacker News Reader

I wonder, why the gender gap? Could it be associated in some way with these products' resemblance to existing products with a strong marketing differential between genders?

Men might think of protein shakes: you know, whey protein GMC-type stuff, that kind of thing. Women, on the other hand, might think of diet shakes: Slim-Fast and the like.

These might both have a broadly "body improvement" type outlook, but one of these associations is perhaps more positive-thinking than the other.

Or maybe not. Just a thought.

View on HN

GNC used to have (still has?) two entirely different wrappers on their store-brand protein shakes. One bottle proclaimed "lose weight! get lean!" (light colors, blue/white) and the other boasted "build muscle! grow bigger!" (dark colors, red/black). The contents of both bottles was exactly the same. They were exactly the same price. One was just marketed to women and the other to men.

And the claims are identical, it's only the wording that differs. Compare it to pink and blue toothbrushes.

Maybe a larger percentage of men are more competitive than women and are constantly trying to get a cutting edge, and are willing to even avoid eating to get a competitive advantage. I know I'm not. I like eating food, and taking a lunch break.

Back in college I was a weight lifter, and protein-sparing modified fasts weren't uncommon in the group I was in. Basically drink 1400 calories of protein and eat nothing else. Not low-carb, zero carb. You would do that until you cut your fat down enough to bulk again. It worked, and you lost weight quick. Let's not talk about the potential damage to your kidneys though...

I did know some women in the group who would do that as well, so I can't say it's exclusively men, but women were definitely a minority when it came to power lifting. Not sure if that's what's going on here or not. Maybe it's that mostly people who follow tech news know about the product, and the tech industry does tend to lean more towards men. Who knows?

Fascinating. Does this mean your 1400 calories of protein came from 7-8 protein drinks a day ? Where could I get more information on this that isn't "bro science" ?

Just search for Protein Sparing Modified Fast. Certainly not just bro science - there were some studies done.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/711361

Even more than just a PSMF, what we went with was called the Velocity Diet. A PSMF can be chicken or beef or anything else with lots of protein, the Velocity Diet is 100% protein shakes. It was thought up by T-Nation, but you don't need to use their products specifically. The forums at bodybuilding.com have a lot of people who have done it and reported back on their findings. It's really hard to stick to and you will get sick of shakes real fast, but what it all boils down to is that this is a heavily calorie-restricted liquid diet. Normally you would lose some muscle mass doing that, but this diet is supposed to keep most of your new muscle as long as you keep lifting throughout.

I haven't done it in a very long time, and the thought of drinking even a single shake makes me feel ill now. But it's possible to lose 20lbs in one month.

Actually, there is very little evidence of kidney damage from high protein intake in healthy individuals. This, for example

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1262767/

Although excessive protein intake remains a health concern in individuals with pre-existing renal disease, the literature lacks significant research demonstrating a link between protein intake and the initiation or progression of renal disease in healthy individuals.

or this

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10722779

To conclude, it appears that protein intake under 2. 8 g.kg does not impair renal function in well-trained athletes as indicated by the measures of renal function used in this study

Soylent might think otherwise, but it still seems to be exclusive to the the Silicon Valley/tech sphere. There is a reason this is posted here and we don't see customer surveys about Ensure, Slimfast, Muscle Milk, or whatever similar product you want to compare. I would guess that is the biggest contributing factor to the heavy male split.

EDIT: I dug into the raw data and my original assumption seems to be supported with the age distributions as well. 23% of respondents were younger than 25, 70% were younger than 35, and 88% younger than 45. So the demographics for Soylent are young men with the largest chunk in their 20s.

Soylent reduces the consumption of food to a task to complete instead of an experience. The tagline on their homepage even reads "what if you never had to worry about food again?". Soylent is a solution for the type of person that doesnt value the ritual of food prep and consumption and Id be willing to bet that demographic is the young, tech-savy male. Women are much more likely to bond over food experience with friends and loved ones (ie. brunch) at any age.

Soylent is a tech product with standard early adopters of tech guys.

Soylent is a solution for the type of person that doesnt value the ritual of food prep and consumption

That's true, but not necessarily so. I value the ritual of going to the comic book store and browsing. But I don't value comics so much that I want to bag and collect them obsessively for hours on end. Likewise, I do value the ritual of food/coffee prep. But I don't want it to consume more than 15% of my daily allotment of time and energy. My priorities just aren't set up like that.

So you can also think of Soylent as a way to control that daily allotment.

I've lived with many different people, and on a general guideline, women in general put more effort and attention to food (I don't live in US, though, so I speak for some other countries).

Soylent surely tickles the nerdy nerve of some people, but (fortunately) real food is still a pleasure for many; adding the fact that it's possible to prepare such food spending relatively little time, I can imagine that people who are already inclined to cook (as above) would not switch to substitute food.

Seems to happen to most New Technology-hobbies.

"Because the patriarchy discourages women from feeling empowered to try new things." -from a feminist

> I wonder, why the gender gap?

- For new foods and drugs that are potentially dangerous, the early adopters are almost universally men. Just look at the demographics of the various online research chemical communities.

- The product almost seems like it's marketed toward people on the autism spectrum.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com