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Soylent: The Totally Real Food Substitute That Totally Isn't Made of People (Probably)
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My last office asked a different food truck to set up outside the building each wednesday.
PSN/XBL: Zampanov -- Steam: Zampanov
I've seen them in Cali, Texas, Hawaii, and here in Maryland.
They tend to stick to places that have no food at all or a limited selection. I've usually seen them in office parks or military bases.
If you're not planning on replacing every meal with them, there's less importance placed on them being complete nutritionally (since you can make up any deficiencies with other foods). Something like Ensure would probably be fine, but from what I've seen prepared protein/diet shakes are kind of on the expensive side for what you get, and might not really do a great job of producing satiation if taken alone. I haven't tried them to say for myself, though.
gotcha
I've always worked near brick and mortar food places
PSN/XBL: Zampanov -- Steam: Zampanov
Foodtrucks are also a thing in DC.
Edit: oh god I almost forgot: Lusk, WY because a high school kid saw an opportunity and filled a need. You probably haven't heard of Lusk, I don't blame you. I think he actually sold his truck and business to his sister when he left for college, I am not joking.
There are two types of food trucks in CA and both are ubiquitous
There is the taco truck, which specifically cooks and sells Mexican food.
Then there is the lunch truck, which is basically a 7-11 on wheels. Prepackaged shit like chips and muffins, a pot of coffee, fresh fruit, soft drinks. Maybe they make sandwiches or maybe they just have premade sandwiches in saran wrap.
The former type, the taco tuck, is usually delicious and affordable. Serious, eat at a taco truck sometime when you're in California. You won't regret it. (Well, you might regret it - depends on how well your bowels adjust to delicious Mexican food. I refuse to accept blame if your intestine is weak like baby.)
The second type, the lunch truck, is more or less like eating at a convenience store. Expensive and disappointing. But they usually park in corporate parka, industrial zones, construction sites, and other places where people work far away from the nearest real food source.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
But those don't exist outside of the big cities.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Glad it is not just me.
I this this deserves a response. My inclination towards soylent, and any similar product, is not the result of some desire to maximize my productivity for the sake of appeasing some employer.
Eating sucks.
The next time you sit down to a meal with other people, or even yourself, listen to what's happening around you. It sounds like everyone is congested, and sniffing with their mouths. It is one of the worst sounds. And if the sound were not bad enough, there is the chewing. Where you take a solid, and turn it into a liquid...in your mouth. And then little bits of that solid get stuck in your teeth, so you have to floss and brush and engage in more unpleasantries.
Not everyone enjoys their embodiment.
Edit: Here. Visual aid.
Skip to 12:30
But I'd have to disagree that it feels gross.
Nothing feels better than eating when you're hungry, drinking when you're thirsty, or sleeping when you're tired.
Same with sauces, preparation-methods, pizzas, et c.
How dare you like gruel? You must hate food, unlike me, who loves food, except for all the things I don't like.
You have ideas? You try things? Make new recipes? That's disgusting! Don't you know the traditions?
So I had to make a substitution....
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
We had food trucks come to our work literally every day of the week at my old place. We were a big gov't contractor though and in the middle of an area filled with those types, so we organized it and then some people from other places would come over and grab lunch in our little courtyard area.
It was awesome.
This is another criticism that seems odd.
"Snake oil" is usually a pejorative term for fraudulent health products. "X will cure your gout!" when X does not, in fact, cure gout.
Soylent would not seem to count as snake oil. It doesn't cure anything...unless we consider "death by starvation" a disease.
Man there are -alot- of people that don't understand what "snake oil" actually is.
So far I only see soylent having committed the crime of having a shitty name. Maybe unsafe manufacturing?
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38741401/ns/health-food_safety/t/recall-expands-more-half-billion-eggs/#.U_ic1mOrjIk
anyone remember that?
Glad you shared your opinion on eating. But what I was referring to is a major point in the marketing of this product. They are trying to sell this to people by telling them "hey, it sure sucks to stop producing and relax for 20 minutes a day, here, for a reasonable price you can make sure you use those 20 minutes working more instead", and people are loving it, and I feel a strong rejection towards the whole thing.
As for the emotional reaction to this product well yes, I have a strong emotional response to a guy telling me he has invented a goop that can substitute "traditional" food and that is a wonder because he has like hacked the system, man, and this is going to come out of tap and solve world hunger and is also totally eco-friendly. This emotional reaction is: this guy is full of shit.
To this emotional reaction, another different one follows when it turns out this product is flour, whey protein and some supplements blended together. So, in short, it is a homemade recipe for the liquid food that doctors and bodybuilders have known for ages, it's pretty much traditional food thrown into a blender. After the marketing presenting it as a world-shattering, sci-fi food the emotional reaction I get is anger, because clearly this guy is trying to take me for a complete moron. It's like edible bitcoins.
As for the product itself well, I have nothing against the concept itself. If you think eating is gross or don't have time and prefer to live on protein shakes then more power to you. There is a discussion to be had about this concept so prevalent among some people that the mind is completely detached from the body, and the body is nothing but a very inconvenient meat cell, but it's a discussion for another time and another thread.
And I'm not a huge foodie but I still make sure to take 30 minutes at the middle of the day to enjoy the food in my uni cafeteria, which is usually cheap and good (I really look forward to the breaded fish on fridays) and eat, have a coffee, relax and think about stuff that's not work.
And yet it's advertised as anything but mundane. A point that you seem to be skilfully dodging. I personally have never complained that people have different priorities to mine, my beef is what this guys is saying his product is vs. what his product really is.
If I say: "this water will quench your thirst and cure cancer!" and turns out it doesn't cure cancer people will be pissed at me, and saying "hey, but it DOES quench your thirst, doesn't it, why so negative?" is not a very compelling counter-argument.
Like I said earlier, snake oil is a specific kind of bullshit claim.
You can think the claim that soylent will cure world hunger is total bullshit (I do), but that doesent make it snake oil bullshit.
http://www.metromedicalonline.com/j53118c.html?gclid=CNmvt_vYpr4CFUuXOgodKj4ABw#.U_it0WOKXKG
This is food for tube-feeding hospital patients. You can get a case of 24 cans (1 can is supposed to be good enough for a meal) for 48 dollars, which makes 2 dollars a meal and you don't need to order ingredients separately.
The nutrition information seems to suggest that the cans are 285 calories, so you'd be looking at 7 cans a day for a 2000 calorie diet.
To me its the claims that Soylent is scientifically arrived at. Its not. not even close. self-experimentation and blog are not the equal to a case study published for peer review.
And then having people getting gosey when its pointed out that the creator of Soylent is at best an enthusiastic amateur without any professional qualification whatsoever.
If you want a liquid diet, try one designed by an actual professional dietitian.
Right, so not cheaper. But still probably better, you can always buy some flour and "mod" it. Or maybe sugar.
Its made for comatose bedridden hospital patients.
I think the average person burns more calories by thinking in the course of a day then what this provides(in a single meal).
Guys?
Guys?
The substitution was people.
It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks and become one with all the people.
Chairman Sheng-ji Yang
"Ethics for Tomorrow"
I just checked out the site and watched the commercial and it felt just like a Veridian Dynamics commercial from Better of Ted.
I could say the same goddamned thing about protein shakes and supplements for bodybuilders as some of you are saying about soylent.
"Oh, so you don't want to spend time eating like a normal person and getting your nutrients like -everyone- else? You must just want to get to work for your corporate overlords and not waste any of their precious time or money you corporate slave."
You got it all backwards. The ones saying "hey, isn't eating a waste of time when you could be working instead" are Soylent themselves. Some of us are just horrified that they consider it a selling point.
The synthetic milk thing is much more interesting, though.
This kind is all over Sacramento, and the food is generally delicious, if overpriced. Also unhealthy as all get out.
Why?
This again seems to be you horrified at the thought that people don't put eating at the same priority you do. That is absolutely a selling point for me since it means I can leave work that much earlier.