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Soylent 2.0

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174 pointsjbardnz227 comments

My first thought whenever I see soylent is that we have studies proving that we can't replace breast milk with baby formula. Some of that is due to immune system being passed on to the infant, but we haven't yet mastered the nutritional content of real food to the point where we can confidently say it's safe to eat Soylent or another similar product regularly.

It takes me back to the whole issue with processed dog foods -- kibble, while even the most expensive brands claim to be "nutritionally complete", miss the fact that dogs cannot process/absorb the many nutrients within (and why their waste is... more than a nuisance). Eg, calcium added to dog food is nearly worthless, while calcium from eating raw bones is readily absorbed by their bodies. Same with many other vitamins and minerals.

We have a lot of work ahead of us in this sector. It's good that someone is trying, though.

What should we be feeding dogs?

Other dogs, obviously

Raw meat. Unlike us, they can manufacture all the other vitamins they need.

raw fresh meat works for us too, no supplements needed.

Isn't "rabbit starvation" a problem? Or does raw meat avoid this problem somehow?

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation

http://www.mendosa.com/stefansson1.htm - which is quoted in the Wiki. All lean meat leads to 'Rabbit starvation', you need some fatty meats to supply necessary vitamins and minerals.

Not even some fiber?

Here's the article I was thinking about:

http://www.mendosa.com/stefansson1.htm

First off, in order for this statement to be even HALF true, you need to be consuming organ meats (particularly liver) regularly.

Even consuming meat from a variety of different species, and regularly eating organ meat, off the top of my head you would still definitely be deficient in vitamin c and vitamin k.

Edit (I was curious about the eskimo paradox): It turns out that whale skin is a fairly good source of vitamin C, and the process of fermenting meat causes it to become rich in vitamin K. So if you are willing to consume whale skin, liver and fermented meat regularly, you too can survive on a diet comprised entirely of animal products! I'm still sure the eskimo diet is far from optimal in terms of health and fitness.

Wolves do not eat organ meat. They are "carcassivores" -- they eat meat and bone. That's it. Period. The exception is organs of very small prey that they eat whole, and of course dirt and whatever else that gets on the carcass. The same has been observed of dingoes and this goes for our pet dogs too.

Dogs don't need vitamin C. They manufacture their own. Don't know the specifics of K off the top of my head, but dogs are not humans. They may be mammals but they do not have our biology.

My dogs eat mostly chicken leg quarters and pork neck and they're thriving. I'm saving incredible amounts of money on food and vet bills.

If you want more info look up the research of Dr Tom Lonsdale that has been suppressed by dog food companies for years. His book Raw Meaty Bones has everything you need to know.

Did you ever consider how our dogs were fed before kibble existed? Or why we don't feed pet snakes and lizards some meal replacement?

You did see that the comment I was replying to was basically "raw meat works for us too - no supplements needed" right?

> whale skin, liver and fermented meat regularly,

Meat. Bone. Very little fat. No organs.

We couldn't handle that. Dogs can.

http://www.orijen.ca/

I used to feed orijen. Best of the kibble, nowhere near as good as raw though.

Check out BARF (biologically appropriate raw food, bones and raw food). It's possible to formulate the meals yourself, but it's hard to get the nutrients right. Several companies offer a balanced raw refrigerated/frozen product.

We had concerns about bacteria from the raw meat, so we feed a freeze dried raw food (Stella and Chewy's[0], no affiliation, just a happy customer). It can be expensive, costing around $5 per day to maintain a 15 lb dog, but our dog is a picky eater and loves it.

Raw food will most likely result in smaller, firmer stools. They're easier to pick up, and they dry out and deteriorate faster.

[0] Stella and Chewy had a recent recall due to listeriosis. Fortunately, none of our lots were affected.

> it's [not] safe to eat Soylent or another similar product regularly.

As opposed to what? Eating organically grown vegetables and fruits, nuts, mushrooms and oceanic fish? Sure.

But that is definitely not a diet of most people even in developed, rich countries. And while we can't say confidently it's safe to eat Soylent, we absolutely can claim that most human diets are really, really harmful.

I bet Soylent would be much less harmful (if at all) than eating fast food, pizza with red meats fortified by antibiotics and hormones.

I can't trust them. They have 0g of cholesterol yet it's an important part of a healthy diet. This rings of "marketing diet" to me.

Cholesterol is produced by your own body just fine.

In food, it only comes from animal products, so you are basically saying that any and all vegan diets are unhealthy/marketing. Dietitians (and millions of vegans) beg to differ.

I would argue that most vegan diets are unhealthy. You have to work damned hard to get the same nutrients that are readily available in animal products.

You could just argue, but the country I come from has millions of vegetarians who are as healthy as animal eating and live as long.

> [...] millions of vegetarians who are as healthy as animal eating [...]

Note that megaman22 said "vegan", not "vegetarian".

Eating vegan is no more difficult than eating non-vegan. The only extra step is taking a B12 supplement if you don't eat one of the many B12 fortified products.

https://diy.soylent.com/wiki/other-nutrients

It has been found that most cholesterol in food just passes straight through you, most of the cholesterol outside your digestive tract is produced (by your liver IIRC) as a product of working on other things like large fat molecules.

People used to think that cholesterol directly in food was the big bad here because the sorts of foods with high cholesterol also tend to be high in the stuff the body uses to make its own meaning there was a significant correlation.

Silly high cholesterol in your diet is probably still bad, but very low is likely fine (as long as you have the right balance of everything else, of course).

This does mean that I have trouble trusting something like Soylent though: as we are still finding surprises like this because we don't fully understand how our bodies process nutrients, we can't be sure that a food replacement product like this is as healthy as intended and not potentially causing new problems. It is an interesting experiment to watch as an outsider though. I wonder if any independent researchers are yet doing well run long term comparative analysis on people using this stuff compared to other replacements and more "normal" diets? People are willingly taking it, so you don't have the ethics comity problem of convincing people to let you feed the stuff to humans as they are already feeing it to themselves and you are just watching the results.

> but we haven't yet mastered the nutritional content of real food to the point where we can confidently say it's safe to eat Soylent or another similar product regularly.

I'm not aware of any ill effects from consuming meal-replacement shakes like Ensure regularly, and they've been around for quite some time. In some instances people have been sustained on them for fairly long periods.

Would I want to consume them exclusively for a long period of time? No, like you, I would start becoming concerned about nutrition. But drinking them regularly for long periods of time or even exclusively for short periods of time seems like it would be fine. People eat lots of less nutritious foods just as regularly.

The real question for me is what is Soylent supposed to offer over older equivalents.

Ensure has a much higher glycemic index. And its lower fat and dietary fiber doesn't give much satiety(I think as intended). Most diet shakes are still in the "fat is bad" mindset, and almost all the calories come from simple carbohydrates.

I'm also skeptical that one can live well on soylent alone. There's nothing bad in soylent AFAIK, but there's no way of knowing whether soylent is missing anything vital. With this in mind, I wouldn't be worried if someone replaced one or two meals a day with soylent. But I'd hesitate to replace all meals. I think it's irresponsible that the makers of soylent keep pushing the idea that one nutrient drink can replace all your meals, though I have nothing against the product itself.

Soylent is a step up if you currently have an unhealthy diet though, and I'd wager you could make the same argument about an unhealthy diet missing something vital.

True. And I didn't make that argument because it should be obvious to everyone. A key difference is that frito-lay doesn't imply you can subsist solely on cheetos.

same here. if they were to start sales in Europe, I'd buy in to replace the low quality lunches I'm having, but I'd keep a varied diet at evenings.

I'm sure soylent has many nutrients I'm not getting enough, but might also miss rare unknown nutrients that body needs in minimal quantity - not to be confused with homeopathy principles, I'm talking about quantifiable quantities of chemicals - I think the first iteration had a similar issue, lacking sulfur or something. because even stuff bad in quantity might be of use to the body and we don't yet know 100%

but since we do know that we get by nicely with incomplete diets, I see no drawbacks to a mixed soylent diet.

Even though the founder does that, he has explained many times that he doesn't expect most people to replace their entire diet with Soylent.

They expect you to do just as you said -- replace one or two meals, specifically the ones where you're in a rush or in the middle of something (work, etc.) and you would've otherwise grabbed a reheatable lunch or some kind of unhealthy fast food.

What worries me is that soylent is 20% based on soy. Some studies indicate that eating a heavily soy based diet leads to increased estrogen levels. Which can have negative side effects regardless of your gender. [0]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3074428/ [1]: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303720711...

yeah thanks for citing this. It was a deal breaker for me.

Why is that?

Exactly, you don't want protein. You want whey.

These guys don't quite know what they're talking about. Or there smart and playing the sheep like a fiddle.

My fear is that these guys are laughing their way to the bank suckering people into this stuff.

whey is protein. It's the protein derived from dairy products. Also, I think the founder, Rob Rhinehart, is genuinely trying to make a good product that benefits consumers. Whether the results show these benefits or not, does not mean he is "laughing himself to the bank".

I can't edit it, but I meant you don't want soy.

This sentence gave me pause:

"The protein source is soy, which contains an ideal ratio of amino acids for excellent nutrition ..."

You can argue the merits of one protein source over another, but I think to declare any non-animal protein source as "ideal" in any way would require some evidence to be presented. Unfortunately, it shows that they are glossing over the hard decisions that have to be made in creating a product like this with so much empty marketing-speak.

I thought it was pretty common knowledge. Whole civilizations depend on soy protein. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soy_protein#Nutrition "Based on this method, soy protein is considered to have a similar equivalent in protein quality to animal proteins. Egg white has a score of 1.00, soy concentrate 0.99, beef 0.92, and isolated soy protein 0.92."

There's a lot of misinformation about soy and estrogen levels. This[0] is required reading for soy

[0] http://examine.com/faq/is-soy-good-or-bad-for-me/

Ps thanks sol (the owner of examine)

I read your link. I didn't see what you were implying is "misinformation" if anything the link only supports that there is legitimate concerns about soy and that the only group to benefit are women with low estrogen levels (postmenopausal).

Also the article says things like: "[lowers] LDL and Total Cholesterol" but doesn't dive into the fact that lowering your total cholesterol is bad for your health. Since there is good and bad cholesterols, if you lower everything you're damaging your health (see the 1980s obsession with lowering all cholesterols for example). But, yes, lowering LDL alone is good as far as we know.

I don't think day to day people need to be actively avoiding soy, or heck even not having the occasional soy based meal. But we're talking about a meal replacement diet based almost entirely on soy, that's a big deal, and the health implications cannot just be glossed over.

If anything your link has made more more concerned about the impact of a purely Soylent diet on all groups except postmenopausal women who may benefit.

>What worries me is that soylent is 20% based on soy. Some studies indicate that eating a heavily soy based diet leads to increased estrogen levels

Here's what they have to say about this [1]:

>There are some public concerns about high consumption of soy, but Rhinehart is quick to dismiss them. "Because we’re not using whole soy, we’re just using the protein isolate…the isoflavone levels are much lower than what they would be in soy flour or tofu. There are some levels, but they’re well below any that have shown to have an effect," he explained. "There was somewhat specious research in the past on what impact soy can have on testosterone levels and those have been widely debunked. We’ve certainly done our research here and we’ll be posting our analysis on the Web as well."

[1]http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/soylent-2-0-is-coming...

It's like people think that they know some nutritional secret that soylent hasn't thought of. I take them on their word that they're taking this seriously and every time I read a comment about "Soylent is so clueless! How could they have thought of 'X'?!" then I google "soylent X" and find an extremely detained post explaining how they're taken 'X' in to account.

Dunning-kruger in effect. We are all at least layman when it comes to nutrition and health, so you get people who dont know what they dont know commenting on something to reassure their views. They dont do the research, because they already "know" the right answer.

We should be skeptical of any food stuff the purports to be nutritionally near perfect, but Soylent looks like its on track.

> Dunning-kruger in effect

Are you talking about Soylent or people criticising Soylent?

Because, for a company that's supposed to have done all tue research, they've made a couple of errors.

That might not sound like much but liquid feeds are not new; there are plenty of people that have experience in liquid feeds; so there's not much excuse to make the mistakes Soylent made.

So they are not perfect demi gods?

Burn them!

Really? I saw Soylent claim to "put you in perfect health", and claim to be suitable for anybody.

Both of those are dangerous, scumbag, claims. Soylent has not retracted those claims. They did quietly drop them though.

That's what iterative improvement looks like. You make mistakes, then you stop making them.

That's not what I want from people making medical products. Or food.

Yet the medical community and food industries still have iterative processes. It's a miracle you still live.

I love Soylent, but because they use Soy protein, I have stopped using it. I would drink it every day, all day if they used an animal protein source. I haven't read latest research, but even if there is a slim chance it increases estrogen levels, I don't want to risk it.

Ok...

Agreed, it is good to try it, and even better that they care about the impact of the production on food and the environment.

But this should not be a startup looking for fast growth. This should be a slower process, evaluating the longer-term health of people who truly use it to replace their food. I don't know that I would go so far as to say it needs the whole clinical trial process, but it definitely needs more than "A bunch of us made some stuff in the lab, and on paper it sounds healthy, so lets sell it to the world."

Lol

You obviously have no idea of the food business

Please comment civilly and substantively when posting to Hacker News.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

There are plenty of very healthly adults raised on formula. There is not strong evidence either way and your comment is a great example of how fringe and trend chasing nutrition can be. The same can be said for soylent and probably every other diet fad out there. Will it kill you? No. Is it the secret to eternal health and well being? Also no. So tired of diet fads on HN.

The only child in my family that was breast fed did not end up with terrible allergies. I've heard other similar anecdotes. It should be taken with a grain of salt until further research on this type of thing is done.

> The only child in my family that was breast fed did not end up with terrible allergies.

Here's an anecdote to cancel yours out:

My sister and I were both breast fed but she had terrible allergies as a child.

yup, so the question is which was nature which was nurture?

If anything, I don't understand the worries people have about replacing 95% of their entire diet with a well-engineered food. In the past people lived on a single or very small number of crops. In our current time we know people who live entirely on fast food or delivery pizza. The human body is more resilient than we give it credit for and having soilent is likely better than what we'd be giving it otherwise.

Conceptually it wouldn't be different than satisfying 95% of sexual needs with well-engineered sex dolls; then also satisfying 95% of the fitness needs with well-engineered electrical muscle stimulators; then also satifying 95% of the romantic needs with a well-engineered dating app. And so on.

I wouldn't define myself "worried" of this, but I find utterly banal (infinitely misable, to be honest) that the existential end of all this optimization is (metaphorically) to have more time to produce and consume the next iPhone.

Talking on the strictly nutritional perspective, we can't compare the past. Infant mortality, in those times, was much higher. And the body may be resilient, yes, but don't forget that a very large percentage of people in USA is clinically obese, that is, sick.

I like this implication; it's hard to define meaningful and consistent goals to ourselves when we are relieved of our usual constraints to get pleasure/satisfaction (our means are basically eat food, socialize, have sex, practice sport, consume culture) -- how do we distinguish fundamentally means to ends?

To illustrate, extend Soylent to a more general Hapiness drink. If you took it, you'd be instantly and lastingly satisfied, allowing you to do work and stay very productive without the need to "waste time" socializing, practicing sports or w/e -- and suppose this satisfaction is indeed indistinguishable or better from activity-borne satisfaction. Would we choose to consume it, and why not, fundamentally?

Can't confidently say it's not safe to eat either. So why be a stick in the mud?

I'm curious - is there convincing evidence that baby formula is (absorbed-)nutritionally incomplete compared to breast milk? I know it produces worse health outcomes, but I haven't found decent claims on whether that's a failure of nutrition, or only a lack of side-channel influences like immune-system boosting.

As a more general principle, I certainly agree that Soylent might miss the mark on dose and accessibility of some nutrients. The early development history shows that they definitely have in the past.

It's definitely good to see someone trying. My only real concern is that they might miss a low-effect or slow-acting component. If they forget potassium, testing will happily reveal it in a month. If their calcium bio-availability is a bit low, maybe we don't see it until Rhinehart gets osteoporosis in 20 years.

re: "worse health outcomes" for formula/bottle-fed babies - there was a recent study which refutes that common idea --

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/02/27/breast_feedi...

    > My first thought whenever I see soylent is that we have
    > studies proving that we can't replace breast milk with
    > baby formula

I was under the impression that there are many women who - for various reasons - can't breast feed. Are there any credible studies showing their infants have worse health outcomes?

It's still a commonly held belief but a recent study concluded there may be no difference at all:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/02/27/breast_feedi...

A ton of research has been put into this. No matter how much formula companies try to spin it, the results are very clear: infact formula is very suboptimal:

impact on future health http://jn.nutrition.org/content/138/9/1782S.full

impact on allergies http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12839115

Now, what does this have to do with Soylent and adult nutrition? Not much.

Soylent 2.0 (liquid) is being sold alongside Soylent 1.5 (powder). The powder will continue to be sold. The liquid currently costs a little over 20% more per kcal. It's also important to note that the liquid is being sold as 400kcal is a serving (X bottles at 400kcal each) while the powder is being sold as 500kcal/16 oz prepared is a serving (X meals at 500kcal each with 4 meals to a pouch/28 meals to a box). At the 400 kcal serving size, the 28 meal box of powder would become 35 servings of equivalent calories to the liquid. Getting 2 boxes with 14 pouches to be 2 weeks worth of food is easier and takes up far less storage space than getting 72 bottles of liquid for the equivalent amount of food.

We use Soylent powder right now. Had it for breakfast this morning. The taste is really neutral... it tastes like a bland cereal, so you can add things to if if you want. It's helped us lose weight. It's helped us keep food costs down. And it's helped us enjoy the meals we do eat. We use it as a supplement for 1 or 2 meals a day.

I can see the convenience of liquid but it's seems highly inefficient distribution-wise. I wonder if there's another way to distribute it such as a bar?

I'm going to take a not-that-wild guess and suggest that they're completely aware of the inefficiency and moved forward with it because A) it gives the company a fatter profit margin when the customer is paying for less Soylent and more water, and B) this is the best way to move toward getting Soylent into the corner store refrigerator.

I looked through the thread and I see too many negative comments.

Guys, let's take a minute to appreciate how freakin' amazing Soylent is. It's like a space food every kid dreams about. It is insanely convenient. It can solve so many problems in the world.

Thank you, Soylent team, I wish you luck, your startup is amazing!

> let's take a minute to appreciate how freakin' amazing Soylent is

Soylent just markets a standard weight gainer as a total food replacement. Not sure why this is "freakin' amazing."

> Soylent just markets a standard weight gainer as a total food replacement.

I do not understand why people think it's okay to make such assertions without backing them up. Is it not obvious to you that this statement is just plain false?

If you think Soylent lacks something to be a total food replacement, or have any constructive criticism - please share it with us. But don't just throw random silly things out there.

> If you think Soylent lacks something to be a total food replacement

That's not what I'm saying.

Everyone is like, "Soylent is revolutionary." But when you look at the ingredients in a mass gainer, particularly something like Aronld Iron Mass, they're nearly identical. Maybe some slight vitamin tweaking to make a bodybuilding weight gainer a full food replacement, but really, that's not "revolutionary."

Soylent is the same old ingredients, different marketing.

What's "revolutionary" is they're touting them as a food replacement, which I'm guessing supplement manufacturers avoid doing for fear of liability.

For instance: you can stop by http://www.truenutrition.com/ or scores of other custom and premixed Meal Replacement Powder websites and get something cheaper and customized to your own activities and lifestyle.

Hospitals regularly feed people pre-mixed meal replacements when chewing food is not an option.

Soylent is just another old MRP with stupid "geek" marketing. Which should come as no surprise as the rest of the athletic supplement and MRP market is also just basic macronutrients and hokum with "bro" marketing. I can't wait for Soylent Monster Xtreme with Branched Chain Amino Acids. There's nothing wrong with it. Its probably no more over-priced than GNC. The only new things about it is its press on tech sites.

Which you think might know better, but the tech world is so narrow minded that obvious cons like this one can turn into a viable business.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. Meal replacement drinks have been available since at least the 1970's. The only new thing about Soylent is its target demographic.

Selling bottles is really terrible from an environmental perspective. It's sort of the same problem as bottled water. Now we have a lot of plastic bottle trash instead of the pouches that pack down flat and provide much more product/waste ratio.

Plastic bottles are more recyclable but recycling bins are still not common in my area of the country (although we recycle at home).

There is also the increased fuel costs of shipment. One more question is where is the bottling happens. If it's in California like the development labs, is it contributing to the drought there a la Nestle water-bottling?

Soylent < 2.0 seemed to leverage the promise of easy shipping/portability, which > 2.0 seems to lose? Soylent as a sustainable nutrition source in areas where it's far superior to what little nutrition may be available, is less likely stable in liquid form. It's a shame, as this seemed to be one of the greatest promises of the brand beyond convenience. Not sure what the differentiation is anymore, amongst other MRP's such as Phood.

Why spend energy producing and transporting heavy water and plastic bottles with this pre-mixed Soylent? Everyone already has plentiful water and receptacles at home. Seems like a retrograde step, unless I'm missing something?

Soylent has a better texture after hydrating for some time.

It also goes bad in 3-4 days, even refrigerated.

That probably won't happen to the bottles, since they can make them sterile. When you mix it yourself you let microbes from the air get in.

From what I've read (I think in the most recent Ars Technica article on it, not counting today's 2.0 one), soylent has to sit for a while in the fridge after you make it or it's absolutely awful.

True. I'm on my first batch of 1.5 right now. The instructions are pretty clear about it needing to be cold. Room-temperature, the Soylent mix is pretty gnarly (think chalk), but once properly chilled it pretty much tastes like nothing.

People will pay a premium for convenience.

Also the convenience could allow them to sell these as individual drinks in grocery stores and convenience stores.

Can someone explain to me the appeal of this product? Why would anyone choose to drink a nondescript sludge over the plentiful ways we can get good, enjoyable & healthy food?

I can certainly appreciate the science behind it - this would be a great boon to helping feed those that are less fortunate, but from what I can see that doesn't appear to be the aim of the company.

Price and laziness.

It's a lot cheaper than eating out, and (often) a bit cheaper than cooking yourself. On top of that, it's a lot easier to just shake a bottle and eat than to cook.

It may be faster than cooking for yourself, but not always cheaper.

http://www.watchusthrive.org/Libraries/Resources_Documents/B...

Soylent actually competes pretty well on price too! The calories on those recipes range from 140 to 386 per $1 serving. That's $5-14 for 2000 calories, while the new Soylent formula is $12. (Slightly more if you don't subscribe, slightly less if you get the powder formula instead of pre-mixed.)

Plus, the recipe cost assumptions must be pretty generous to get to $1. One of the recipes calls for 1 pound of ground beef and makes 6 servings. The flyer for my local discount grocery has the ground beef at $4.50, but the nicer grocery nearer to me is already over $6 just for the meat, let alone two cans of tomato sauce, some pasta, some carrots, shredded cheese... I'll bet in a real-world test of those recipes, Soylent would beat the average cost.

Lifestyle? IIRC, the creator of Soylent had a busy lifestyle and as a result barely had time to cook or eat and that's why he created Soylent.

If your lifestyle does not give you time to cook, you should try to change it, instead of inventing that mud.

Why should you waste time cooking if you don't want to and can exist without it?

^ is your opinion.

Some people prefer not to spend time on cooking.

Of course it's my opinion. That is an Internet comment, not a research paper.

Right! Even if you don't like to cook, not having the time to is symptomatic of overwork.

Or a desire to feel like you are overworking like a superhero

Just grind some nootropics into your Soylent to turn it into a Smart Soylent 3000™

I work about 9 hours a day and spend my remaining time with my family, volunteering, going to the gym, learning guitar, etc.

There are many times where I just don't have time, desire or energy to cook a healthy meal. A healthy meal replacement is a lot better than ordering pizza.

Don't assume that a busy lifestyle means 'overwork' - I just have different priorities.

I was talking about people who didn't have time to cook. You have time to cook, you'd just rather spend it doing things you enjoy more (and that's fine.) It's the people who can't cook, even if they wanted to, because they're trapped at the office, who I'm worried about.

My lifestyle does give me time to cook. I was merely providing a potential answer to OP's question.

If it's done right: Time saver. Digestive problem avoidance. The right nutrient ratios.

Time saver can be more important that it seems. If you have to eat quick a lot, or just hate food prep, it can come down to unhealthy fast/restaurant food vs this.

It's for people that are too busy to cook. Sadly, usually people who are busy working on a startup that will have failed within the next year, hopefully leaving them with time to think about life priorities.

I know this makes me sound excessively negative but food is so many things - not just the flavours, but the skill of cooking, the social experience of sharing a meal... Soylent just screams "misplaced priorities" at me.

Drinking Soylent from time to time does not prevent one from cooking or sharing meals, any more than any other new type of food does.

I've been using Soylent as an occasional meal replacement, not a complete food replacement. In a decent thermos it works well to replace my breakfast, lunch, or dinner with minimal fuss, and is cheaper than eating out when I don't feel like cooking.

Some people only care about eating as far as subsistence goes, soylent saves you time and money in this regard.

I feel like i'm in the opposite camp. Every time i see a Soylent post in any non-Soylent corner of the web (HN, non-Soylent Subreddits, etc), there's always 1 (x100) posts of:

"Why would you do this!?"

I feel like i need someone to describe this to me. Why is it so hard to grasp? "Fast food" makes its living off of ease and price. You could argue taste, but many (most?) people feel that a good homecooked meal tastes a lot better than a McBurger - so i'm going to ignore taste.

We have isles and isles of meal replacements and frozen foods. All with the purpose of giving you food on the Go, and food on the quick.

We also have people constantly skipping meals, for reasons other than diet. I myself often skip breakfast or lunch because i'm busy, and eventually 9am turns into 10am turns into 11am turns into "Welp, i may as well just eat lunch".

So it seems blatantly obvious that meal speed, ease and even price is an issue for many, many, many people. So why is it so confusing to see a liquid form of this that aims to be an even healthier meal replacement than existing meal replacements?

We already have meal replacements. We have had them for ages. They're just incredibly unhealthy. .. I just guess i can't fathom why so many people (not you specifically) are so confused at Soylents existence.

</rant>

There's a weird psuedo-religious aspect to it too. It's right to spend an hour cooking, and wrong to have a convenient pre-made meal, even if it's nutritionally as good or better.

Couldn't agree more.

I completely admit that Soylent is not perfect, and i am also a little worried of the (many?) aspects of nutrition that we're unaware of. But many people live on Fast Food, which scares me far far more than Soylent does.

But just because something is not perfect, does not warrant the very odd zealotry that i see for "normal" food and against Soylent (and like products).

It's honestly, flat out bizarre to me. They act like "normal" food is their favorite sports team, or a company that they have vested interest in. As if their profits will take a hit, if this new fangled Soylent thing catches on.

And i can't imagine it is for our potential health that these people are fanatical. I don't see them being so religious about many other non-healthy life habits that people have. Yet, throw in liquid food and it's a slug fest.

I just don't understand.

for me the issue is cost, why does the 12 pack cost more than $6 + shipping? Seems like tremendous markup.

I wouldn't call it zealotry, but probably resistance to change.

As with anything new and interesting, it's easy to insert a fictional future scenario that takes away what makes our personal lives rich and enjoyable.

I love to cook but it's all a bit sci-fi and uncomfortable to think that we'll all have our government mandated NutriSludge dispensed twice a day so we can all stop worrying about cooking and work harder.

I'm sure you do understand, but it just doesn't come across from your answer. From the perspective of people not quite as fortunate as yourself:

The quote wouldn't be "we'll all have our government mandated NutriSludge dispensed twice a day so we can all stop worrying about cooking and work harder".

It'll be, "before the government started helping, we lived off food stamps and food banks, but it was never enough. You always see those ads on TV, how growing children need their milk, and it would make me cry. My children deserved better, but I just wasn't able to provide it for them. They were always cold and getting sick. There was one winter my son couldn't go to school because it was too cold for him to leave his bed. Now that we get NutriSludge all three of them are looking healthier, I can't believe my youngest is good at sports. I've even been able to spend more time on myself, and I can work harder! I've actually been able to hold down this job. My kids even have the energy to look into part time jobs. I'm so happy the government is finally helping. I don't even like thinking about those times anymore."

It's because you're deleting an entire dimension of human experience and saying it's normal. People who don't like food seem abnormal. It's like asexuality. It takes people aback to hear that a person has no sexual interest of any kind.

If you're simply explaining why you think that people have that reaction, then that's a very good assertion - appreciate the input.

If you're posing an argument, then imo, you're largely mistaken. Most (needs citation) people don't use Soylent-like products to remove a positive human experience. They remove the "human experiences" that they already struggled with, and don't want.

For example, I'm not skipping out on meals with my family and loved ones. Those are social interactions, the food is just something to prompt the social interaction.

However, when i'm alone in my house getting ready for work - I don't think these are part of this "human experience" you refer to.

I suppose you could say removing a bad human experience is still removing a human experience, but then.. why are we arguing in favor of those bad experiences?

Fast food makes its living off having predictable product available everywhere you go.

Thanks for the answer (and to everyone else that replied) - it's always good to hear the other side of the debate.

I could never imagine myself in a situation where I'd consider it so important to be constantly busy that I wouldn't be able to find the time to throw a few vegetables in a pan - but I understand different people have different priorities (and demanding jobs).

It just seems to me like this is an odd way to solve the problem, maybe because I'm extrapolating a bit and seeing it as trying to replace one of the things that makes us human; the ability to prepare and cook food.

I'd be interested to see if any research comes up as to the long term psychological effects of this sort of product. Do people who replace the varied textures and tastes of different foods (if only partially) with a liquid supplement notice any adverse effects or cravings?

Out of interest, is Soylent more interesting than offerings from companies like Graze/Naturebox?

> Out of interest, is Soylent more interesting than offerings from companies like Graze/Naturebox?

I don't have an answer for that exactly - but other healthy meal replacement products on the market that i've seen tend to be too expensive. To me, even Soylent is a bit expensive.

Because of the price, i have mostly just stuck to my own DIY Soylent. It's vastly less convenient, but in an hours worth of work, i can make a weeks worth of food - so still very convenient. Far far cheaper too (under a third the price).

I also don't feel comfortable with Soylents use of maltodextrin. This isn't an educated opinion, i just don't know enough about it - and worry about the glycemic index, since i have problems with blood sugar levels. My DIY version uses 2/3 Oats an 1/3 Masa, and i've always heard amazing things about Oats, so it makes me (emotionally) feel really good - vs concerned about Soylent. Plus, the Oats make me feel very very stable, blood sugar wise.. but who knows with placebos, i've never measured any of it.

Plus, my DIY smells like "food" to me, where as Soylent smells very foreign. I still love Soylent for road trips though - it's amazing road food.

> I'd be interested to see if any research comes up as to the long term psychological effects of this sort of product. Do people who replace the varied textures and tastes of different foods (if only partially) with a liquid supplement notice any adverse effects or cravings?

For what it's worth, on heavy (2-3 meals/day of my DIY Soylent) for a time span ranging of about 6 months (my consumption has been down recently, GF has been cooking a lot heh), my experience is:

1. A massive boost in stable thinking/reasoning. I can't recall feeling mid-day dead zones, which i often fall into without my DIY. This is partially due to Coffee consumption levels i'm sure, but DIY seemingly helped to make my mind (and body) more consistent.

2. Boredom. Without food breaks, i felt a lot of listlessness throughout the day. I felt i should be snacking, or doing something other than working - but i had no hunger to guide a snacking expedition. While i was still very productive, far more than usual, i would often stop typing for moments and go "Man.. i just feel like i should be doing something".

I imagine it had to do with missing a ritual (meal times) in my life. This was by far the weirdest thing to get used to for me.

3. I would eventually crave flavor, often salt. I'm blaming this on a lack of proper balance in my DIY mix - but i didn't adjust my mix at all. The cravings were mild, and only over a longer period of time, so by the time they hit i was usually having a normal dinner meal regardless.

4. I would often get an odd sense of needing to chew. This could have been a craving, i don't know - but my jaw/mouth would get very... unused feeling. I could potentially spend 8 hours working without really chewing once. I tried gum sometimes, but it didn't really seem to help. Hard to say what this one was about, but i put it on it's own bullet-number because it was quite regular.. although not bad enough to stop, by any means.

Overall it was very positive experience. The hardest part, by a large margin, was spending an hour a week creating the DIY powder, and then another ~15m every day preparing the next days liquid meals from the powder. Purely laziness of course - but clearly if i'm doing this, i dislike meal/food preparation ;)

Hope this was somewhat insightful.

Really interesting to hear your experiences - thanks for sharing.

Skipping breakfast and keeping your insulin levels low for a couple more hours is probably preferable to ingesting a bunch of cheap oils and flours (soylent is only a slight upgrade to breakfast cereal, imo)

Personally I'm interested in it because I feel like we (as in my family) often waste too much time simply thinking about food. When are we going to eat? What are we going to make? Do we need to pick some things up? Should we go out? We've gone out too much this month and it's getting expensive... It sure would be nice to cut that out for a few meals each week.

Friends of mine who do a really good job prepping meals for the week tend to sacrifice the better part of a day just for that process. On top of that we're dealing with more and more restrictions on our diets due to health issues (cutting back on dairy and gluten).

> Can someone explain to me the appeal of this product? Why would anyone choose to drink a nondescript sludge over the plentiful ways we can get good, enjoyable & healthy food?

Perhaps this is something you would never consider using yourself, but I find it hard to believe you can't imagine why it appeals to some people. Lots of people - huge numbers of people - find it very inconvenient to source healthy, palatable food twice or three times per day, every day. Even lots of people who really enjoy eating or cooking find it inconvenient or limiting to have to eat as often as is necessary.

It's convenient and relatively healthy to my knowledge. Blended with some peanut butter or fruit it's pretty tasty too.

Every person in this thread who is "shocked" why anyone would want soylent is using this whole "good healthy REAL food" bs and it's honestly nauseating. It reminds me of advertising for "artisanal" products and it also reminds me of people complaining about how the world is too fast paced and you need to slow down and get some fresh air. No, I don't.

Anyway, your post in particular made me pull the trigger on buying this.

Sorry for the nausea - it's only after posting that I realised I could have been less antagonising. It's good to hear your opinions though.

I've been using Soylent for breakfast for about a year now. I really like it, and it's nice not to have to worry about breakfast which occurs at a time of day I am not interested in food preparation. I save that for the weekend when I enjoy cooking.

The rest of the time, I eat "regular food".

I eat it because it's cheaper, faster, and I trust Rob when he says it's healthier than any other meal I could make. The flavor/texture is something that I got used to almost immediately and I actually crave the stuff now ;)

An added bonus is that I can completely eliminate over-eating from my lifestyle (without feeling hungry all the time), which has allowed me to lose weight.

Seems odd that we're at 2.0 now and it's still not available in the EU - is there a legal reason for this?

Importing food or nutritional supplements into the EU is difficult because the EU still has a very protective agricultural policy. You might have to look at competitors such as mymana.

Thanks, here is their website: http://mymana.eu/

I couldn't buy Soylent (I'm in France), so I made one myself based on what I learned in the DIY Soylent community: https://diy.soylent.com

I occasionally replace a meal with Mana (e.g. when I am busy, lazy, etc.). If anyone wants a small review, just ask.

yep, I'm interested in somethign to replace lunch at work: do you find it filling/satisfying? Do you drink warm or cold? What keeps you from drinking it more often?

Definitely. Not overly full (which is a good thing when working) and enough to last until dinner/the next meal when adhering to a three meal diet.

Cold, out of the fridge.

I tend to replace those meals which would usually involve some form of fast food and the likes. When time is of the essence and I don't want to think about food.

Atleast there is Joylent..

Maybe because people in Europe are more likely to, you know, actually enjoy eating their food?

What does drinking a meal replacement a few times a week have to do with not enjoying your food?

Having tried soylent in powder form before, I came to the conclusion that on the 3D scales of convenience, taste, and price, it just wasn't far enough in the desirable region (low price, high convenience, and good taste) that I was ready to buy any more of it.

With Soylent 2.0, that seems to have changed: it's more convenient (no more mixing needed) EDIT: but higher-priced. I'm looking forward to trying it again (not until it's generally available, though). Hopefully the taste has improved, as well.

> Hopefully the taste has improved

Yeah, to me the powder is absolutely wretched tasting on its own without adding stuff. I've heard people say they like it plain, but I gag just thinking about it.

I didn't have any negative feelings toward the taste of soylent 1.x. However, I did realize just how much I enjoy the taste of real, good food.

How do you figure this is lower priced? Seems like a massive price increase to me.

Wasn't it $3+ per meal before?

EDIT: You're right, you need 1 and 2/3 of a bottle to drink the equivalent of a meal... sneaky sneaky, Soylent!

The powder was $9.11 per 2000 calories on subscription. The drinks are $12.10 per 2000 calories.

That's...significantly more expensive than I thought it would be per day.

Some quick comparisons:

2000 calories in Big Macs: $17.87 at a US McDonalds

2000 calories in SlimFast meal replacement shakes: $13.13 at Wal-Mart

2000 calories in SlimFast powder: $8.94 at Wal-Mart

> 2000 calories in Big Macs: $17.87 at a US McDonalds

How did you get that?

According to McDonald's own nutritional information [1], you'd consume 1,070 calories per medium meal. Via:

Big Mac: 530 calories

Medium Fries: 340 calories

Medium Drink: 200 Calories

In order for your maths to work each meal has to cost $8.94. The most expensive medium big mac meal I can find is $8.03 in DC, or $16 for your 2K calories.

[0] http://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/

[1] http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/full_menu/full_menu_expl...

I divided 2000 calories by the calories in a Big Mac and multiplied by the average price of a Big Mac in the US in July 2015. This calculation does not depend on the cost of foods that aren't Big Macs.

Or – for a more traditional comparison – cooking.

I live in a house of 8 where we order food communally, last month my food bill was £93.35 ($145.50), so $4.85/day for three (subjectively very healthy) meals.

Not your typical setup, but still perhaps of interest.

I just looked at their $ per kCal that they displayed under your currently selected order option and compared it to the same number for the powder. I do dislike swapping around serving sizes and stuff though since it's mostly arbitrary.

For me Soylent would have to be incredibly inexpensive to replace a meal or two a day. I like the idea of a cheap way to avoid going out when I don't feel like cooking, but I'm thinking ~$30 a month to replace a meal a day, not $102

Many of us aren't aware of our monthly food spending. If you were at a store, would you really stick with the $1 ramen lunch, or would you go for the $3.30 snack pack?

Do that once a day for a month and you have the same situation.

Unless I'm looking at the 2.0 pricing chart incorrectly - wouldn't 1 meal a day be $87? $58 if you don't want to bother with it on the weekends..

I drink a syntha-6 protein shake every morning after working out or as a quick meal replacement and it works great. Costs about a buck a serving.

A protein shake is not comparable with soylent

"I eat a banana every morning. costs me only 30cents. "

It is comparable. The label for syntha-6 says meal replacement right on the bottle. And there are plenty other meal replacements just like soylent. Nothing new.

Especially since you can make the same thing at home in 5 min for <$1.

Soylent might be there (US) but it's not here (EU) yet.. :(

There are plenty of alternatives in the EU: https://queal.eu/ http://mymana.eu/ https://www.joylent.eu/ https://jakeshake.eu/

and many more I'm sure

With regard to the liquid vs. powdered debate. Why don't they ship bottles with powder inside? Consumers can then add water and shake. Seems like the best of both worlds. This would work for a variety of products as well like dish soap or shampoo.

I tried Soylent 1.5 for about a month (not as my sole food source, but for maybe one meal a day), but I was unable to adjust to it well, my stomach was just constantly upset and I didn't feel great after eating it. I then tried Nutren 1.5 [1] thinking it might be different, but same effect for me, so I guess it is just me. I'm going to try 2.0 again, maybe I'll do it in smaller doses at first and see if I can adjust that way. Has anyone else experienced this?

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Nutren-Calorie-Vanilla-Nutrition-8-45-...

why? why not just eat good food? !

It's a lot easier thank cooking or preparing most foods and very portable. I doubt many people are trying to live off the stuff exclusively.

As someone currently using soylent to replace my lunch during the work week I can tell you the reasons not to eat "good food". I cook every single one of the my breakfasts and dinners and strive to make a balanced, healthy meal. But I struggle to consistently bring a healthy lunch. My preparation methods don't keep up, I get bored, it turns out to not be a very balanced meal, etc. So instead I use soylent to avoid eating out every day, which the high majority of the people I work with do. I also save around $10 a day doing this. I eat plenty of good food, I love food, and I love cooking. I just also enjoy my soylent method of lunch.

If you're cooking dinner already, don't you just make a little bit extra so as to have leftovers for the next day's lunch?

Let them eat cake?

Are you kidding me? Next you'll be telling us that poor people should just "be rich".

Food is not cheap, good (for you) food is even more expensive and not everyone was raised in an environment that taught them how to cook or more importantly how to cook healthy food. Soylent is not the end-all-be-all but I think it's a step in the right direction for those of us who don't have the time/energy/skill/etc to consistently cook healthy meals.

Have you looked into or tried MealSquares? I'm intrigued by it since it's a solid food product, but still has the same ambition like Soylent to be your go-to source of nutrition.

Some time back, i had read about a very noticeable flatulence issue for soylent drinkers. Was that ever addressed?

I believe so in the last batch

Eh, I can say from personal experience that the problem has not been fully solved in version 1.5 of the powder (and probably can't be). Your gut flora need time to readjust, and until then-- beware!

I believe it was. Also, anecdotally speaking, it's very common for people who don't get enough protein or fiber in the their diets to have some flatulence when they start adding more. After a short adjustment period their body gets used to it and the flatulence stops.

In my experience, there was some issue with 1.0 and 1.1, and 1.2 was the worst offender. 1.3 fixed it, which was refreshing! I can't speak to 1.4 or 1.5, because having been disappointed in 1.4, I've hoarded 1.3

I've been a Soylent drinker since 1.0. I've had 1.0, 1.1, 1.3 and 1.4.

The biggest formula change in terms of flatulence for me was 1.3 -> 1.4. They dropped the fiber substantially and replaced some of the oats (and most of the maltodextrin) with isomaltulose. I'm still gassy but it's nothing like 1.0/1.1, where I had uncomfortable levels of gas approximately 100% of the time.

"Soylent 2.0 makes complete nutrition accessible to all ..."

"All", assuming you're in the USA or Canada.. I actually thought it meant they were gonna start shipping to more countries! Bummer.

There is DIY Soylent.

I have not personally tried any recipe from this website. I did, however, recommend it to a friend who is into this type of stuff. He tried a chocolate recipe for bodybuilding (most likely the the top rated one). If you're that interested in Soylent, you can always try one of these.

https://diy.soylent.com/

Pretty disappointing that their big selling point is moot when it a) can't be sold outside US/Canada and b) aggressively tries to up-sell a subscription which actual people in poverty will have no interest in being tied to

The whole thing smacks of feel-good marketing for investors, while truthfully marketing to white-collar office workers.

I am truly sorry, but I see this as sad. People thinking of supplements healthier than whole foods, and actually claiming and defending it.

First of all, what kind of macronutrients you need and how much, may depend on yours and your ancestors habitat. Paul Chek claims this, and says some are protein types, some are carb types. We all know some people who are more tolerable to carbohydrates.

Second of all, all these values depends on 'some' research (which I am sure almost none of us read them thoroughly), and 'some' baseline 'requirements'.

People claimed cholesterol was bad, some still do, and now they say no no, it is ok and good. People sad yolk is bad, now they say it is good. You get my point. This product is based on the 'realities' of today, but it is shown as a 'great' replacement, where I think 'any' replacement is not and cannot be as good as the original.

I really believe Soylent may be a key to solve hunger in some very poor countries, but right now it is just being marketed as a supplement/replacement.

I also did not like the marketing approach, such as

>>"Soylent 2.0 frees customers from crowded lunch lines at fast food restaurants and ends feelings of mid-morning hunger after inadequate breakfasts".

So this is an alternative to a fast-food, as I see it. No offense, but I would rather see true information about nutrition and eating, than a replacement for the wrongs we do. Just my 2 cents.

Just looking at the product page makes me feel like I'm in a PKD short story.

If I'm travelling on business, or on a road trip, where there are sometimes no good options at all for healthy food, then this product wins hands-down. I have zero interest in replacing my entire diet with it, and I love good food but sometimes it is simply incompatible with one's schedule.

This company can really be a big winner.

The incorrect hyphenation of "ground-up" in the second sentence is hilarious and kind of disgusting.

If I'm not mistaken, they have also increased the price of the powder. It is listed now at $280 for 28 days (112 meals), which used to be $255 (when I bought it). Or had they already changed that pricing?

Premixed Soylent makes a lot of sense. Ideally, I'd like to see them enter the convenience store market; highway rest stops, for example, are a place where it's very hard to get something nutritionally trustworthy, so in that context I'd choose Soylent every time, and would pay a premium for it.

In the meantime, I hope they keep the powder around for awhile. I find it very useful to pack a few bags while travelling to patch over logistics problems, and premixed soylent can't do that because it's too heavy to take in your luggage.

Now available in Canada!

I'll finally be able to try this, do current drinkers like the 1.5? Or is 2.0 such an improvement that I should wait for 2.0?

edit - Oh I guess the main thing is that it's a drink now.

Is Soylent ever going to be sold in Europe? I would love to try it.

Try http://www.joylent.eu It's the european clone. I love it.

I vastly prefer http://jakeshake.eu.

Jake's shake makeup is more of a gainer shake (proteins + carbs) for athletes.

It's not a good full nutritional replacement, and it's caloric balance is for people who exercise daily and quite intensely.

If you want to take that then take just the normal gain shakes or better off buy a protein shake powder and a carb powder add to it some of those silly fiber powder drinks you buy at the wellness store and mix it yourself for a better balance with less calories per "meal" it will taste considerably better and be cheaper.

Mana is slightly better although I'm not sold on it's nutritional make up either, I've been using it to avoid eating total crap when I'm swamped or have to work late since it's better to chug down it than order another 10" pizza or a burger when you have to work late.

For any of these "replacements" to be valid they need to do 2 things a) develop a full diet regime with supplementary real food mixed in like week on week off or something, b) add actual non-liquid food products.

Eating a liquid diet even for a couple of weeks will really screw you up, humans didn't evolved to eat only liquid food heck the standing recommendation for babies is to actually skip or cut down the period of "baby food" for as much as possible. As soon as the baby can chew food he should be chewing it, the chewing action is actually a very important mechanism as it's a que for your body to release certain enzymes which are responsible for absorbing nutriments, it's also a mood stabilizer as chewing is a major mechanism in controlling serotonin production as well as other neurotransmitters.

Liquid meals also have a bad effect on the various tenants in our GI track, liquid food changes the PH level of your GI which makes it less hospitable, it is absorbed quicker and so our good friends from down below cannot get their portion of the meal, solid food also serves a role as a GI "cleaner" as it moves it scrapes dead tissue and bacterial cultures of the GI walls.

So yeah nice, cheap and very hipsterie, but if you don't want to have major GI issues don't rely on this as a sole source of subsistence, do not use it for long periods and go see a doctor before and during taking this crap.

Is Joylent just too sweet for you, or what?

I've tried Joylent, Veetal, and Jake. In terms of palatability, Joylent is by far the best (especially banana), Veetal is pretty good, and Jake is a distant last.

Jake's single-meal packages are an advantage. But it's just not very pleasant to drink. And there's really no reason for them to include whole flax seeds, rather than grinding them.

Any reason you want Soylent? There are plenty of liquid feeds on sale in EU. Ask a pharmacist.

I've never really understood the hype for Soylent. It does seem like a great idea for your earthquake kit, camping, etc, but as daily food? If I am rushed for time, I'll just grab an Odwalla smoothie or similar. Can someone educate me about what I am not getting from a decent smoothie that Soylent provides? (I am probably not the target demographic as I enjoy eating, and variety).

Well if you were to drink the daily recommended amount which I break up to 4 160z drinks, you will have the recommended daily nutritional goals set by the FDA (I believe). Drinking 4 16oz smoothies won't give you the same nutritional value. I think the biggest misconception is that it needs to be a total food replacement. I think its easier to track what I'm putting in my body and count calories. The formula is essentially open source and can be tweaked for your dietary needs.

Based on the last time I looked at a label on a 12-20ish (I don't know the size offhand) Odwalla bottle, it's probably about 2-300 calories, mostly from sugars, with 0 fat, little protein (unless it's a supplemented flavor which I'm not sure Odwalla makes), maybe some vitamins but not fortified either.

A meal of Soylent is 679 calories with exactly a third of all your daily requirements. It is literally a battery for humans.

If you eat anything but Soylent it is a literal certainty you are slowly starving yourself of nutrients you just happen to not get in your preferred diet. This makes sense, because, like many things, humans aren't automatically optimal at engineering diets. This is why we have startups, because they can take this crazy idea (what if we made the optimal utility food), take VC funding, and create something special. Never before in human history have we been so privileged and lucky to be alive.

What about digestive enzymes and all that? I am still unsure about efficiency of absorption with liquids.

I presume the biggest difference has already been discussed previously: the switch from powder to liquid? Liquid definitely seems more convenient but apparently more expensive (to ship as well). I suppose this was inevitable but surprised that the appears to be deprecating.

"We’re always going to keep our powdered product around"

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/soylent-2-0-is-coming...

Given that soy is one of the common allergens, this sounds amazing (especially with it being high-fat which matches modern nutritional science) except for the soy. They should make one called "Soylent -1.0" or something. Are there any alternatives?

Well, the product is named soylent after all... !

I also am consistently disappointed by their reliance on wheat and soy proteins, I'm allergic (IgE) to both and struggle horribly to find typical office-lunch type food I can eat. Also being in the EU it's very difficult and expensive to procure Soylent anyway, even the alt. recipes as all of the Amazon shopping lists link to the US stores. Particularly the typical 3lb bag of flour, a couple of bucks in the US store is being sold for €200 on the German amazon store, presumably by someone trying to game people who've clicked a pre-filled-basket link on an Amazon shopping list.

This is actually a large departure from all prior formulas, which used brown rice protein exclusively. Their product has never had any wheat in it and the only soy was the soy lecithin emulsifier.

This change from rice -> soy and from powdered to bottle - the wording makes it sound like you need 5 bottles per day - is making me think it's time to cancel.

I believe they're keeping the powdered option.

Ouch, that lack of distribution must be frustrating there.

I think you're right a drink could really cash in on (and help) people who can't eat normally.

Take a look at http://www.joylent.eu/ I can't get the nutritional info to load, but they have free shipping to Germany/Benelux.

If you are in Europe you may want to check https://www.joylent.eu/ not sure if it also uses wheat and soy proteins.

I'm not affiliated with them nor I have tried it.

It's not liquid, but Quest bars taste pretty good, and are gluten free and free of soy proteins. It's not quite the same as soylent, of course, there's no real added vitamins and minerals, but it makes a decent lunch (I eat 1 or 2 every day for lunch - two a day during the week, one a day on the weekend).

According to Loren Cordain, soy contains lectin and lectin is no good for us.

Also not healthy to consume soy if you are male, apparently.

As for alternatives, there are many. There is a big community on the site which discusses recipes for rolling your own.

Edit: just read an article where he responds to that concern:

> The powder has always contained some soy lecithin, but the liquid actually shifts from rice protein to soy for its primary protein source.

>The change comes for a variety of reasons, including the water footprint of rice farming and the desire to make as many components of Soylent as sustainable as possible. Rhinehart also says that the switch to soy for protein enhances the product’s texture and taste. There are some public concerns about high consumption of soy, but Rhinehart is quick to dismiss them. "Because we’re not using whole soy, we’re just using the protein isolate…the isoflavone levels are much lower than what they would be in soy flour or tofu. There are some levels, but they’re well below any that have shown to have an effect," he explained. "There was somewhat specious research in the past on what impact soy can have on testosterone levels and those have been widely debunked. We’ve certainly done our research here and we’ll be posting our analysis on the Web as well."

Soy hasn't been an ingredient in powdered Soylent since 2013 or 2014. You can still buy it on their site.

I'm amazed by how FDA regulates drugs and how it regulates... actually how it doesn't regulate, supplements and things like Soylent, which is not even a supplement but claims to be food "that possesses all the essential ingredients a body needs to be healthy".

Studies anyone?

Maybe it does contain all the essential ingredients but maybe the human body can't process them effectively. Maybe it's not very healthy taking all these ingredients every day.

Maybe in the long run it'll have bad effect on the microbiome, intestinal mucosa or on million other things in the human body.

Whenever someone question those things, the answer is "But it's better than junk food". Well...

Edit: Ok, my bad, it's actually regulated as a food [1].

[1] https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/200789315-Nutritio...

It says it's completely vegan but they say the Isomaltulose is from honey? Isn't honey non-vegan? Are they just saying that it occurs in honey but they used a different source?

Anyone know what the shelf life is? Does it need to be refrigerated? In the Ars Technica interview they say that thepowder has much longer shelf life, but that's as far as it goes.

It says one year shelf life, unrefrigerated.

Anyone who "pre-orders" from Soylent is a bozo. They say September and if their initial launch is any indication that will quickly become 1Q 2016 and then Mid 2016.

This kills me, it means I can no longer bring 20 pounds of soylent back to Argentina with me (in powder form). Or will they continue to sell soylent in powder form?

I'm guessing they'll probably phase out soylent 1.5 (aka powder form), but you can still purchase it at the moment.

The Verge claims that the powder will also eventually use algae sources, and it's still on sale now, so one would assume it's not being discontinued.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/3/9088407/soylent-20-bottled-...

EDIT: Ars Technica has a quote saying "We're always going to keep our powdered product around".

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/soylent-2-0-is-coming...

I don't understand the pricing - do I need 12 bottles per month or 96? How much do I need to live only off Soylent?

Their prior formulas were supposed to hit 100% RDA on vitamins/minerals for 2000 kcal. Based on that and their claim that one bottle is 20% RDA, I'd say each bottle is 400kcal.

If true, and you need 2000kcal a day, you're going to need 140 bottles per 4 weeks (~12 cases). At $29/12 that's going to be ~$348, which is about $100/mo more than a 4 week subscription supply is today ($255).

They also raised the price of the powder today. They eliminated the bulk discounts so a month worth is more expensive. It is $280 for a 4 week subscription supply today.

96 won't get you a month. Each bottle is 400 calories, so you'd need five per day, assuming a 2000 calorie diet. You'd need around 150.

Soy is a big no within the Paleo diet group I know. This is because it's potent with Phytic acid which binds to other nutrients and turn them into waste. Consumers beware.

They've considered that: http://discourse.soylent.com/t/phytic-acid-not-enough-of-it-...

Is it people yet?

> Not only are its ingredients vegan, Soylent 2.0 reaches an unprecedented level of environmental sustainability with half of its fat energy coming from farm-free, algae sources. This next generation agricultural technology has the potential to reduce the ecological impact of food production by orders of magnitude, signifying a major step towards a future of abundance, a world where optimal nutrition is the new normal

Is this like a giant parody of the gullible shepherding of American consumers?

This is pablum. You can cook. You can make your own, custom meals that fit your macros. That are fresh and give you variety.

Stop feeding yourself with this shit and start adapting a balanced died with plenty of exercise. If you don't have time, make some!

Stop telling other people how to live their lives.

I'd much rather see my friends drink this every day then eating fat fast food on their way home after a long job instead...

ok coach.

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