How I Ate No Food for 30 Days

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/soylent-no-food-for-30-days

by hoov • 13 years ago

213 286 13 years ago

motherboard.vice.com

LukeWalsh4• 13 years ago

It's unfortunate for Soylent to end up in such a situation given how easily it could have been prevented.

For me however it does not discount the product in the least, and I would expect a rethinking of the production process to be posted soon in response.

jbarrow• 13 years ago

While it may not take away from the product itself, I think that this definitely shows some level of inexperience from the people behind Soylent. The idea is there, but the process hasn't been perfected.

Unfortunately, when dealing with matters of health and sanitation, you don't have the luxury of trial-and-error iteration.

seiji3• 13 years ago

some level

They're just treating nutrition like we build databases. Ignore all relevant history, research, field knowledge and make up what you want for yourself. Iterate until downtime/heart issues stop.

gcb0• 13 years ago

they will fix that in the next agile iteration.

;)

DanBC10• 13 years ago

For me however it does not discount the product in the least

You can get better products from reputable companies.

Or you can buy this gloop, from a bunch of people who clearly have little clue about what they're doing.

LukeWalsh4• 13 years ago

Perhaps I should clarify, I would hate to see this hurt the entire industry. If Soylent does not do a complete rethinking after what has happened I expect someone else to take their place.

dm22• 13 years ago

You can get better products from reputable companies.

What products specifically?

genwin3• 13 years ago

Plus, at least one of those products is available a block away from me at the supermarket.

justincormack• 13 years ago

It is not "unfortunate" it is incompetent. They basically do not know what they are doing. Why did they start manufacture when they were not set up properly?

LukeWalsh4• 13 years ago

I think a lot of software startups do extremely similar things with customer privacy. In fact there are probably places where the security flaws are worse than anything Soylent is doing.

That is not to excuse it, more to shed light on the fact that it is much more apparent when they are failing in the food industry.

theklub• 13 years ago

I think they've gotten very lucky that no one has gotten seriously ill from that manufacturing first set up. Hopefully that has and will continue to improve.

joonix• 13 years ago

Perhaps they should have hired someone who knew anything about food production. Instead they hired a frat buddy to be a Chief of Customer Success. Hope he has experience handling foodborne illnesses.

mikeyouse4• 13 years ago

There are some fairly stringent regulations that ensure food products are made in a GMP environment.[1] Flaunting those rules is extremely dangerous, both from a health perspective and from a legal one. There are numerous instances where those in charge of food operations have gone to prison for failing to maintain hygienic standards.[2]

Soylent better get their shit together. Food safety is nothing to play around with, literally life-and-death decisions being made.

1. http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/CGMP/ucm110877.ht...

2. Listeria killed 33 people, owners of company to prison: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24292036

seiji3• 13 years ago

Aren't supplements/non-medical powders/various other juju immune from FDA issues?

jlgreco14• 13 years ago

FDA regulates both finished dietary supplement products and dietary ingredients. FDA regulates dietary supplements under a different set of regulations than those covering "conventional" foods and drug products. Under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA):

- The manufacturer of a dietary supplement or dietary ingredient is responsible for ensuring that the product is safe before it is marketed.

- FDA is responsible for taking action against any unsafe dietary supplement product after it reaches the market.

http://www.fda.gov/food/dietarysupplements/

mikeyouse4• 13 years ago

They don't need to be approved in the typical FDA sense, but the ingredients do need to be considered GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe).[1]

GRAS just tells people what they're allowed to sell, but most food products have been around long enough they are grandfathered in. The bigger issue that the FDA still mandates, is that the products are prepared under cGMP standards. The standards are open, available, and not at all onerous if you intend to be an honest business.[2]

Essentially, you need to have trained staff, clean buildings, batch records, clean equipment, known ingredients (no allergens accidentally introduced), etc. Really basic stuff. Unfortunately, it's mostly self-policed until an 'incident' at which case the FDA can do an audit and raise hell.

[1] http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/GRAS/

[2] http://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/guidancecomplianceregulatoryinf...

aianus5• 13 years ago

Soylent doesn't manufacture their own product. They use a co-packer, RFI.

jacques_chester2• 13 years ago

Just a nitpick: flout, not flaunt.

mikeyouse4• 13 years ago

Thanks for the correction. (It's hard to type that without sounding sarcastic, but I really do appreciate it)

ddoolin• 13 years ago

It really seems like the authors are trying to excuse the unsanitary conditions when really it's not excusable to have them at any stage. Both the journalism and the topic at hand were disappointing. They have more than enough capital to keep the place clean, and you'd think it'd be at the top of their list given the huge (vocal) concern over personal health regarding their product.

DanBC10• 13 years ago

The preparation area shown in the video is hilariously disgusting. Fucking horrific.

I still expect them to come out as a huge troll. If so, 10/10, did rage, would rage again.

tomasien• 13 years ago

This is a pretty sensationalist headline, given that they're in a new factory, new offices, and the general findings of the experiment are so positive that the subject is considering going back on Soylent in the future.

Yver• 13 years ago

The "mold" part of the title feels especially disingenuous.

mikeyouse4• 13 years ago

There was literally mold on a month-old product. How is it disingenuous to say there are rats and mold?

kmfrk2• 13 years ago

What happens when the Move Fast and Break Things philosophy is applied outside software. :)

antidaily• 13 years ago

Disruptive!

bredren• 13 years ago

I would compare this to a tech startup becoming the victim of an exploit. i.e. an injurious but not life-threatening data hack. There are many examples of hacks on tech startups due to technical malfeasance that sometimes show neglect in the handling of data or poor planning in the current operation of the system.[0]

I think Soylent has plenty of potential and while this will darken views toward the brand for a time, it will most likely recover. The idea is too good.

[0] https://blog.twitter.com/2009/monday-morning-madness

sethbannon• 13 years ago

As someone who drinks Soylent regularly, the most pertinent part of this article was the blood tests after the author went on a 30 day Soylent-only diet. "Doctors tested Merchant’s blood at the end of it, and the only nutrient he was deficient in was Vitamin D -- i.e. sunlight", which he says made sense because having Soylent handy meant he "wouldn’t have to leave the office". That's certainly good news.

If the mold was the result of shoddy shipping causing the bag to be punctured, it's hard not to take that with a grain of salt.

And as for the rat (singular -- not "rats" plural as the title says), certainly that has the "eww" factor, but so long as the mix itself was not exposed to any animals, I certainly don't care.

[edit: the article this post was linking to has changed, so my comment is a little dated]

potatolicious• 13 years ago

"And as for the rat (singular -- not "rats" plural as the title says)"

As someone who has (unfortunately) had to deal with rats before, there is no such thing as a singular rat. A singular rat you see represents many you do not in the vicinity.

By the time you can see a single rat on a simple walk-through of the facility, you have an infestation on your hands.

arkitaip• 13 years ago

I wouldn't consider the 30 day test to be remotely significant. Maybe when we're talking about years Soylent can be considered safe...

herge• 13 years ago

You must be the dude still holding out on cell phones because of the microwaves?

nightski2• 13 years ago

What about all of the foods in the grocery store than can kill you over years if eaten as a primary source of a diet? Are those considered "safe"?

* Not trying to advocate Soylent. Just trying to point out that there are a lot of foods in the grocery store that can kill over time (and many are marketed as full meals intended to be eaten regularly).

sanskritabelt• 13 years ago

I'm not seeing that quote in the link, but I have to say I think it's pretty sad if the only reason somebody goes outside is to get food.

KeliNorth2• 13 years ago

I'm not a real fan of chewing food, but having done a similar diet before I prefer it. Turns out that even though me and food don't always get along, after 3 weeks on a liquid diet the cravings for real food for me come back. There are plenty of weightlifters who have done similar full-liquid diets for years before soylent, this data exists but has been largely ignored since it's from a different kind of community. Anyways - 30 days isn't enough, many items take longer to produce issues. Vitamin C comes to mind, it's destroyed by sunlight, copper (copper is good for destroying a few biological agents it seems, birth-control and Vitamin C, oh it's uses - but we need it as well so it'll be there in soylent in trace amounts), and age, but so little is needed to avoid scurvy, and it takes about 3 months from your last consumption of it to produce adverse results, that it wouldn't be an issue... in the short run.

To address your comment about animals: I saw animals that are littered with disease standing above the product. Standing, breathing without masks, talking without masks(which means trace amounts of spit), in standard clothes that've probably been exposed to much. The rat was far less disturbing than seeing the people who were handling the product.

Contrary to the blood-work, there is a issue that presented itself after 30 days. Not a nutrient deficiency, but a chewing one: he mentioned he started chewing gum due to his jaw aching. As far as I know chewing is supposed to help keep the jaw healthy (an expert/dentist has been sorely lacking from these soylent discussions, I imagine they'd have much to say about chewing, jaw, and tooth issues that crop up), and as someone who hasn't done a great job of that in life... I certainly wouldn't want to mess with jaw health anymore.

anigbrowl2• 13 years ago

Yeah, I was pretty appalled to see one of the founders/employees measuring ingredients out of a box on the floor while wearing dirty espadrilles (canvas shoes). I suspect that if you look at the skepticism/support in this thread you'd see a strong correlation between people who have worked in food service at some time in their lives and those who haven't.

foobarqux3• 13 years ago

There are plenty of weightlifters who have done similar full-liquid diets for years before soylent

Name one competitive weightlifter, powerlifter or bodybuilder that lived primarily on a shake made from powder for years.

CameronBanga• 13 years ago

Is there a reason that OP linked to crummy PandoDaily fluff and not to original Vice video? If anyone wants to go straight to source.

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/soylent-no-food-for-30-days

driverdan• 13 years ago

How about linking to the original and not this blogspam? http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/soylent-no-food-for-30-days

I'm no fan of Soylent (mainly because it's all marketing hype, meal replacements have been around for decades) but this title is BS. He had a moldy shipment caused by damaged packaging and saw rats at a bar. BFD.

anigbrowl2• 13 years ago

I watched the video. the rat is separated from the food preparation area by a sheet of plastic. This doesn't increase my confidence one iota.

DanBC10• 13 years ago

He saw a rat in the food preparation factory. He also saw rats at a bar.

ilamont• 13 years ago

It's possible to recover from quality scares. Clover Food Lab, which got its start as one of the MIT food trucks, had to deal with a salmonella outbreak over the summer. These news reports and blog posts by the founder document what happened:

Salmonella outbreak sickens 12 in state, triggers closure of Clover restaurants: http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2013/07...

Clover Food Lab delays reopening after Salmonella scare: http://www.metro.us/boston/news/local/2013/07/23/clover-to-r...

First response by the founder: http://www.cloverfoodlab.com/is-this-your-first-time/

Did we say Wednesday? We meant Thursday…: http://www.cloverfoodlab.com/did-we-say-wednesday-we-meant-t...

Read the blog posts by the founder, and the comments. Transparency about what was going on was key to keeping their customers informed, as well as curious members of the public. They also worked very closely with health officials. Clover was able to survive with its reputation intact.

kmfrk2• 13 years ago

Don't you think it says something about Silicon Valley that your first thought is to characterize this as a PR issue?

It's Airbnb "ransackgate" all over again ...

mattgreenrocks• 13 years ago

"If we focused too much on quality, we'd run out of VC money!"

eclipxe2• 13 years ago

Soylent represents everything I hate about the valley.

SandB0x• 13 years ago

Eating is broken. It's time to disrupt the digestive system!

sillysaurus23• 13 years ago

How do you have >10avg comment karma? Snarky one-liners?

HNJohnC• 13 years ago

There seem to be a lot of "bros" involved in startup culture these days with sickening attitudes.

phaed• 13 years ago

Meh. Sensationalist piece. I know Vice and the shenanigans they use to get headlines. I trust none of it.

rjd• 13 years ago

My initial thought was " Don't most people that go on weight loss diets shake do this anyway?" ... followed by "whats actually different about this product and existing food replacement shake diets?"

bowlofpetunias• 13 years ago

EDIT: Unbelievable. Both the title and the link to the article I commented on have been swapped from the PandoDaily article (http://pandodaily.com/2013/11/12/vice-investigates-soylent-f...) to the Vice article which PandoDaily referred to, but that tries to give it a positive spin.

This goes well beyond whatever policy pg was trying to defend recently. This is deeply manipulative.

---

It looks a scam, it sounds like a scam, it's marketed like a scam and now it apparently is being produced like any other scam.

So how long until we finally draw the obvious conclusion?

Just because some notable VC's gambled on it doesn't make it any more credible. In fact, there is pretty much zero evidence in the credible column.

dragontamer5• 13 years ago

It certainly isn't a scam. However, I went to an engineering school, and have met Food Engineers.

Food Engineering is a difficult branch of chemical engineering. You've got regulations, you've got people's lives at stake. The Soylent guys just went at it like a hacker: because thats what they are. They're taking the "startup culture" and trying to apply it to food.

And that is incredibly dangerous. Anyone who has any connection at all to the food industry knows that PEOPLE DIE IF YOU MESS THIS UP. This is NOT a "hackathon", and a SINGLE mistake can accidentally kill someone.

nightski2• 13 years ago

The food industry as a whole is one big hack, even with it's fancy regulations and bureaucracy. People are dying constantly due to the failures of the industry. It is nice to see fresh ideas.

fredsters_s3• 13 years ago

As a long-time beta user I can tell you that it works as described.

MLfan• 13 years ago

Have you also tried Sports Nutrition, they also have shakes and powders –some proteins, the ingredients can be similar. The whole article sounds like a fancy way to reinvent a bike. What’s new in this substitution food endeavor? One can live for 30 days on shakes and sports nutrition, or it can be used as a supplement to traditional food. One can even leave with No food at all if drinking a lot of water and juices for 30 days, some people do that. Why investing several millions in it? To create another hype?

fleitz6• 13 years ago

Shush, they have plenty of testimonials from real customers saying it works.

Soylent is a true superfood unlike scams like acai berry juice.

Solves long standing dietary issues that have gone unsolved by modern medicine? Check.

Helps you lose weight? Check.

Saves time and money? Check.

Testimonials? Check.

Even people with sciency sounding backgrounds think it's good! Let me just get out my credit card and sign up for a subscription. Good bye difficult exercise and time spent preparing healthy meals, hello easy street.

stinkytaco7• 13 years ago

OK, so I like cooking and eating food. I think soylent is a scam, or at the very least just another in a long line of unappetizing "diet replacement shakes".

But just allow me a moment to conduct a thought experiment, or at least play devil's advocate.

For years you've been walking to get where you are going and you've been plowing your fields with a couple of very high maintenance animals that are costly and risky. You've been walking out to their stalls and feeding, cleaning and otherwise dedicating lots of time and money to them. It's a lot of work. One day along comes a guy with a machine that replaces animals. Not only will it replace animals in your fields, the same machine will replace walking to get where you're going. A neighbor got it and he swears by it.

Saves time and money? Check.

Solves long standing issues that have gone unsolved by modern technology? Check.

Helps you produce more in your fields and make more money? Check.

Say goodbye to expensive and time consuming animals and sore feet, hello easy street.

lowboy15• 13 years ago

A scam? Hardly.

The only "scammy" thing was overreaching claims about how it's "optimized perfectly" and the like. And from what I've heard, they've toned that down.

We haven't cracked the human body, but there is science that supports Soylent.

obstacle13• 13 years ago

there is science that supports Soylent.

Since you made the claim, what specifically is the science that supports Soylent? I assume you can provide references to peer-reviewed stuff, given the nature of your claim, and I look forward to reading it.

tptacek• 13 years ago

I yield to no HN user in the extent and intensity of my distaste for the idea of Soylent, but the Pando article was, per Pando's charter, linkjacked clickbait that referred directly to the Vice article. It was totally reasonable --- desirable, even --- for the two articles to be switched. Would that we could simply do away with Pando altogether so that this kind of controversy might never recur.

pyrocat4• 13 years ago

Yup, same thing happened with the New York Times (1995) earlier today, it was originally a linkjacking blog post.

diogenescynic• 13 years ago

It seems like censorship or manipulation when no explanation is given. Even if it is on the up and up, it'd be nice if someone could comment as to why the changes occur.

obstacle13• 13 years ago

I just tried to submit the investigation article, too, and the same happened to me. Worrisome.

Is YCombinator invested in Soylent?

w1ntermute4• 13 years ago

The CEO, Rob Rhinehart, is a YC alum.

brymaster• 13 years ago

This goes well beyond whatever policy pg was trying to defend recently. This is deeply manipulative.

YC has stake in Soylent (http://blog.soylent.me/post/64789154918/soylent-funding-anno...). I think people sometimes forget who's website this is they're commenting on.

wil4212• 13 years ago

People dont realize what little regulations supplements face compared to "food".

Most products you buy at nutrition/health stores (like GNC/Vitamin Shoppe/etc.) are not really tested. You can pretty much be getting chalk and no one will know. Or you get an overdose of Ephedra and die.

foobarqux3• 13 years ago

See superdrol (anabolic steroid with high liver toxicity) and Craze (meth analog)

wil4212• 13 years ago

This was exactly what I was talking about. Muscle building supplements and bath salts.

ChuckMcM• 13 years ago

I suppose you could spin it "Look how healthy our rats are and there is nothing in this warehouse but Soylent! Testing on rats, check!"

But this made me a bit sad.

I think Soylent is great, it is disruptive, it is more palatable than nutraloaf it could be a great alternative for folks who just need food to live, and it could provide a fascinating 'control' group for various Microbiome projects. But clearly these folks aren't exactly "experienced" as Jimi Hendrix might say.

Here is the challenge, there is a crap ton of knowledge about how to do things that isn't taught in school or on the web or in books. You learn that by 'apprenticing' at a company or organization which is already doing something like what you want to do, and getting the history of all the things they had to overcome and avoid "in the old days." It isn't nostalgia, it is education through experience. That is what experience is. And the only way to get it, is to experience it. It was sad for me when I realized this, I could be smarter than my manager at the time and yet he could be a better manager because he had experienced more issues and overcome them (or at least seen the solution to them) to have a much better sense of what would be an important problem and what would be a minor problem. I could put any situation I wanted in front of him and he had an answer to the "big problem" / "small problem" classification, but he could not express that as an algorithm I could learn from.

So when people come out of college and start companies the next day I tend to cringe a bit as there is a lot of stuff they are going to learn the hard way. That is doubly true when you're doing multiple disciplines (food prep + nutrition + distribution + marketing + regulation + Etc.) and having run a business of type A won't prime you to run one of type B, other than to help you recognize where you need subject matter experts.

One wonders why the first hire at Soylent wasn't someone who had 5 years or more setting up and running a food production line. I don't know but I have heard folks in similar situations say "How hard could it be?"

dragontamer5• 13 years ago

What you do, is then you hire a 10-year veteran of the food preparation business.

What you DON'T do, is pickup a few textbooks on body chemistry and assume you can figure it all out by yourself.

lowboy15• 13 years ago

Why not? The human body is a machine, and we can examine and alter that machine. We've been doing that throughout history.

I don't like the early claims of Soylent being "perfectly optimized" and the like.

jokoon• 13 years ago

doesn't your digestive system have to re learn some tricks if it's not used for a long time ?

antonius• 13 years ago

I love how nonchalant the CEO was when he called the VICE reporter to tell him not to eat any of the spoiled batch of Soylent.

DanBC10• 13 years ago

I'm really tempted to set up a kickstarter for a documentary of me living for 6 months on the various existing liquid feeds.

It'll be tricky getting a doctor to fit a feeding tube up my nose, but I'm sure someone would do it. (Bit scary using non-medical people because of the risk of the tube going into a lung.)

throwmeaway2525• 13 years ago

From a different perspective, has anyone ever taken the time to read local health department restaurant inspection reports (if available)?

I assume most people here eat at restaurants without too much concern, but if you ever read the reports, you'll find experienced industry professionals cited for far worse infractions than these.

DanBC10• 13 years ago

I live in the UK. My local town has a 5 start system. "rats in the same building" would get a place shut down.

fredsters_s3• 13 years ago

As a long time beta user I have a bunch of problems with this piece:

- the Oakland space was a temporary location while they were iterating on the beta. Soylent is not manufactured there.

- all the journalists writing about Soylent seem to attribute to Rob stuff that he doesn't actually say: namely that you should only consume Soylent all the time. The point of Soylent is that it replaces transactional eating and makes me healthier. It's not about replacing the eating I do for fun.

- Soylent is a technology company. It's not just positioning. They are iterating towards finding an exponentially better way to do transactional eating using technology. That's the definition of a tech company.

_delirium• 13 years ago

Soylent is a technology company. It's not just positioning. They are iterating towards finding an exponentially better way to do transactional eating using technology. That's the definition of a tech company.

Well, any product is technology in that sense. But this particular technology, meal-replacement shakes, is already reasonably well established. What seems new to me is that Soylent is pitching itself to people who either don't know about or have failed to become interested in the existing products, which seems like a marketing innovation more than a tech innovation. They don't seem to be differentiating on technical quality or iteration. If you read their campaign, for example, it is entirely positioned against regular food, as if they have just invented the full-meal-replacement shake, and does not mention anything about technical innovation over existing competitors: https://campaign.soylent.me/soylent-free-your-body

It's possible they also have technical innovation over any existing meal-replacement shake, but they are being very quiet about it if so.

aianus5• 13 years ago

The existing products have really terrible marketing. They sell them in pharmacies and generally broadcast a message of "for supplementation or diseased/senile people only".

Kudos to Soylent for trying to normalize liquid diets.

JaggedJax• 13 years ago

A lot of the issues people have with Soylent seem to revolve around making it the only thing in your diet for extended periods. You're right that this is not how they are pushing it. I would never want to replace food with this entirely. If I were planning to have Soylent for dinner but some friends called up and asked if I wanted to grab a meal with them, I wouldn't hesitate for a second.

Because of this I don't worry if it's healthy enough to be the only thing I eat for a month, or if I would miss food, or be less social. This will never, and isn't designed to, replace all food.

eclipxe2• 13 years ago

iterating on the beta, transactional eating, exponentially better way, etc.

Give me a break.

mathattack2• 13 years ago

Seems like Soylent is taking advantage if the entire industry loophole called supplements. If the loophole didn't exist, this type of entrepreneurship wouldn't.

Food companies are also doing real experiments. I don't see tasteless goop shakes disrupting the market any more than sport shakes.

EDIT: I stand corrected on the first paragraph. I still believe the 2nd to be true.

caublestone• 13 years ago

Soylent is a food and not a supplement. The commercial version of the product is being produced in an FDA approved and GMP certified facility - RFI.

mathattack2• 13 years ago

I stand corrected. Good for them!

Pxtl2• 13 years ago

“You’re not going to feed a booming population with organic farms,” Rob says.

This is a popular misconception. While organic farming requires far more labour than conventional farming and the yields are lower for the same land, it's not actually that much lower. We're talking about a 5-30% drop in yield. Not great, but not "OMG mass worldwide starvation" change. And that's while being vastly more efficient with fresh water.

Think about your average 3rd-world country and ask yourself what's in short supply - land, manpower, or fresh water?

lowboy15• 13 years ago

Organic growing techniques use "vastly" less water? How so?

I'm guessing that there's a correlation between farmers who choose to grow organic and those who try to conserve water, but I can't see how one is "vastly" different.

stinkytaco7• 13 years ago

There's pretty solid evidence that biointesive techniques use less water because they make better use of the same space. If I grow two tomato plants in the space I used to grow one, I waste less water.

But yes, you're right, I don't know if "vastly" is the word I would use.

Pxtl2• 13 years ago

... yeah, I might've overstated that, which is particularly hypocritical given the thrust of my post.

Anyhow, I can't find the original article, but the idea is that organic farming techniques produce soil that's far better at retaining water and preventing wasteful evaporation.

Also, there's the secondary matter of fertilizer runoff contaminating local ground-water.

yuvadam3• 13 years ago

Soylent might, technically, work. It might be safe and healthy, it definitely looks simple and allows you to forget anything related to grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning up afterwards.

But thinking about the prospect of the future makes me sick to my stomach. Soylent paints a disgustingly frightening dystopia where humans are fed 100% "correct" food to allow them to continue being cogs in the business machine, not stop for lunch during the day in the office, and be able to pull those extra longs evenings and nights to get more work done. Not to mention the vanishing social and human aspects of eating, together with friends and family.

Rob Reinhardt's assertions that organic cultivation of vegetables, fruits and legumes does not scale are downright FALSE, and only serve the Soylent marketing machine.

Soylent is doing nothing more than accommodating to the needs of humanoids who continue the endless pursuit of some vague promise of capitalist fulfillment (work hard, be rich, be happy), ignoring the fact that the direct opposite of such a lifestyle leads to a much more healthier, happier life which remains in touch with our basic, primal human existence.

beambot• 13 years ago

Or... it could put humanity in a position to provide a balanced nutrition as a fundamental human right, delivered right to your doorstep by USPS. If the economics worked out it could be provided everywhere worldwide, and then other food consumption could be purely for enjoyment.

There are always people who scream "dystopia!" every time a new technology arrives. That seems very pessimistic.

fleitz6• 13 years ago

This is a very progressive idea, lets add housing to that, so that everyone will have a place to stay, something to eat and something to do.

I can see the large halls feeding the masses, I've even heard tale of a boy named Oliver who wants even more soylent it's so delicious.

stinkytaco7• 13 years ago

it could put humanity in a position to provide a balanced nutrition as a fundamental human right, delivered right to your doorstep by USPS. If the economics worked out it could be provided everywhere worldwide, and then other food consumption could be purely for enjoyment.

So... why not just do that with the food we've got? Drop a few packages of surplus food on the doorsteps of some African countries and call it good?

The thing is, there is enough food to feed the world. The Western world has way too much of it and lots of the rest of the world has too little of it. Hell, even within the western world there's too much and too little at the same time within the same square mile.

The issue is not balanced nutrition, it's making the economics work out, which they do not and never have.

What this may solve is a distribution problem. Some of the food problem in major US cities is lack of access to grocery stores that sell real food. Soylent could be stocked in the convenience stores those areas have access to.

justin663• 13 years ago

The interchangeability of dystopias and utopias is sometimes a theme in SF. A lot of it is based on perception.

Or... it could put humanity in a position to provide a balanced nutrition as a fundamental human right, delivered right to your doorstep by USPS.

The notion of using this glop as a permanent solution to fix hunger (someplace the USPS delivers!!!) - well, the fact that anyone would seriously entertain it - is so sad to me that it's hard to articulate. So, classic utopia/dystopia material, I guess.

fleitz6• 13 years ago

Exactly, this will be a huge hit for quantified self people who want to reduce their existence down to a spreadsheet.

lowboy15• 13 years ago

Going on a Soylent diet doesn't mean that you'll be a cog or that your vision of the future will come to pass.

Granted, I too am terrified of that future coming to pass, but it doesn't follow from increased Soylent consumpion.

freyrs35• 13 years ago

Yes, the whole problem with the marketing hype is thinking about this product in terms of this all or nothing "disrupt the food industry" mentality. It might turn out to be a company producing a slightly more economical meal replacement shake that you can down a couple days in place of breakfast, but at the end of the day thats really all. There's nothing new to see here.

cobrausn• 13 years ago

All I can think of when I see it is "Man, I thought the future was supposed to be awesome. Where is my engineered to be delicious lab grown steak? I get Soylent? This is not awesome."

Given, as long as I'm not being force fed the stuff as a government ration, I don't really see it as a problem, I just get sad when I see it marketed as 'future food'.

gtaylor4• 13 years ago

There are also those of us that derive no joy from eating. Eating is an inconvenience to me. I have zero sweet tooth, and I don't have many cravings for specific foods. I'd rather be doing any number of other things, like reading, working out, yard/car work, calling up family, etc. I work for myself (and work reasonable hours). Of course, all of this anecdotal, but the point is that this isn't a dystopia scenario for all of us.

Having an incredibly convenient/healthy option would be outstanding for me personally. I suspect that people like me may represent a much smaller percentage of the population. I want to be healthy, but I hate shopping for and preparing food to the point where I sometimes don't eat as well as I should.

With that said, I wouldn't wish my food indifference on other people. I could see how it'd be spooky to see this kind of living being forced on people. It's probably a bit premature to worry about this just yet, though. Soylent and other similar products are still so polarizing that it's hard to imagine them taking over in the near future.

yuvadam3• 13 years ago

I accept that fact that some people like yourself find a product such as Soylent to be convenient, and I am in no position to criticize such personal choices.

But there are lots of existing products on the market, that have been available for quite some time now, everything from nutrition shakes to complete food replacements for people with chronic diseases (Crohn's, IBS, etc...), and Soylent seems to be more of the same, sans the actual clinical testing and trials that guarantee the safety of such products (and with the added Silicon Valley hype, of course.)

oftenwrong• 13 years ago

So what do you eat? Do you blend everything into a homogeneous sludge?

nsxwolf6• 13 years ago

With all due respect, deriving no joy from eating sounds like an eating disorder of some kind. It's like a basic part of you is not functioning.

avenger1232• 13 years ago

Have you ever looked into getting any testing done with regards to your sense of taste? It would be interesting to see if this is an issue for you.

tolmasky7• 13 years ago

Its funny because we already live in this dystopia and you simply don't notice it because the plastic food we eat "looks real" and "tastes good". What is the difference between the completely artificial hamburger people get at McDonalds and Soylent? The fact that its basically "molded" to look like the real food we used to eat?

The reality is that we long ago crossed the line into having a society that mostly eats absolutely garbage and artificial food. This is not some future prospect, it is today, and we regularly see (and ignore) the disastrous medical results. This is of course perpetuated by a government that pushes a purely political nutritional agenda (let's tell everyone carbohydrates are the most important staple to eat and let's put corn and sugar in everything for economic reasons and let's also hope no one notices that fiber has mysteriously disappeared from our diets).

At least Soylent is trying to harness this machine for good. A world where "the cogs" at least receive proper nutrition would be a step up from today's illusion of choice.

derleth2• 13 years ago

the completely artificial hamburger people get at McDonalds

Define 'completely artificial' here. It's meat, it's bread, it's vegetables and condiments.

timr4• 13 years ago

Ah yes...the "McDonald's is bad, so let's feed people glop instead" argument.

How about this: let's help people get access to, appreciate, and learn how to prepare "real" food, instead of jumping to the lowest common denominator. That's what I'd call "disruption".

freyrs35• 13 years ago

let's tell everyone carbohydrates are the most important staple to eat and let's put corn and sugar in everything

Seems to be conflating two parties here. The USDA guidelines are written by government nutritionists and there are sound scientific reasons for recommending the base of any diet be grains. Though being a free country, whether or not the private sector decides to put corn syrup in everything is their own prerogative and unrelated to government guidelines.

At least Soylent is trying to harness this machine for good.

Soylent is a private company, not an aid organization. Barring them irresponsibly marketing their product as a "total food replacement" I wouldn't call what they are doing good or bad.

DanBC10• 13 years ago

What is the difference between the completely artificial hamburger people get at McDonalds and Soylent?

No one tells you that you can live on McDonald's alone.

nsxwolf6• 13 years ago

I'm not following. In what way is a McDonalds hamburger artificial? It's bread. It's meat.

Even if there are mechanically separated parts of the meat, they're still meat.

Even if it's as artificial as you say, isn't food that "looks real" and "tastes good" better than food that "looks like deplorable shit" and "tastes like deplorable shit" and is unapologetically named after something horrible from a 1970s dystopian sci fi movie?

nakedrobot2• 13 years ago

You go ahead and eat your fake food.

I'll continue working very hard but still have time for my family, and I also eat real food.

Heck, I can cook a whole pizza from scratch in 30 minutes, dough included. Now that's a hack that's centuries old I'm guessing. No, I'm not putting it on Kickstarter :-)

smsm425• 13 years ago

Why would I eat a rubber meat on rubber bread in McD if I can get real meat with real veggies next door? Yes, I'd probably have to spend whole whopping $10 or so on such a meal. But given that it takes only 75 minutes of work even on minimum wage to earn such meal, I don't think it's inaccessible.

sillysaurus23• 13 years ago

humanoids who continue the endless pursuit of some vague promise of capitalist fulfillment (work hard, be rich, be happy), ignoring the fact that the direct opposite of such a lifestyle leads to a much more healthier, happier life which remains in touch with our basic, primal human existence.

You'd enjoy the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/zen-motorcycle.pd...

yuvadam3• 13 years ago

I enjoyed it much :)

hokkos• 13 years ago

The Soylent guy keep mentioning that current food system will not scale, but gives no evidence that his system will. It appears to be very wasteful to grow or synthesize each components in their original form, separate them and then finally mix them, compared to naturally occurring food.

Afforess2• 13 years ago

Current agricultural practices are highly unsustainable. We are mere decades to depleting all groundwater aquifers in North America. Fertilizer pollutes most waterways. Pesticides are seeping into most groundwater in the central US. And you think we should scale our processes larger? Insanity.

dpapathanasiou• 13 years ago

Not to worry, the last two paragraphs explain why it won't take over the world:

"I was euphoric. I felt the endorphins rushing through my body, the gob of chicken skin wandering down my esophagus, the juices staining my chin. Rob, who'd joined us, led a conversation about the food technology; the chicken was sublime. Before long, I might as well have been stoned. For a half an hour, I sat there, overwhelmed, unaware of any foodless world outside my brain."

"For a few minutes, the future didn’t matter; the taste, the the swirling talk took over. The food anchored me to the glorious present, and eating was all."

nsxwolf6• 13 years ago

This is how food is supposed to make you feel. It's as basic and primal as sex. Soylent is like a culinary celibacy, apparently without any sort of spiritual edification.

fredsters_s3• 13 years ago

It's a false assertion that Soylent prescribes this dystopian future. It's about replacing TRANSACTIONAL eating. Not ALL eating.

Fairly simple you'd think, yet this is the main point that all the detractors seem to have... and it's not something that Soylent is pushing at all.

Tehnix• 13 years ago

Soylent is doing nothing more than accommodating to the needs of humanoids who continue the endless pursuit of some vague promise of capitalist fulfillment

Or, I'm just really lazy and would prefer something remotely healthy and cheap compared to, say, ordering a pizza.

It isn't meant to replace all your food intake, but, it seems like a good thing for when-you-just-don't-feel-like-cooking or don't have time because you have other things you'd rather do, then spend time cooking and eating (don't get me wrong though, I very much enjoy eating)..

As a student, this seems like a super product for someone like me...

smsm425• 13 years ago

Basic, primal existence means no dental care and death of the first sufficiently strong infection. As somebody who would be dead at least 4 times already without modern medicine (nothing special, a bunch of inflammatory diseases, appendectomy, etc.), I'm not buying the joys of primal existence. That doesn't mean I'm ready to give up my juicy steak for a glass of beige sludge, but I still love my civilization.

And yes, "organic" as currently practiced is definitely not scalable, as it is mainly consists of removing scaling improvements, like using chemicals to defeat pests. You can allow pests to eat 30% of your crop if you sell it at 50% higher price point. But if you need to produce more and cheaper, it no longer works. As niche market, it is fine, as main food producer - I believe it when I see it.

Touche• 13 years ago

What makes Solyent special vs other meal replacements? I take a meal replacement called Raw Meal (only one meal a day) that's make mostly from sprouts. I feel great when I make myself do it every day. Is the difference that Solyent isn't made from any plant material but rather is raw chemicals?

thatthatis• 13 years ago

Best part of this for me was the information that the Optifast product exists. I hope soylent is successful, but I like knowing there are existing total-meal-replacement competitors I can order now on amazon (which I just did).

collyw• 13 years ago

IS the stuff on vice.com real? I read about a guy who claimed to only eat raw meat, and it seemed a bit far fetched.

Ok, this Solyent is believable, but why??? Eating is one of life pleasures.

abuehrle2• 13 years ago

The three NYC food critics (11:20 in the video) really bugged me. Their immediate smug dismissal of the product and idea was predetermined. Maybe I'm reading too much into what was shown, but I got the impression that there was no possible world in which they give Soylent a chance.

I'm not necessarily a believer, but I'm noticing this behavior more and more often as I get older and it's increasingly bothering me.

justin663• 13 years ago

Their immediate smug dismissal of the product and idea was predetermined. Maybe I'm reading too much into what was shown, but I got the impression that there was no possible world in which they give Soylent a chance.

Why would they? The best possible case is that it tastes like a milkshake or malt or something good like that. At which point, they're still arguing against a monoculture of millions of identical milkshakes, which are still hell for anyone who actually enjoys food.

I'd expect any food critic's attitude toward this stuff to make their attitude towards corporate fast food look pretty mild by comparison.

abuehrle2• 13 years ago

I believe no one associated with Soylent has ever claimed it to be a culinary delight, and no one is trying to stop people from enjoying food when they want to eat for that purpose. To have these critics evaluating Soylent by their usual metrics in a pseudo-experimental setting is disingenuous. The guy critic even used the word "stupid". It's not a stupid, it's just not good at something it never claimed to be good at.

akinity• 13 years ago

Gross, why are human beings packing Soylent?

sillysaurus23• 13 years ago

These top comments are really the worst of HN. Thoughtless, emotional vitriol.

Until Soylent is proved unsafe, there is no basis for calling it unsafe.

DanBC10• 13 years ago

We see unsuitably dressed workers scooping powders from uncovered boxes on a factory floor into other boxes to be mixed, with rats in the factory.

They've left that factory now, but it's telling that even though Rob didn't think the factory was suitable for a number of reasons he still went ahead and prepared and shipped product to (I assume) paying beta testers.

What more do you need?

lowboy15• 13 years ago

Eh. I'm not so squeamish. I know that pretty much every restaurant will have or has had rodents, it's just part of life.

lowboy15• 13 years ago

Agreed.

I think part of the backlash is from Soylent's hubris about how it's perfectly optimized, etc. I think we have a long way to go before drawing any conclusion, but it's a promising technology.

derleth2• 13 years ago

Until Soylent is proved unsafe, there is no basis for calling it unsafe.

This is exactly backwards, and is precisely the reasoning scammers use to sell worthless treatments.

talles2• 13 years ago

This is, IMO, the stupidest thing ever. Why just WHY give up on food? Cooking and enjoying food is one of our essential pleasures in life; I just can't see myself replacing it to some hipster matrix-like shake of nutrients. Just no thank you.

Anyway the title feels a lot misleading for someone that is used to do water fast. That is truly 'eating no food', and some do it for lengths of 30 days (yes it's safe for most people).

Cooking your own food, experimenting around and occasionally doing some fasting is, again IMO, the true way to eat happy and healthy. That's what I do.

aianus5• 13 years ago

Some people really hate the whole process of shopping, cooking, and eating. Or, at least, they're tired of spending hours every day on it. Can you really not think of anything you'd rather do with your time?

talles2• 13 years ago

Sure, of course. Nowadays every single piece of 'time' is invaluable to be productive, to get rich, to achieve something.

But we lose the pleasure in the process. Sure, I'm not able to cook a pleasant meal on midweek as I do on my weekends. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to the extreme of blending all up and feed myself with a straw. Finding a balance is the way to go.

mixmastamyk2• 13 years ago

The angry comments in every solyent article are pretty silly imho. You are under no obligation to use it. Those that do are still permitted to dine with family. :/ Any bugs will get worked out over time.

These days I usually make a smoothie for a quick breakfast... perhaps some unsweetened almond milk, protein/vitamin powder, ground flax seed, a bit of fruit/veggies, sometimes even a healthy oil. The concept is not terribly different than soylent.

I do like to keep my blood sugar in a moderate range, however. I might be interested in trying soylent if they had a low-carb version, one not significantly made of oats and maltodextrin.

DanBC10• 13 years ago

Any bugs will get worked out over time.

Meanwhile, they'll still market it as optimized nutrition to put you in perfect shape and fine for everyone even if they have allergies etc etc.

mixmastamyk2• 13 years ago

Maybe they've gone a bit far with that, but I've not yet encountered marketing that didn't put a positive spin on its product. As always take with a grain of salt.

jjoe• 13 years ago

For those who feel like they are missing out on the social aspect of eating out. Perhaps restaurants can start offering Soylent-based meals in their menu but with a twist. Instead of a plain shake in a cup, they could mold and dye the Soylent powder to look like a natural food like an apple, strawberry, or even a steak and serve it on a plate.

No stigma from having to turn down a restaurant invitation or a get together with friends.

blueblank• 13 years ago

Eating will become like boozing—something we do recreationally with friends, or as a hobby

or, part of the grimdark future where the trend of hobby eating sends the prices of food out of reach of the lower 7/8 of society

Tarrosion• 13 years ago

I found this very troubling:

"I wasn’t drinking enough water. At the factory, Rob told me that was a common mistake; since Soylent is a shake, people figure they don’t have to drink extra water—an easy way to get dehydrated."

Failing so thoroughly to communicate how to use your product that users become dehydrated within two days is a serious mistake, though thankfully not a common one.

skizm• 13 years ago

I feel like you can get 90% of the way to soylent's promises with whey protein milkshakes, multi-vitamins and fish oil. Toss some fiber in that diet and you get the rest of the way. Athlete? add some creatine to your morning shake and eat something with more carbs post workout (carbohydrate supplement powder works great and is cheap). Having a minimalist diet isn't rocket science, but I guess it is reassuring to have that stamp on the bottle that says a doctor approved of the macro-nutrient ratios.

jbeja• 13 years ago

I Quit watching the video at the part were he says "i was eating leafs, it so strange".

gonzalocasas• 13 years ago

"Lacking background in chemistry or nutrition, Rhinehart developed the formula through research and self-experimentation." (from the Wikipage article)

OMG, yes, that sounds like a totally reliable product to, you know, like, trust one's own existence to.

Not to mention the incredibly sad, and dehumanizing experience of losing all the marvellous things of a great meal that are not related to nutrition: textures, flavor, a time to disconnect and relax, a time to chat with friends, family, etc, just to mention a few obvious ones.

digitalzombie• 13 years ago

I wouldn't mind eating this once and a while when I'm low on time and don't want to drive somewhere or whip something up.

I wouldn't see myself eating this ONLY, cause the video did bring up a good point, eating is also a social thing. Hey babe you want to go back to my place and eat some soylent?

quantumpotato_2• 13 years ago

We can cook it, oh wait, don't have time.

ruswick• 13 years ago

Honestly, I just don't get Soylent. What is the purpose?

As a health measure? The market for weight-loss shakes and other dietary solutions is saturated, and most of it appears to be complete shit. Dietary shakes are easy to come by, and are almost universally reviled because they don't work as advertised and taste disgusting.

Is Soylent a supposed to be a remedy for malnutrition? Why is drinking a bunch of vitamins a better option than taking a dietary supplement? How does Soylent account for the fact that nutrient absorption is less efficient in artificial supplements? Why not just eat quality, healthy human food?

But, far and away the worst and most appalling argument is that soylent is "convenient," and that it's beneficial to people who "don't have time to eat." I'm sorry, but if you can't find time to eat human food, the issue is your schedule, not the food. Correct me if I'm wrong, but eating is pretty fucking important. If you are in a position where feeding yourself actual sustenance is inconvenient, then there is a probably a severe deficiency with your schedule and a problem with your priorities.

pyrocat4• 13 years ago

I'm sorry, but if you can't find time to eat human food, the issue is your schedule, not the food. Correct me if I'm wrong, but eating is pretty fucking important. If you are in a position where feeding yourself actual sustenance is inconvenient, then there is a probably a severe deficiency with your schedule and a problem with your priorities.

You don't sound very sorry. You sound incredibly judgmental of anyone who has different priorities than you.

Personally, I love food, I just hate preparing it. Spend 30 minutes to cook a meal that I will eat in 5? No thanks. So I eat out all the time, which is really fucking expensive.

You've heard of the PM triangle right? Same basic idea here. Food can be cheap, tasty, quick, and healthy, but not all at once. McDonalds is cheap, tasty, and quick but not healthy. That steak dinner you just cooked yourself is cheap, tasty, and healthy but not quick. I personally always pick the quick option, but the other items can vary. Thus I'm usually eating quick, tasty, and healthy items. I have trouble finding things that are quick, healthy, and cheap. This seems to fill that niche nicely.

It doesn't mean I'm going to suddenly stop eating out, but it will mean I spend less money in the long run, without having to spend extra time. For all of the comments on Hacker News about how time=money, even when you're not on the clock, you'd think this concept would make sense more immediately.

xacaxulu• 13 years ago

Zuckerburg will drink Soylent only if he can kill it first.

itsameta4• 13 years ago

I've been following this story since the beginning, and here's the part that I'm baffled that people always forget:

They're open-sourcing the recipe.

That should remove all the accusations of it being a scam. If it's a scam, it will be easily proved such.

If there are nutritional problems, they can be fixed, either in the official branch, or in one of the many forks which already exist.

rdl• 13 years ago

I'd kill (well, pay up to $600/mo) for a low-carb version of Soylent. Even if he made it in a (clean) residential kitchen, although I'd prefer if RFI did it under contract.

Even better if you could get monthly blood analysis and then have your Soylent customized for you.

SoylentPro, perhaps.

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