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Soylent: The Totally Real Food Substitute That Totally Isn't Made of People (Probably)

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Posts

  • Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    edited August 2014
    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.

    I get the feeling that the Soylent people primarily think of "work" to be "editing the music video for your indie electronica band's first single" and "coding your new killer app", not "filling out expense reports" or "promoting synergy".

    Hexmage-PA on
  • TraceTrace GNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam We Registered User regular
    Trace wrote: »
    You know what.

    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.
    _J_ wrote: »
    As J has noted, the emotional reactions people have to everything about this concept are baffling to me. We can argue about a lot of things, but I have no idea how one addresses "this is so stupid I'm not going to talk about it. But I will make sure I keep telling everyone they're stupid."

    Glad it is not just me.
    People considering eating a hassle and a waste of time is fucking horrible for me in general. And it's bad enough for society to be at the point where eating is considered a waste of perfectly good time you could spend producing for your corporate overlords, but it's even worse that people are apparently willing to pay a reasonable price for their own dystopia, it's like straight out a Futurama episode.

    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.
    • It sounds gross.
    • It feels gross.

    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.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuCU6MHF6d8

    Skip to 12:30

    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.

    They're saying eating is a waste of time, sure.

    But you're putting it together with crap like what's bolded.

    No one is telling the people drinking soylent that they can't take their full fucking lunch break if they want it, are they?

  • TraceTrace GNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam We Registered User regular
    Hexmage-PA wrote: »
    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.

    I get the feeling that the Soylent people primarily think of "work" to be "editing the music video for your indie electronica band's first single" and "coding your new killer app", not "filling out expense reports" or "promoting synergy".

    -goose-

  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLw5P2Yk4mo

    But seriously there are some jobs where it is impossible to eat as a social activity for at least 1 meal a day, and that's not changing ever.

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
  • AustralopitenicoAustralopitenico Registered User regular
    edited August 2014
    Quid wrote: »
    Trace wrote: »
    You know what.

    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.

    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.

    I just don't like the "you have to be constantly productive and hyperefficient" philosophy they are pushing. Am I not allowed to have my own priorities and expressing them on this thread? I specifically and repeatedly said that was a personal view and that people can of course do whatever the fuck they want.

    Australopitenico on
  • Nova_CNova_C I have the need The need for speedRegistered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Trace wrote: »
    You know what.

    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.

    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.

    I just don't like the "you have to be constantly productive and hyperefficient" philosophy they are pushing. Am I not allowed to have my own priorities and expressing them on this thread? I specifically and repeatedly said that was a personal view and that people can of course do whatever the fuck they want.

    Except that lots of people feel that way about eating. That it gets in the way of doing things they want to do, which has the unfortunate side effect of some people not getting enough nutrition. Just because one of their marketing avenues doesn't appeal directly to you doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. I mean, I don't give a shit about Windows productivity marketing, doesn't mean I think Microsoft should not be selling Windows on it's business advantages.

  • AustralopitenicoAustralopitenico Registered User regular
    edited August 2014
    Nova_C wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Trace wrote: »
    You know what.

    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.

    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.

    I just don't like the "you have to be constantly productive and hyperefficient" philosophy they are pushing. Am I not allowed to have my own priorities and expressing them on this thread? I specifically and repeatedly said that was a personal view and that people can of course do whatever the fuck they want.

    Except that lots of people feel that way about eating. That it gets in the way of doing things they want to do, which has the unfortunate side effect of some people not getting enough nutrition. Just because one of their marketing avenues doesn't appeal directly to you doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. I mean, I don't give a shit about Windows productivity marketing, doesn't mean I think Microsoft should not be selling Windows on it's business advantages.

    Only I never said the product was bad because of that or that it should not be sold or that it should not be used.

    Australopitenico on
  • Nova_CNova_C I have the need The need for speedRegistered User regular
    Nova_C wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Trace wrote: »
    You know what.

    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.

    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.

    I just don't like the "you have to be constantly productive and hyperefficient" philosophy they are pushing. Am I not allowed to have my own priorities and expressing them on this thread? I specifically and repeatedly said that was a personal view and that people can of course do whatever the fuck they want.

    Except that lots of people feel that way about eating. That it gets in the way of doing things they want to do, which has the unfortunate side effect of some people not getting enough nutrition. Just because one of their marketing avenues doesn't appeal directly to you doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. I mean, I don't give a shit about Windows productivity marketing, doesn't mean I think Microsoft should not be selling Windows on it's business advantages.

    Only I never said the product was bad because of that or that it should not be sold or that it should not be used.

    I know. I never said you did.

  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    well I'm glad that's sorted

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
  • FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    There are days when I'd probably use Soylent to substitute for breakfast.

    I love food. But I'm also not a morning person by any stretch. I don't have the wherewithall in the early morning to really appreciate my food. At 7am, I'm a zombie looking to kickstart my day with any convenient source of nutrients and caffeine.

    That said, I am beyond skeptical that this is safe as a total food replacement for long periods of time.

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    Thing about Soylent that sets it apart from all other dietary supplements is that its goal isn't to replace a meal, but to replace all meals, every day, forever. The proper Soylent customer eats nothing but Soylent. That is the designers goal.

    Its one thing to replace a meal(like breakfast) with a protein shake, its quite another thing to eat nothing but Protein shakes.

    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • ChanusChanus Harbinger of the Spicy Rooster Apocalypse The Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User regular
    well, i mean, pizza isn't meant to be eaten by one person in a single sitting, but i do it all the time

    you don't have to do what people tell you to do

    Allegedly a voice of reason.
  • JuliusJulius Captain of Serenity on my shipRegistered User regular
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Thing about Soylent that sets it apart from all other dietary supplements is that its goal isn't to replace a meal, but to replace all meals, every day, forever. The proper Soylent customer eats nothing but Soylent. That is the designers goal.

    Its one thing to replace a meal(like breakfast) with a protein shake, its quite another thing to eat nothing but Protein shakes.

    I see little reason to care about the designers goal. If you want to use it to just replace your breakfast there is nothing stopping you from doing so.

  • Nova_CNova_C I have the need The need for speedRegistered User regular
    Chanus wrote: »
    well, i mean, pizza isn't meant to be eaten by one person in a single sitting, but i do it all the time

    you don't have to do what people tell you to do

    Your not my real dad!

    I've been very interested in trying Soylent, but I don't think I can even order it yet from Canada. I wouldn't use it as 100% of my meals, though. I would probably replace breakfast altogether with it, because breakfast is dumb. I would replace lunch five days a week. I'd still eat proper food for supper I think.

  • japanjapan Registered User regular
    Feral wrote: »
    There are days when I'd probably use Soylent to substitute for breakfast.

    I love food. But I'm also not a morning person by any stretch. I don't have the wherewithall in the early morning to really appreciate my food. At 7am, I'm a zombie looking to kickstart my day with any convenient source of nutrients and caffeine.

    That said, I am beyond skeptical that this is safe as a total food replacement for long periods of time.

    What's interesting to me is that reports of experiences seem to vary pretty widely, from constantly feeling great to feeling really shitty and constantly hungry

    I suspect that the standard formulation just doesn't necessarily work for everyone, so it's likely safe for most people, most of the time, but if it isn't figuring that out, and in particular figuring out why, is going to be non-trivial

    Having said that there are plenty of people that eat very restricted diets with very little variety, and I'm not sure that this stuff is intrinsically worse than doing that. The primary difference is that someone that habitually eats the same things everyday is not consuming things that are being sold as complete foods

    I'm vaguely wondering about giving this a go with one of the diy mixes to replace breakfast and lunch on weekdays, given I'm not getting any particular enjoyment or variety out of those meals anyway

  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Feral wrote: »
    There are days when I'd probably use Soylent to substitute for breakfast.

    I love food. But I'm also not a morning person by any stretch. I don't have the wherewithall in the early morning to really appreciate my food. At 7am, I'm a zombie looking to kickstart my day with any convenient source of nutrients and caffeine.

    That said, I am beyond skeptical that this is safe as a total food replacement for long periods of time.

    Actually, I probably wouldn't use it period. Not because the name is terrible nor because of where I first heard the term soylent. Well those two things don't help. I wouldn't use it because I'm seeing little that conveniences me that the creator has a good understanding of proper nutrition. This strikes me as one of those things, where no, I do not want to take an amateur's word for it.

    If I'm going to eat some sort of nutritional liquid that's suppose to replace a meal completely, I damn well better get all my nutrients. Otherwise, I might as well spend a few extra minutes, just tracking down some carrots, yogurt, water and slice of whole grain bread. Maybe get a handful of nuts to go with it or switch the carrots out for an apple. You know, for the meals where I'm pressed for time. I'm still skipping breakfast in most cases or like grapping a slice of cheese, some carrots or a handful nuts if I do feel hungry in the day, so that I can get to lunch without having to prepare breakfast.

  • FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    Julius wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Thing about Soylent that sets it apart from all other dietary supplements is that its goal isn't to replace a meal, but to replace all meals, every day, forever. The proper Soylent customer eats nothing but Soylent. That is the designers goal.

    Its one thing to replace a meal(like breakfast) with a protein shake, its quite another thing to eat nothing but Protein shakes.

    I see little reason to care about the designers goal. If you want to use it to just replace your breakfast there is nothing stopping you from doing so.

    The way a food (or drug) product is labeled and marketed is very important. Arguably, the FDA's primary power is to control labeling and marketing.

    We don't need to conform to the designer's goal, but if the designer is making claims about the safety or efficacy of his product that he cannot support, then that is an ethical, regulatory, and public safety issue.

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    Mill wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    There are days when I'd probably use Soylent to substitute for breakfast.

    I love food. But I'm also not a morning person by any stretch. I don't have the wherewithall in the early morning to really appreciate my food. At 7am, I'm a zombie looking to kickstart my day with any convenient source of nutrients and caffeine.

    That said, I am beyond skeptical that this is safe as a total food replacement for long periods of time.

    Actually, I probably wouldn't use it period. Not because the name is terrible nor because of where I first heard the term soylent. Well those two things don't help. I wouldn't use it because I'm seeing little that conveniences me that the creator has a good understanding of proper nutrition. This strikes me as one of those things, where no, I do not want to take an amateur's word for it.

    If I'm going to eat some sort of nutritional liquid that's suppose to replace a meal completely, I damn well better get all my nutrients. Otherwise, I might as well spend a few extra minutes, just tracking down some carrots, yogurt, water and slice of whole grain bread. Maybe get a handful of nuts to go with it or switch the carrots out for an apple. You know, for the meals where I'm pressed for time. I'm still skipping breakfast in most cases or like grapping a slice of cheese, some carrots or a handful nuts if I do feel hungry in the day, so that I can get to lunch without having to prepare breakfast.

    Oh, I totally sympathize with this.

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • Peter EbelPeter Ebel CopenhagenRegistered User regular
    As someone who loves food and the preparation thereof, I can totally see the utility of just downing a semi healthy nutrient slurry and getting back to whatever it is you were doing. As a matter of fact, that's pretty much how I treat my lunch anyways. I mostly eat yoghurt with blended berries and flaxseed meal. If I need pleasure, I'll get it from coffee.

    Fuck off and die.
  • TOGSolidTOGSolid Drunk sailor Seattle, WashingtonRegistered User regular
    edited August 2014
    https://faq.soylent.me/hc/en-us
    "Who is Soylent?"

    Great choice of words of greatest choice of words?

    TOGSolid on
    wWuzwvJ.png
  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    Feral wrote: »
    Julius wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Thing about Soylent that sets it apart from all other dietary supplements is that its goal isn't to replace a meal, but to replace all meals, every day, forever. The proper Soylent customer eats nothing but Soylent. That is the designers goal.

    Its one thing to replace a meal(like breakfast) with a protein shake, its quite another thing to eat nothing but Protein shakes.

    I see little reason to care about the designers goal. If you want to use it to just replace your breakfast there is nothing stopping you from doing so.

    The way a food (or drug) product is labeled and marketed is very important. Arguably, the FDA's primary power is to control labeling and marketing.

    We don't need to conform to the designer's goal, but if the designer is making claims about the safety or efficacy of his product that he cannot support, then that is an ethical, regulatory, and public safety issue.

    My impression about nutrition is that most people now think you should eat a wide variety of fresh produce, and furthermore that it's generally a bad idea to try to replace the varied fresh produce with supplements because we are more certain that, say, a plum has something good in it than we are certain that we've managed to extract and preserve whatever those good things are. But if that's is true, then trying to mix a constant nutrient slurry out of base calories and supplements as a complete diet is a bad plan from the perspective of health, whatever else it may have going for it. That's not to say that it can't have lots of other great things going for it. But the selling point of complete nutrition seems really dubious to me, and so also dubious for manufacturers to market it as such.

  • JuliusJulius Captain of Serenity on my shipRegistered User regular
    Feral wrote: »
    Julius wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Thing about Soylent that sets it apart from all other dietary supplements is that its goal isn't to replace a meal, but to replace all meals, every day, forever. The proper Soylent customer eats nothing but Soylent. That is the designers goal.

    Its one thing to replace a meal(like breakfast) with a protein shake, its quite another thing to eat nothing but Protein shakes.

    I see little reason to care about the designers goal. If you want to use it to just replace your breakfast there is nothing stopping you from doing so.

    The way a food (or drug) product is labeled and marketed is very important. Arguably, the FDA's primary power is to control labeling and marketing.

    We don't need to conform to the designer's goal, but if the designer is making claims about the safety or efficacy of his product that he cannot support, then that is an ethical, regulatory, and public safety issue.

    Right but at the moment this is not yet an issue I think. Like, it is a social media buzz and little else.

  • TraceTrace GNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam We Registered User regular
    Has anyone died from this yet?

  • Casual EddyCasual Eddy The Astral PlaneRegistered User regular
    Eating good food is one of my greatest pleasures in life. So is making sweet love to a beautiful man, drinking fine wine and whiskey, and playing awesome video games

    I find it sort of weird to be accused of being a robot if I can't find the time, money, or inclination to do all of those 3 times a day and thus look for easier substitutes . In the mornings I barely have time to make a nespresso much less eat a full breakfast. Eating a decent lunch at work means blowing 60 or so dollars a week or spending time preparing, packing, eating, then cleaning up packed lunches

    Then when I get home I can either summon the willpower to half assedly cook something healthy despite how cranky and tired I am or eat some bread and cheese and hummus

    Oh but at least I'm not drinking soylent I guess? I don't know why people get so defensive over this. YOURE DOING IT WRONG kind of stuff

  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    MrMister wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Julius wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Thing about Soylent that sets it apart from all other dietary supplements is that its goal isn't to replace a meal, but to replace all meals, every day, forever. The proper Soylent customer eats nothing but Soylent. That is the designers goal.

    Its one thing to replace a meal(like breakfast) with a protein shake, its quite another thing to eat nothing but Protein shakes.

    I see little reason to care about the designers goal. If you want to use it to just replace your breakfast there is nothing stopping you from doing so.

    The way a food (or drug) product is labeled and marketed is very important. Arguably, the FDA's primary power is to control labeling and marketing.

    We don't need to conform to the designer's goal, but if the designer is making claims about the safety or efficacy of his product that he cannot support, then that is an ethical, regulatory, and public safety issue.

    My impression about nutrition is that most people now think you should eat a wide variety of fresh produce, and furthermore that it's generally a bad idea to try to replace the varied fresh produce with supplements because we are more certain that, say, a plum has something good in it than we are certain that we've managed to extract and preserve whatever those good things are. But if that's is true, then trying to mix a constant nutrient slurry out of base calories and supplements as a complete diet is a bad plan from the perspective of health, whatever else it may have going for it. That's not to say that it can't have lots of other great things going for it. But the selling point of complete nutrition seems really dubious to me, and so also dubious for manufacturers to market it as such.

    I am unsure to what extent this sentiment is true, though, and to what extent it's just another example of people fetishizing the natural. It's entirely possible that there is some essential plumness that we can't yet recreate, but I don't know if there's any evidence of this beyond standard boilerplate about MAN PLAYING GOD and whatnot.

    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    edited August 2014
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    MrMister wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Julius wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Thing about Soylent that sets it apart from all other dietary supplements is that its goal isn't to replace a meal, but to replace all meals, every day, forever. The proper Soylent customer eats nothing but Soylent. That is the designers goal.

    Its one thing to replace a meal(like breakfast) with a protein shake, its quite another thing to eat nothing but Protein shakes.

    I see little reason to care about the designers goal. If you want to use it to just replace your breakfast there is nothing stopping you from doing so.

    The way a food (or drug) product is labeled and marketed is very important. Arguably, the FDA's primary power is to control labeling and marketing.

    We don't need to conform to the designer's goal, but if the designer is making claims about the safety or efficacy of his product that he cannot support, then that is an ethical, regulatory, and public safety issue.

    My impression about nutrition is that most people now think you should eat a wide variety of fresh produce, and furthermore that it's generally a bad idea to try to replace the varied fresh produce with supplements because we are more certain that, say, a plum has something good in it than we are certain that we've managed to extract and preserve whatever those good things are. But if that's is true, then trying to mix a constant nutrient slurry out of base calories and supplements as a complete diet is a bad plan from the perspective of health, whatever else it may have going for it. That's not to say that it can't have lots of other great things going for it. But the selling point of complete nutrition seems really dubious to me, and so also dubious for manufacturers to market it as such.

    I am unsure to what extent this sentiment is true, though, and to what extent it's just another example of people fetishizing the natural. It's entirely possible that there is some essential plumness that we can't yet recreate, but I don't know if there's any evidence of this beyond standard boilerplate about MAN PLAYING GOD and whatnot.

    The real issue is it's more likely to be a mismatch between the generally poor spectrum of food variety people might normally eat, the variety people on a specific food-related health kick will eat.

    Because the reality of a lot of thoughts about complex nutrients and the like is that it all kind of dies on the altar of your stomach being full of powerful acids that turn everything into a slurry. For example, anything you've heard about anti-oxidants is essentially garbage: no one actually knows what they do or not do, and the studies which show biological effect fail to show whether anti-oxidants can actually survive the digestive system and be absorbed. But, you need "X" for antioxidants has been advertised as conventional wisdom for a very long time - even though it's anything but.

    Conversely - diets which are thought to be conventionally impossible actually do turn out to work - the all-meat diet experiment which was designed to test whether the Inuit actually could have had such a thing. I find that experiment particularly interesting in regards to Soylent, because the development process is essentially exactly the same: check the basic requirements, do frequent health checks and see what happens. It also didn't go completely smoothly, they they did identify the problems as they went.

    EDIT: Also, the "eat a wide variety of fresh produce" idea really doesn't tally with the breadth of human experience on the planet. It's very western-first world centric. The ability to grow and ship a wide variety of produce doesn't tally with human history, and while you could argue that our health was probably worse back then, it's not really clear that that is so obvious. You could very easily note that the wide variety of cooking styles we developed, and various controlled aging processes, is more indicative that most populations kind of hunted around for ways to grow up different nutrients in a limited selection of foodstuffs.

    electricitylikesme on
  • Casual EddyCasual Eddy The Astral PlaneRegistered User regular
    Wait... I also recall every "I ate noting but soy lent" article including a disclaimer about how the makers of Soylent don't actually suggest you should eat nothing but soy lent, but you presumably could

  • redxredx I(x)=2(x)+1 whole numbersRegistered User regular
    Additional conversity microflora are frequently found by real scientists to exist in the guts of mamals and to play significant roles in metabolic heath.

    Eating noting but one type of ultra processed food probably is not going to have great effects on this, and thing like the presence of certain microflora have been linked to decrease obesity.

    They moistly come out at night, moistly.
  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    redx wrote: »
    Additional conversity microflora are frequently found by real scientists to exist in the guts of mamals and to play significant roles in metabolic heath.

    Eating noting but one type of ultra processed food probably is not going to have great effects on this, and thing like the presence of certain microflora have been linked to decrease obesity.

    This isn't at all clear.

    The main thing that medicine currently believes is that it is possible to get a gut culture shift which leads to long term problems. I've been on courses of antibiotics for exactly this reason, and it does in fact make a huge difference within a matter of days - there are 2 (which I've taken) which are essentially marketed for gut fauna balancing.

    The thing is, bacteria don't really work the way you're implying. At best a varied diet can only leave circumstances in the gut suitable for one species at any one time, and then you hope over the course of a week you annihilate that population quickly enough that no one thing takes over. But there's no actual reason to think you couldn't do this by eating exactly the same thing either, and ensuring you never favored one population or another too readily.

    i.e. I am lactose intolerant, and the reason that causes problems is because I don't absorb lactose, which means any lactose-metabolizing bacteria (basically all of them) get a sudden population explosion.

    The other thing is that microbiomics is a very young field, and the obvious things being concluded from it...aren't so obvious, statistically. It's very much premature to assume homogeneity would be a problem.

  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited August 2014
    Trace wrote: »
    Has anyone died from this yet?

    this seems profoundly unlikely

    Mountain Dew is almost certainly worse for you than Soylent unless they're flat out lying about the ingredients

    I mean you can live on nothing but whole milk for like, years

    there are long term health concerns related to it, but it's not poison and humans are ridiculously adaptable. If soylent causes serious health issues it will be many months or years down the road (beyond just not feeling well which happens with radical diet changes), that's why the concept of it makes me extremely hesitant

    If you just use it to replace breakfast there's very little chance of anything bad happening

    override367 on
  • juggerbotjuggerbot NebraskaRegistered User regular
    The places I've seen food trucks (since I brought it up): Omaha,NE, for no known reason, Laramie, WY, because college town, Sidney, NE, because there is a weird imbalance of office workers to available food sources.

    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.

    How Sidney has food trucks and Lincoln does not (as far as I've seen) I cannot fathom.

    I'm primarily hoping to have more time for lunch at work with Soylent. Currently the routine is to drive to $fastfoodplace and pay $5-10 for some unhealthy crap that I get to snarf down in the remaining 10 minutes of my break. With Soylent, I could spend the entire half hour leisurely sipping my nutrient slurry and watching TV in the break room. And if it could also save me time cooking at home (again for more leisure), then all the better.

    I also tried the DIY Bachelor Chow 2.0 for a time, but stopped for a few reasons. Sourcing the stuff was kind of a pain, especially when you had to try to plan ahead on what you would run out of first. The consistency of it was also difficult to find a bottle to hold it that wouldnt get clogged. Kept me filled though.

    I'm mostly frustrated at how long it's taken. I also have had an order for nearly a year, and i fully expect to wait till next year before i see it, due to their asinine order fulfillment scheme.

  • DehumanizedDehumanized Registered User regular
    the newer recipe of bachelor chow (people chow) is much easier to source. blender bottles helps a bunch with mixing batches up.

  • kedinikkedinik Captain of Industry Registered User regular
    edited August 2014
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    MrMister wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Julius wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Thing about Soylent that sets it apart from all other dietary supplements is that its goal isn't to replace a meal, but to replace all meals, every day, forever. The proper Soylent customer eats nothing but Soylent. That is the designers goal.

    Its one thing to replace a meal(like breakfast) with a protein shake, its quite another thing to eat nothing but Protein shakes.

    I see little reason to care about the designers goal. If you want to use it to just replace your breakfast there is nothing stopping you from doing so.

    The way a food (or drug) product is labeled and marketed is very important. Arguably, the FDA's primary power is to control labeling and marketing.

    We don't need to conform to the designer's goal, but if the designer is making claims about the safety or efficacy of his product that he cannot support, then that is an ethical, regulatory, and public safety issue.

    My impression about nutrition is that most people now think you should eat a wide variety of fresh produce, and furthermore that it's generally a bad idea to try to replace the varied fresh produce with supplements because we are more certain that, say, a plum has something good in it than we are certain that we've managed to extract and preserve whatever those good things are. But if that's is true, then trying to mix a constant nutrient slurry out of base calories and supplements as a complete diet is a bad plan from the perspective of health, whatever else it may have going for it. That's not to say that it can't have lots of other great things going for it. But the selling point of complete nutrition seems really dubious to me, and so also dubious for manufacturers to market it as such.

    I am unsure to what extent this sentiment is true, though, and to what extent it's just another example of people fetishizing the natural. It's entirely possible that there is some essential plumness that we can't yet recreate, but I don't know if there's any evidence of this beyond standard boilerplate about MAN PLAYING GOD and whatnot.

    I'm reasonably sure the main difference between pills and food is that our stomachs aren't as good at absorbing things contained in pills.

    Like, maybe you'll get 20% lower absorption with a calcium pill compared to the calcium in a fruit.

    So put 25% more calcium into the pill and there's generally no observable nutritional difference, as far as getting enough calcium.

    kedinik on
    I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    I wouldn't think you'd get lower absorption if it was ground up into a heavy liquid shake

  • kedinikkedinik Captain of Industry Registered User regular
    edited August 2014
    I wouldn't think you'd get lower absorption if it was ground up into a heavy liquid shake

    Maybe, I dunno.

    Though it can help absorption to hold chemicals in a well-structured solid, like a bit of fruit or a well-designed pill. Helps enzymes to hit the chemicals just so, or something like that.

    kedinik on
    I made a game! Hotline Maui. Requires mouse and keyboard.
  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    MrMister wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Julius wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Thing about Soylent that sets it apart from all other dietary supplements is that its goal isn't to replace a meal, but to replace all meals, every day, forever. The proper Soylent customer eats nothing but Soylent. That is the designers goal.

    Its one thing to replace a meal(like breakfast) with a protein shake, its quite another thing to eat nothing but Protein shakes.

    I see little reason to care about the designers goal. If you want to use it to just replace your breakfast there is nothing stopping you from doing so.

    The way a food (or drug) product is labeled and marketed is very important. Arguably, the FDA's primary power is to control labeling and marketing.

    We don't need to conform to the designer's goal, but if the designer is making claims about the safety or efficacy of his product that he cannot support, then that is an ethical, regulatory, and public safety issue.

    My impression about nutrition is that most people now think you should eat a wide variety of fresh produce, and furthermore that it's generally a bad idea to try to replace the varied fresh produce with supplements because we are more certain that, say, a plum has something good in it than we are certain that we've managed to extract and preserve whatever those good things are. But if that's is true, then trying to mix a constant nutrient slurry out of base calories and supplements as a complete diet is a bad plan from the perspective of health, whatever else it may have going for it. That's not to say that it can't have lots of other great things going for it. But the selling point of complete nutrition seems really dubious to me, and so also dubious for manufacturers to market it as such.

    I am unsure to what extent this sentiment is true, though, and to what extent it's just another example of people fetishizing the natural. It's entirely possible that there is some essential plumness that we can't yet recreate, but I don't know if there's any evidence of this beyond standard boilerplate about MAN PLAYING GOD and whatnot.

    I think it's less some misguided reverence for nature as such than it is just the state of the science. Again, this is just my impression, but my impression is that the cheapest, easiest, and most common research methodology in nutrition science goes something like this: conduct a large-scale population study correlating some food type to some beneficial health outcome, control for some obvious common causes (do only rich people eat this food? do only physically active people eat this food? etc.), and then if a positive effect remains, start positing some sketchy mechanisms that might account for it (such-and-such chemical may regulate the so-and-so system). But an offshoot of this methodology is that the last step is sketchiest; we're going to wind up being more sure that such-and-such food reduces chronic inflammation than we are going to be of any particular mechanism by which it might accomplish that. Of course, in the end we eventually want arrive at a good understanding of the mechanisms, not least because that would make it easier to intervene on them by way of e.g. making maximally nourishing nutrient slurries. But that's harder to get and, at the moment, more speculative than our knowledge of the positive effects of various foods.
    Also, the "eat a wide variety of fresh produce" idea really doesn't tally with the breadth of human experience on the planet. It's very western-first world centric. The ability to grow and ship a wide variety of produce doesn't tally with human history, and while you could argue that our health was probably worse back then, it's not really clear that that is so obvious. You could very easily note that the wide variety of cooking styles we developed, and various controlled aging processes, is more indicative that most populations kind of hunted around for ways to grow up different nutrients in a limited selection of foodstuffs.

    I doubt that you need to literally eat every plant to get a nutritionally optimal diet (and who really needs a nutritionally optimal diet anyway? --nutritionally adequate is a better standard). Even within local ecosystems there can be a wide variety of foods available, more at least than the average person eats.

    On the subject of the health comparison with the past, it strikes me that it's not straightforward. You'd have to control both for the other (very dramatic) changes in our living situation and for the fact that most modern people, beset as we are by health issues, are not actually eating the varied diet under recommendation, and so in their aggregate health statistics do not really serve as an experimental group for testing its efficacy. In any case, I would not be at all surprised if the conveniences of modern life enable us make our diets better than those of our forefathers, and don't see anything western-first-world-centric about that.

  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    MrMister wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    MrMister wrote: »
    Feral wrote: »
    Julius wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    Thing about Soylent that sets it apart from all other dietary supplements is that its goal isn't to replace a meal, but to replace all meals, every day, forever. The proper Soylent customer eats nothing but Soylent. That is the designers goal.

    Its one thing to replace a meal(like breakfast) with a protein shake, its quite another thing to eat nothing but Protein shakes.

    I see little reason to care about the designers goal. If you want to use it to just replace your breakfast there is nothing stopping you from doing so.

    The way a food (or drug) product is labeled and marketed is very important. Arguably, the FDA's primary power is to control labeling and marketing.

    We don't need to conform to the designer's goal, but if the designer is making claims about the safety or efficacy of his product that he cannot support, then that is an ethical, regulatory, and public safety issue.

    My impression about nutrition is that most people now think you should eat a wide variety of fresh produce, and furthermore that it's generally a bad idea to try to replace the varied fresh produce with supplements because we are more certain that, say, a plum has something good in it than we are certain that we've managed to extract and preserve whatever those good things are. But if that's is true, then trying to mix a constant nutrient slurry out of base calories and supplements as a complete diet is a bad plan from the perspective of health, whatever else it may have going for it. That's not to say that it can't have lots of other great things going for it. But the selling point of complete nutrition seems really dubious to me, and so also dubious for manufacturers to market it as such.

    I am unsure to what extent this sentiment is true, though, and to what extent it's just another example of people fetishizing the natural. It's entirely possible that there is some essential plumness that we can't yet recreate, but I don't know if there's any evidence of this beyond standard boilerplate about MAN PLAYING GOD and whatnot.

    I think it's less some misguided reverence for nature as such than it is just the state of the science. Again, this is just my impression, but my impression is that the cheapest, easiest, and most common research methodology in nutrition science goes something like this: conduct a large-scale population study correlating some food type to some beneficial health outcome, control for some obvious common causes (do only rich people eat this food? do only physically active people eat this food? etc.), and then if a positive effect remains, start positing some sketchy mechanisms that might account for it (such-and-such chemical may regulate the so-and-so system). But an offshoot of this methodology is that the last step is sketchiest; we're going to wind up being more sure that such-and-such food reduces chronic inflammation than we are going to be of any particular mechanism by which it might accomplish that. Of course, in the end we eventually want arrive at a good understanding of the mechanisms, not least because that would make it easier to intervene on them by way of e.g. making maximally nourishing nutrient slurries. But that's harder to get and, at the moment, more speculative than our knowledge of the positive effects of various foods.
    Also, the "eat a wide variety of fresh produce" idea really doesn't tally with the breadth of human experience on the planet. It's very western-first world centric. The ability to grow and ship a wide variety of produce doesn't tally with human history, and while you could argue that our health was probably worse back then, it's not really clear that that is so obvious. You could very easily note that the wide variety of cooking styles we developed, and various controlled aging processes, is more indicative that most populations kind of hunted around for ways to grow up different nutrients in a limited selection of foodstuffs.

    I doubt that you need to literally eat every plant to get a nutritionally optimal diet (and who really needs a nutritionally optimal diet anyway? --nutritionally adequate is a better standard). Even within local ecosystems there can be a wide variety of foods available, more at least than the average person eats.

    On the subject of the health comparison with the past, it strikes me that it's not straightforward. You'd have to control both for the other (very dramatic) changes in our living situation and for the fact that most modern people, beset as we are by health issues, are not actually eating the varied diet under recommendation, and so in their aggregate health statistics do not really serve as an experimental group for testing its efficacy. In any case, I would not be at all surprised if the conveniences of modern life enable us make our diets better than those of our forefathers, and don't see anything western-first-world-centric about that.

    If by better you mean fatter then yes

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
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