Soylent hits its 1.0 formula, nears release

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/12/soylent-hits-its-1-0-formula-nears-release/

by shawndumas • 13 years ago

44 76 13 years ago

dmazin• 13 years ago

This is exciting, especially the updated texture.

I used Soylent because my dinners were so depressing (crumbled tofu with deactivated yeast) that I figured I might as well just gulp liquid nutrition. But, honestly, that was even more depressing. So I just learned to make some nicer simpler dishes, and I've been fine.

jchung• 13 years ago

This is definitely looking much better. The marketing folks at Soylent seem to have kicked in. The packaging looks sort of like space food. The texture looks more "substantial", and the color is a step up from beige. I wouldn't be surprised to see flavoring coming next, with more color varieties.

adambard• 13 years ago

I believe the color was added by the author for the photo; it still comes beige and unflavored. But, the author also experimented with adding flavoring, too, to reasonable effect.

blhack2• 13 years ago

They've also done a REALLY good job of addressing peoples' critiques.

For instance: manufacturing. They've contracted with an experienced, FDA-certified manufacturing facility that Does This Sort of Things.

Can't wait to get my soylent!

(My girlfriend has been trying to create DIY soylent, so I'm really curious how hers will taste different than the "real" thing. The experiment from last night: soylent flatbread!)

hcarvalhoalves2• 13 years ago

The hype around Soylent is unbelievable. You realize you don't need to wait for it if you want, you can just go out and buy Ensure and similars?

Shamanmuni3• 13 years ago

I'm no expert, but as I understand Ensure is a supplement for your meals, Soylent is a replacement for them.

You shouldn't consume only Ensure, but you could do it with Soylent. They are completely different products.

shaunxcode• 13 years ago

Wow this is great news! unless I read wrong it should be totally vegan now as the fish oil is not required? I love the idea of cooking being a collaborative ritualistic experience you engage in for holidays/celebrations and soylent being something you use the rest of the time.

sp332• 13 years ago

The EPA / DHA fatty acids from fish oil are incorporated directly into the oil blend now.

Sounds like the fish oil is still there, it's even pre-mixed so you can only avoid it by replacing the oils entirely.

_fs• 13 years ago

Hopefully they got all of the rats [1] out of the production facility.

[1] http://www.vice.com/motherboard/life-after-food/

jljljl• 13 years ago

They addressed this here http://blog.soylent.me/post/66807143901/this-morning-vices-b...

> We would also like to emphasize the fact that Soylent 1.0, the product for which we have accepted over $1.5M in preorders, will not be manufactured by hand by our executive team. We have signed a purchase order with RFI Ingredients, a contract manufacturer with over 20 years of experience producing FDA-approved food products.

I was extremely skeptical of these guys, but they seem to be addressing some of the major concerns I had. I still think there's a lot of testing to be done before this lives up to all the promises, but they get some definite kudos for their quick responses.

Cthulhu_• 13 years ago

So, average male's daily need in one 500 gram bag... How much does this cost again? I mean I'd be interested in replacing one or two meals with something like this, but only if it's not too expensive.

soperj• 13 years ago

Why don't you start using some of the ones currently on the market then?? Why wait?

georgebashi• 13 years ago

Could you link some of these products available for purchase for purchase please? I've heard a few times times that there are soylent equivalents currently available, but from my searching I've only ever been able to find meal supplements and not complete replacements.

widdershins• 13 years ago

I find the idea of a foodstuff reaching a '1.0 release' somewhat... offputting.

jbigelow76• 13 years ago

Top notch chefs have been doing it for decades just without the gimmicky software versioning nomenclature.

rblatz2• 13 years ago

I still don't understand the excitement behind this, but apparently everyone here can't stop talking about them. So I guess they are doing something right.

danudey2• 13 years ago

It's the ultimate in appeal to the geek crowd. It optimizes away a process which is a balance of expensive, inefficient, time consuming, and often unhealthy.

Breakfast and lunch are throwaway meals for me; I eat because I have to in order to live and be productive and healthy, but none of my choices seem optimal. I can eat a fresh, healthy meal at work (expensive), I can reheat yesterday's dinner (microwaved food is less appetizing and often not as healthy), I can grab a quick meal (unhealthy and often expensive), or I can prepare a proper lunch ahead of time (time consuming).

The promise of soylent is simple: from now on, you can eat meals because you want to, not because you have to. On top of that, you only get what you need, and not what you don't want.

I compare it to, say, Linux. You can compile all your software from scratch, install dependencies, and customize absolutely everything, and some people do that because they enjoy it. Many people don't, and don't want to deal with it, and we have distributions like Ubuntu that take away 80% of what you used to need to do to get a proper Linux distribution running.

With Soylent, you still have the option of other meals; it's entirely up to you. You can drink it as your sole nutritional intake, you can have a Friday dinner out, or you can eat dinner with the family and just replace breakfast and lunch.

rblatz2• 13 years ago

They have meal replacement shakes out, and have for years. They have much more attractive sounding names.

RankingMember• 13 years ago

They really need to redo the source footage of their intro video. The audio is awful and the green-screen they used had some not-great lighting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSkOVkgd8hY

ufmace• 13 years ago

I've been thinking some about Soylent and the criticisms leveled against them, mainly that we still don't know as much as we'd like about exactly what types of food the human body needs to survive.

One the one hand, it was my understanding that most nutritional deficiencies are relatively slow to develop, and whatever happens as a consequence of them usually goes away after the sufferer resumes normal eating. So if there is a problem with it, whoever notices it will probably be able to just go back to whatever they were eating before and be no worse off.

On the other hand, what better way to learn more about what the human body really needs than to create a food like Soylent and have a bunch of people try to live off of it long-term? If it turns out that there's some vitamin or something that we need a little bit of every so often and didn't know about, then we'll find out about it from people eating Soylent, and they'll add that to it and keep going. So good for them on actually getting out there and trying it, instead of talking about how impossible they think it is.

stcredzero• 13 years ago

A really big contribution to the effort to get to Mars and other destinations farther from Earth would be to have a bunch of people try to eat nothing but stabilized foodstuffs for a period of time like 2 years. It would be something like: nothing but Soylent and MREs for two years.

kazagistar3• 13 years ago

Seems like they have plenty of people willing to give it a try already. If you wanna try it now you can. If you wanna wait a few years to see if it is safe, you can do that too.

powertower• 13 years ago

One is that the carbohydrate mixture has been nailed: one 500g bag of Soylent will contain 210g of oat flour and 132g of maltodextrin. The protein mix has also shifted—our beta Soylent contained a mix of rice and pea protein, but production Soylent will contain 102g of brown rice protein isolate.

Anyone else tried Brown Rice protein, and found it's undrinkable, harsh, and indigestible, probably because they use also the bran and germ to derive the protein from?

Maltodextrin pretty much made me feel terrible and weak when I took it in the past.

And eating oats in the morning these days for some reason messes with my ability to fall asleep later on.

This has been simplified, with the main oil switching from grapeseed to canola.

I consider grapeseed oil to be the perfect oil. It's light and easily digestible. All other oils have been known to give people headaches and migraine that have sensitive digestive systems. Especially when mixed with whatever you're eating - causing digestive issues with that food.

They've turned their product into 1 big allergen for me. Though that's just me, you might not have any problems with it.

danudey2• 13 years ago

But in any complex system there can be various factors that lead to things being out of balance. I know someone who can't take multivitamins because there's too much iron in them and it upsets her system. If she were getting too much iron somewhere else, though, and cut that back, then they would be fine.

The point I guess is that perhaps these things aren't bad for you, but rather they're bad for you in the current context of your environment, health, and current dietary intake.

On the other hand, maybe they're just a bunch of things that are awful for your specific metabolism. Given the issues you posted, I probably wouldn't want to try it out if I were you.

mixmastamyk2• 13 years ago

I've been supportive of the idea of soylent, but this article actually made me worried, is it accurate?

Only rice protein? Not complete... there's a reason it is usually paired with beans.

That amount of carbs does not match the early human diet, but rather the modern one. Not the end of the world, though.

Also a physician isn't a dietitian/nutritionist. The fact they've brought the former on board instead of the latter is another unfortunate red flag re: cluelessness. Hopefully I've missed something.

asdasf10• 13 years ago

Wow, where to start. You are seriously repeating the protein combining myth? In 2013? Protein is measured by scaling its amino acid profile compared to the ideal for a human. 100g of rice protein provides 100g of usable protein for a human, the same as 100g of beef protein does. That 100g of rice protein is just significantly more than 100g of raw ingredient, as there's a bunch of "wasted" amino acids.

We have little to no evidence to support the paleo fad. Human beings have consumed grains for at least 100,000 years.

A physician is not a dietitian or a nutritionist. They are far more qualified. A dietitian requires simply a bachelor's degree in pretty much anything (social sciences is fine) and then a short internship where you learn to repeat what the book says. Nutritionist is just something anyone can call themselves with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever. Picking a doctor over those options is not a red flag.

mixmastamyk2• 13 years ago

As a sole nutrition source as soylent is, the increased biological value of vegetable protein combining would be a valuable improvement in efficiency. The "myth" is that micromanaging every meal is necessary (it's not), ... unless of course you are on a meal replacement product for weeks at a time.

A higher number of nutrition sources is better than a single one... a varied diet.

Grains, not in large quantity. Agriculture is about 10,000 years old. Yes, the diet of ~4 million years is a "fad" while the one 400 times shorter is normal. Taken to extreme, the modern diet, where everything is pumped full of sugar has lead to an obesity epidemic.

Also, physicians are far more qualified in other subjects and take only a fraction of the nutrition courses a dietitian would. There's a reason a doctor will refer you to one--it's not because they are less qualified.

cutie• 13 years ago

Astroturfer or troll?

ronaldx2• 13 years ago

"Rice protein is high in the sulfur-containing amino acids, cysteine and methionine, but low in lysine. Pea protein, on the other hand, is low in cysteine and methionine but high in lysine." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_protein]

Lysine is an essential amino acid, i.e. humans cannot produce it and need to ingest it from a protein source - otherwise, they can't synthesise protein.

There's a nutritional reason why pea protein should have been there - by taking out their lysine source, Soylent just got nutritionally less complete.

crististm• 13 years ago

"Dr F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer, a professor of medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and senior attending physician at St Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital and the New York-Presbyterian Hospital."

- that's one handful of buzzwords and reinforcement degrees to hush the infidels

patrickg_zill2• 13 years ago

It is absolutely ridiculous - if you want a real cutting edge diet, check out keto or paleo. Too many carbs, too processed, not enough (or any? not sure) animal protein.

That he would be quoted talking about "saturated fat" as if it is evil, shows how clueless he is.

psychometry2• 13 years ago

Soylent is not a diet; it is a food product. I don't think you understand the problem they're trying to solve. I can't go online and order a supply of keto, can I?

anonymoushn4• 13 years ago

You can go online and order a supply of 50/30/20 carbs/fat/protein, though.

TillE• 13 years ago

Animal protein is not remotely important. A proper mixture of vegetable proteins is as good or better.

Not sure if that's actually the case with Soylent, though.

patrickg_zill2• 13 years ago

There is a lot of debate about that, I wouldn't call it a settled issue on either side.

I have read enough that I have my position, that animal proteins are superior in practice (because vegetable proteins are theoretically good but the combination is trickier - a porterhouse steak requires no combination, having complete proteins throughout); but I accept that I could in the future be proven wrong by new findings.

simplemath3• 13 years ago

Anyone who would willingly forgo food for Soylent on any kind of ongoing basis should have their Homo Sapiens card revoked.

Eating healthy, delicious food (not mutually exclusive, for the record) is one of the simplest, most fundamental joys of existence.

tlb• 13 years ago

Like sex, delicious food is a fundamental joy of existence. But also like sex, eating 3 delicious meals a day is past the point of diminishing rewards.

I find I enjoy life most when I eat real, delicious, handmade food a few times a week in a relaxed setting with friends or family, and something quick and healthy I don't have to think about the rest of the time. Currently I alternate tuna+beans with protein shakes for the quick meals, but I can't wait for my Soylent to get here.

(I'm a Soylent investor)

simplemath3• 13 years ago

Eating 3 delicious meals a day is diminishing returns only if you consistently prepare one off meals with no leftovers. I understand using Soylent as an an occasional meal replacement, but Soylent's message has consistently been one of "food replacement" which while certainly provocative, I find antithetical to optimizing enjoying being alive

kazagistar3• 13 years ago

So is gardening. And running. And napping.

And a million other things that people enjoy but whose importance is entirely opinion based.

simplemath3• 13 years ago

I'd being willing to go out on a limb and say that eating cuts a little closer to instinct than anything on your list. Napping is pretty damn great, however.

awestroke• 13 years ago

I'm concerned about the macronutritient ratio... I mean, 50% carbonhydrates? Half of which (132g of 500g, according to the article) is maltodextrin (which has a higher glucemic index than SUGAR)? I don't consider a diet healthy if it consists of 25% sugar.

If they changed the ratio to perhaps 20/50/30 or similar and elimitated the sugar, I'd be interested.

maxk42• 13 years ago

Like many of you, I have some pretty serious concerns about soylent. I encourage you to check out http://diy.soylent.me/ and consider mixing your own formula or trying one of the others that have been developed in an open-source manner.

Soylent hits its 1.0 formula, nears release

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