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Comment by BrainInAJar | Hacker News Reader

So, here's a question; If you're using it as a supplement rather than a total meal replacement, why spend the exorbitant amount for Soylent specifically when you could get 90% of the way by getting some whey, mixing in a bit of cheap oil, and taking a multivitamin?

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I wouldn't call Soylent "exorbitant". It works out to like $3 a meal.

Right, but whey protein is less than a dollar per serving.

And a supplement at best -- not a meal.

What's the distinction?

A supplement is something you take to complete the nutrition an otherwise incomplete meal provides.

Isn't the entire point of Soylent that it's just a mixture of supplements with the appropriate calorie content?

And that's what makes it a meal (replacement). You can't survive on whey protein shakes alone. If the malnutrition doesn't kill you, the smell of your farts surely will.

With meal replacements, convenience is the killer feature. Buying whey protein, some oil, and a multivitamin is undoubtedly cheaper, but there's the non-negligible overhead of purchasing the ingredients (instead of just a Soylent subscription), and measuring ingredients for every serving.

You should probably look at the nutrition information in Soylent (or similar) and compare it to your notional proposal. If your proposal is better, give it a go and do a write-up on it.

From a quick look-see, whey protein seems to carry only ~100 calories per serving, offers almost no carbohydrates or fiber and provides almost no other vitamins or minerals. So you'd need about six servings to hit a meal's worth of calories, still have to make up for the lack of carbs and fiber sources and still have to find a good multi to take with.

If a serving is $1, then we're already at around $5-6 per meal with whey protein.

Many do. People eat official Soylent because the convenience, specifically, is worth it to them.

However easy your recipe is, mixing a bag of powder with a pitcher of water is still faster, easier, and less to pay attention to.

Good question. Nature usually favours diversity so I'm skeptical at how convenient this really is at a Molecular Biology level.

It's cheap enough for me I don't think about it, what you describe sounds like work to do properly and at parity with soylent's nutrition label. (Other people seem to do DIY soylent, not me.)

Soylent just shows up at my door every couple of weeks, I throw it in the soylent cabinet, and I can make and drink one in about 2 minutes.

You forgot the carbs

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