It seems like such a waste of plastic and cardboard. Makes me think of Keurig k-cups and how it's been deemed an environmental mess. I'm sure the Soylent bottles are recyclable but it's still a waste to be shipping all that weight around (including the water).
I hope they make a vending machine that mixes it on the spot.
Do you have the same criticism for all bottled drinks?
For instance if you were buying juice would you get a regular carton or a concentrate? (not exactly the same - not adding water vs removing it)
I think your point is a valid one; this just wouldn't be the first place I would apply it. There are countless examples of wasteful products. Excessive packaging alone generates so much garbage.
I do think they are wasteful, but it doesn't bother me as much because the consumption pattern is different. I'll have maybe 3 bottled drinks per month.
On the other hand, Soylent 2.0 means I'd consume about 6 bottles per day (2400 calories). That's 2,190 bottles per year.
Depending on where you live (certainly not SF or NYC) it's quite common to get most or a large portion of your vegetables from the back yard. It could easily account for 10-25% of one's diet during the growing season.
You can just donate the used plastic and cardboard to charity alongside your dirty laundry. Charities can use these things without further cleaning, so you're not harming the environment.
It uses less water to order new clothes from cheap labor in China than to launder them, so therefore the right thing to do is to buy new clothes and ... donate the old ones to charity where ... magically they don't have to be washed???
If this was from anyone other than the guy who thought inventing Soylent was a good idea, I'd call it a masterful work of satire.
The problem with Keurig k-cups is that you can't use them for anything else and you can't use them with other coffee machines. These bottles look like you could save them as water bottles in the worst case.
Being realistic, nobody is going to use these for water bottles either. And even if they did how many water bottles do you really need?
K-Cups are wasteful, but at least they ship three months (90 K-Cups) at a time and there is very little wasted space during shipping (it is just packed coffee). Is it a waste of plastic/foil? Absolutely. But in terms of shipping waste, K-Cups aren't near the worst.
These on the other hand are shipping around tap water. That uses up fuel, it uses up space, and it arguably wastes even more plastic. There's no reason this couldn't be shipped as a powder and sell you months and months of the stuff.
The saddest part is that they USED to sell the product like that. They're moving to this method to increase the price (and let's not pretend: It is a marked increase).
As someone who has boxes of the powder sitting around, I'm thrilled to get it pre-mixed in a bottle. The entire convenience factor of Soylent was largely eroded by the mixing and cleaning process, and I'll be happy to have ready-to-drink bottles that I don't have to scrub down for tomorrow's meal.
For me that's not the case (even as someone who loathes doing dishes).
I use a quart size glass mason jar. Usually get away with just adding some water after I'm done and shaking to clean (even after letting it sit for a while)
After seeing a dead albatross with a bunch of plastic in its stomach; I look at all this, non essential, for convince sake--plastic garbage in a worse light than before.
I am guilty of using those plastic tooth picks, actually know the spoiled brat who made millions from his dad's invention, and seed money 30 years ago. I now see them disguarded everywhere. They must make it into the oceans?
Anyways, I hope consumers stop buying products that aren't reusable?
Tech thinks everything has to be new, unique, novel, and the-best-in-the-world.
Business is all about differentiation and marketing and getting inside customer minds. Even if Soylent was Ensure re-branded, they can still have a business by being "fuel for the tech crowd" instead of "feeding tube fuel" http://www.amazon.com/Nestle-Healthcare-Nutrition-85140100-U...
It's all the same product. You're paying to belong to a brand/cult for a personal enjoyment experience (I drink the same sludge as VCs! I'm awesome!!), not because the products are substantially different.
What's the end-game with Soylent anyway? Soylent will be sold to Nestle, the feeding tube people, not to Tesla or Apple or Microsoft or Adobe.
Are you serious? The products are substantially different.
If you look at the nutritional info for Ensure[1] and Soylent[2] you'll see that Soylent has more calories, more fat, no cholesterol, more sodium, more potassium, less sugar, more protein.
Most important, Soylent has a more even distribution of the daily % of vitamins and minerals. If you drink 3 bottles of Ensure you're up to 180% daily value of Vitamin C, 240% of Vitamin D, 180% Manganese. The even distribution makes it easier for it to act as a complete meal replacement not just a diet or sports supplement.
My feeling is also that Soylent measures more and tweaks their formula more. Their goal is to be a good cheap meal for everyone:
Soylent is a food product (classified as a food, not a supplement, by the FDA) designed for use as a staple meal by all adults. Each serving of Soylent provides maximum nutrition with minimum effort.
In a paycheck or two I'll buy a bunch of these and they'll be my lunch and breakfast replacement. Things like Ensure don't cut it as a staple meal.
> Most important, Soylent has a more even distribution of the daily % of vitamins and minerals.
Which is actually what you don't want, since the daily % isn't consistent in meaning. In some cases its a target which most people should meet or exceed. It some cases its a target most people should be around. It some cases (e.g., sodium) its nearly the maximum recommended for the majority of the population, and above the maximum recommended for a substantial minority.
> My feeling is also that Soylent measures more and tweaks their formula more.
Soylent is tweaking it more because they are moving it around fairly rapidly to deal with component prices and feedback from unanticipated negative impacts on consumers.
Are ensure et al nutritionally complete? As in - you can live off ensure and nothing else?
My understanding is that soylent (and clones) are able to be full replacements for food in general, whereas ensure, muscle milk, etc, are meant to be purely supplemental
When Ensure markets itself to the general public the makers responsibly say it's a supplement. But if you're a medical professional you get the other marketing - which is clear that ensure etc can be used as a sole source of nutrition under medical supervision. They have a variety of products to cover a variet of needs. They have ensure plus which has more calories than ensure; they have products for NG tubes; they have low protien versions; there are version for children; etc.
The fact that they limit this marketing to registered healthcare professionals and have a bunch of caveats about "under medical supervision", and Soylent doesn't, is something you can draw your own conclusions about.
Some people will see this as disruptive and an example of a small nimble supplier filling a niche; other people will see it as SV pathologically avoiding reasonable regulation.
Given the number of people under close medical supervision who are using Ensure for meal replacement, why hasn't vitamin poisoning from Ensure been observed or reported?
The others are designed to do that, but the jury is still out on if any specific product and completely replace food with one shake/formula. Be it Ensure, or Soylent.
> The Ensure family of products provides active adults with a source of nutrition that can help them focus on specific nutritional goals. Such goals include helping to rebuild muscle and strength naturally lost over time, supporting digestive tract health and the immune system, and helping build strong bones. Ensure is available in a variety of uniquely formulated, ready-to-drink, shakes in popular flavors, as well as in pudding and powder forms. Intended for oral consumption, Ensure is ideal for supplemental use with or between meals and for interim sole-source feeding in convenient, ready-to-drink, bottles.
I'd love to see less snark/hostility/FUD on these Soylent threads.
1. No, Soylent is not the same as Ensure with different packaging/marketing
2. No, Soylent does not have illegal levels of heavy metals, nor did it in the past.
3. People don't tend to eat nutritionally complete meals every meal of the day. Measuring Soylent against this ideal is beside the point. Soylent is inarguably better than coke and cheetos, though. I bet most people reading this can think of a meal they've had in the last 48 hours that was less healthy than 12 oz soylent.
This isn't meant to be hostile snark FUD. Hopefully you know the answer or have a link that addresses my question. As far as your first point... I am asking because I know someone that sometimes has trouble keeping food down and their doctor recommended them to use Ensure, but they didn't like it. I was thinking about telling them about Soylent, of course I would have them ask their doctor first. Anyways, What makes it functionally different than Ensure?
If I were to try to give a complete answer, I'd probably spend fifteen minutes googling "Ensure vs Soylent" - there are some good matches there through discussion boards that analyze the ingredient breakdowns, also some replies from the soylent people too. Ensure is definitely more expensive in those analyses, and that's from before soylent's recent price drop. Beyond that, it appears to be a rather different ingredient list - looks like Ensure doesn't have much in the way of fiber, has more sugar, etc.
Ha! I started using it because it's just so easy for me to skip breakfast and/or lunch. I'm not replacing food with it. Just works better than not eating.
You should try intermittent fasting. The first two or three weeks are hard, but after that its easy, and really seems to sort out insulin sensitivity (or thats my guess from reading the science and "gut" feeling - pun intended). No feeling tired after lunch.
This video is super bizarre. While assembly lines are impressive works of engineering in and of themselves, I don't know how this engenders excitement about the product. It looks super artificial and not like food. I know that's the point that it's "fuel" but it would be nice to see the ingredients that turn into that white liquid. Maybe we don't want to see those...
Jumped on here to say this as well, this does not make Soylent look appetizing or make me want to buy it. It does the exact opposite. It makes the product look bland, generic, manufactured and unappealing.
If you buy the powder, it's easy to blend in some fruit or other flavoring, which gives it more variety and a better taste. Or by itself, it's pretty easy to prepare even in just a shaker bottle if you don't have a blender. I'm curious to see how the texture of 2.0 will compare to way it turns out when I make it at home, though. I assume we'll see the bottled form in stores whenever they're able to produce enough, and that's where they'll really start making money.
I've tried cinnamon, peanut butter powder, cocoa powder, Nesquik, banana, mango, chocolate syrup, vanilla extract, and even tried to mix coffee in after the initial mixing. Nothing has gotten rid of the horribly overpowering taste.
I have 3 weeks of 1.5 sitting in my cabinets because I'm unable to stomach it.
I don't have overly sensitive taste buds (I will eat almost anything) but simply cannot stomach Soylent. I feel like the odd-ball out as most compare it to a slightly off or flavorless protein shake or "easily better if you add ___ while mixing". I'm wondering what I'm tasting that others' aren't.
I want to try 2.0 but am afraid it will still taste exactly like 1.5 and with no way to try and change the flavor by adding it during the mixing phase...as trying to add flavor after the mixing step is more difficult./diluted.
Any suggestions from anyone? Am I not adding enough fruit perhaps?
I had the same problem with 1.4, I found adding 2 tbsp of cocoa powder, and 2 tbsp of sugar, per pouch made it taste more like a chocolate protein shake, and way more bearable.
It never crossed my mind to try and add sugar... I mean, my goal is to be "healthier than current diet" and not "as healthy as can be" so I'm not against it (as can be seen by my attempts at adding chocolate syrup).
Maybe I'll give that a try tonight and see how it is in the morning. Thanks for the suggestion.
I had the same reaction. I started buying http://www.mealsquares.com/ instead. They are very dry if not warmed up but they taste like chocolatey oatmeal instead of rotten milk.
I add torani syrup, they are easy to mix in (don't require a blender or anything) and have a wide variety of flavors (including a good selection of sugar free).
It's easy enough for you to Google up the details. The "issue" wasn't with the content but with their labeling -- they only included the California Prop 65 warning on their website, not on the product packaging (which they claimed was sufficient since the website was the only legitimate source of the product).
Probably not. The powdered form (1.5) had protein from brown rice which has higher levels of lead and cadmium. 2.0 gets the protein from soy which has lower levels.
I'm super excited. I was on Soylent consistently last summer/fall, but had to stop during the winter because living off chilled drinks in winter was hell. I've struggled all summer to get back into the groove and I think pre-bottled Soylent would be best for me. Now I'm just hoping it's good at room temperature.
Beyond my scepticism regarding the long-term benefit of a simplification of eating down to relying to a single designed food source - I am also worried about the mindset of a person who is motivated in doing so.
My mindset is that I live alone and I heavily dislike cooking food. When not consuming soylent, I live entirely off of take-out and delivery food. There is almost no way that Soylent isn't more healthy than the stuff I would otherwise eat.
Looking at the nutrition facts, with 5 bottles (2000 calories) a day you get 60% daily value of fiber, is that percentage enough or I'm missing something here?
I think the insanity inherent in drinking only soylent would set in far before malnutrition. I don't even think rob rhineheart drinks the stuff for 100% of his intake.
I'm guessing fiber is one of those things that comes easily with the impulse to eat "something solid"
As a lot of people have mentioned in previous discussions, Soylent isn't about being the best, it's about tradeoffs like most things in life. 60% daily value of fiber isn't optimal, but it could be more than you are getting on average now.
The plastic bottles are wasteful. This makes sense for retail locations, but not for home delivery.
For someone who drinks a fair amount weekly, I have to mix soylent with something to stomach it. If you remove that option I'm not really sure who they are targeting this at.
Also interesting the powder wasn't updated to the 2.0 formula.
I would love to try the pre-bottled version, but unfortunately I'm allergic to soy. I wish they would give an option of the type of protein used since soy is a fairly common allergy.
Please stop this culture of insanity, it is destructive.
I get it, Soylent is targeting the "100X engineer" crowd who are supposed to be unflappably dedicated near-godlike ubermenschen. I get that people need to telegraph "how busy" they are by constantly talking about it to everyone with ears. I understand that people need to communicate high-value to each other, and do this by referencing how much responsibility they're given professionally or otherwise-- but long before the point of people eating nutrient paste instead of real food, this busyness fetish has gone too far. You don't need to be eating nutrient paste to convince me that you are important at your job and also good at it-- these concepts have nothing to do with each other, and the usage of Soylent as a prop for the persona of "being hardcore" is simply puerile.
Nobody in the real world is so "busy" that they can't stop what they are doing for a few minutes and prepare and consume real food in order to meet their body's demands. Even special forces soldiers on combat missions in enemy territory carry food that needs to be quickly prepared, which they can then scarf down. Relatedly, quality food is a big boon for morale-- and Soylent sure aint.
I guess if you're a meta-human weirdo who claims to have no inherent desire to consume tasty food and just wants to "get it out of the way", Soylent is for you. I don't believe you actually exist, though. I guess it's possible some brain pathology could cause a lack of desire for food, but come on, go to a doctor instead of eating Soylent.
As a parting shot, I'll mention that Soylent probably doesn't have any kind of phytonutrients or anything similar. Soylent also doesn't have any of the numerous pharmacologically active ingredients of common food items-- the effects of not having these may be subtle, but noticeable over time. Look, just go to your local farm stand, and buy some fucking fruits and vegetables. Most of them can even be eaten raw if you're gonna be a jerk about "not being able to cook" or not having enough time.
You are not accurately describing the complexity of cooking for oneself. This is common amongst people who cook for themselves: you have forgotten just how much skill you bring to bear throughout the week.
The first step is not, as you describe, taking a few minutes to prepare food. The first step is buying the raw ingredients. No one will really tell you how to do this. Good home cooks have dozens of menu plans in their head and do quite a complex set of optimization problems to quickly build shopping lists 1-7 times per week. There are some books that will teach you how to do it, but it's not quick. Especially if you are starting from zero.
There's also cookware, and if you leave your home you have to transport the food to where you are going or prepare it ahead of time.
I think your core assertion—we have the time—is correct. If you have infinite knowledge, you can feed yourself with as little as a few hours work per week.
The problem is most people don't have the food knowledge you have. And your glib insults won't change the fact that no one will really help them build that knowledge up to the level it needs to be. If you are willing to pay a premium for fairly low quality food you can use something like Blue Apron. Or you can make a hobby out of learning to cook. But other than that, who is going to help you get there?
So unless you can point at someone who will hold peoples' hands while they get to the place you're describing, maybe leave Soylent alone for solving a problem your admonishments don't really help solve.
Here is a 30 minute plan to feeding yourself for a long time without any real effort:
0. Have transportation (or a nearby store), the ability to boil water, and a large vessel to put water and food into. You may also want a sheltered place to cook/consume the food, though this is not required.
1. Go to the nearest food store. Anything larger than a kiosk will do.
2. Buy bags of rice. Any kind will do.
3. Buy bags of beans. Any kind will do.
3a. Buy lentils or chicken if you want more variety. Any kinds will do.
3b. Buy salt or spices if you like the flavor of salt or spices. Any kind will do.
4. Go home, making sure to take the items you have purchased with you.
4a. Rice and beans are stable at room temperature for a very long time. Do not let them be consumed by pests, however.
5. Throw a few days of consumption worth of those items you purchased into a pot of boiling water. Don't try to boil the bags themselves unless you are really desperate.
6. Boil for a while. 25 minutes will probably do. You can do other stuff during this 25 minutes. You can remove the water afterward if you desire.
6a. This meal is stable at room temperature (23C) for a couple of days time. You will need to find a way of cooling the food to 4C if you wish to keep it longer-- up to 7 days maximum.
7. Now you have a flavorless though quite filling and nutritious meal. It's probably cheaper, more nutritious, and more flavorful than Soylent. You can survive on this for a long, long time.
7a. Don't forget to actually eat the food you have prepared. A utensil such as a fork or spoon may be useful, though not required. Additionally, a smaller secondary vessel such as a bowl may be useful, though not required.
8. Repeat as hungry; return to step 0 if supplies run out.
Bam, now nobody has a single excuse to eat Soylent.
That's not sufficient to prevent food poisoning from rice. Cold rice is a leading cause of food poisoning. Telling people that rice can be kept for several days is dangerous.
> Guess we all have to eat bland nutrient goo now.
I fucking hate Soylent (the prodct and the company). My hatred for Soylent doesn't make it okay for Cryoshon to give dangerous advice.
> My hatred for Soylent doesn't make it okay for Cryoshon to give dangerous advice.
Except it isn't dangerous advice. The site you link is an extension of British paranoia over the safety of leftover rice. I don't know where it comes from, but I can find no sources that are not British or Australian that claims leftover rice is dangerous a mere day after being refrigerated, assuming it is cooled properly in the first place.
I personally make gumbo, jambalaya, and dirty rice days ahead of time. I have never been sickened by it. I personally know of no one who has been sickened by leftover rice that was stored properly. The few American sources that address the subject directly indicate three days is perfectly fine. That said, leftover rice safety is a non-issue over here. I have no idea why it is in Blighty.
>implying anyone is actually going to follow a joke recipe written in dripping jest that goes as far as to say shelters, spoons, refrigerators, and bowls aren't necessary for eating food
I frequently fail to do this, to my detriment, but I don't pretend it's so hard and complex. I'm tired and lazy at the end of the day, so I eat easier (usually worse for me) things. That simple. Is soylent the answer, maybe.
I think it's fascinating how hostile some people can get towards Soylent. It's like they think the mere existence of it is an attack to the core of their identity. I wonder if it's just insecurity triggered by people liking something that they don't like or some other type of psychological defense mechanism.
* some kind of a "bad experience" with Soylent. It can be just an article about "busy people drinking Soylent" which creates negative internal representation of a Soylent as a drink for the crazy, out of this world busy people
While you're right that convincing people that they're being stupid is generally a waste of time, it's no more or less a waste of time than posting a comment on the internet wondering why other people post comments on the internet.
For me, it's hostility toward the race to the bottom and accompanying dehumanization that Soylent is nodding to.
I really don't understand people who think positively about Soylent. It's bland nutrient paste, similar to the kind fed to coma patients. How exciting and DISRUPTIVE!!!
I used Soylent to lose weight. It helped me gain very precise control over caloric intake.
You know what? I didn't care that it was a bland nutrient slurry. I cared about the "dehumanizing" control it gave me. I cared about the options it brought to my life. Discovering significant extra time in my day by not cooking 8x a week was a nice bonus.
What I'm really seeing in your comments is that you're struggling to understand how someone could think so utterly differently from you.
If weight loss is your goal, it's actually cheaper and easier and far, far more pleasant to just make smoothies for a couple of meals a day. Here's an easy one that I make all the time:
* 1/2 cup yogurt
* 1/2 cup juice (apple, orange, whatever)
* 1 banana, peeled
* 3-4 frozen strawberries
* 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
Toss in blender. Blend. Consume. Rinse out blender. From assembling ingredients to rinsing the blender, the whole process can be performed in <10 minutes, and is far less disgusting and dehumanizing than consuming bland nutrient goo. Total ingredient cost for one week of daily smoothies is <$10.
A big part of what makes us human is that we take pleasure in eating good food. It's a shame to throw that part of your humanity away unnecessarily.
Perhaps I don't subscribe to your narrow definition of humanity. I found bland nutrient goo perfect for my needs. It meant no shopping, no dealing with perishables, and other logistical and organizational benefits.
Have you considered the possibility that perhaps not everyone thinks like you?
Another interesting trait of humans is that once they've subscribed to an opinion, they'll tie themselves in knots looking for ways to avoid changing their mind despite all contradictory evidence.
Is it possible that you really don't care about one of the core biological experiences that define human civilizations throughout history? The act that differentiates our cultures, has driven migration, evolution, wars and exploration? The act that is so ingrained in our biology that meal preparation is central to every human settlement?
Yeah, that's possible. It's also possible that you're a blowhard. But hey man, knock yourself out. I was just saying that it's pretty damned easy to make a smoothie.
You also declared that I had opted "to throw that part of your humanity away unnecessarily".
But nevermind that. Yes, it's easy to make a smoothie. Just not sufficiently easy that I preferred it to Soylent, which was a highly personal decision for me to make and relies upon choices and information not available to you.
Pay it no mind. It's the "I don't understand it and it doesn't specifically work for my life so it must be wrong" mindset. I've used Soylent as you have and it frees up time and funds as well as making calorie tracking easier.
'Nobody in the real world is so "busy" that they can't stop what they are doing for a few minutes and prepare and consume real food in order to meet their body's demands.'
Compare the preparation time for preparing a meal that satisfies oneself nutritionally compared with Soylent. It's not just about spending more time working, it's about having time to do other things like reading or playing music. Also, why are you getting so upset about people who want to eat nutritious meals?
The median (and correct) response is to read or play music for thirty less minutes to prepare real nutritious food. Come on. Nobody's time at home is factored down to the minute.
Everyone seems to think Soylent frees up time for work. That's certainly true for some people, but for me it frees up time to rest. Instead of driving to Chipotle/KFC/In-n-Out I drink Soylent at my desk before lunch break. Then at lunch, I either take a nap at my desk or walk outside. As for morale, I'm sorry but cycling through the same 5 nearby chain restaurants lost all pleasurable appeal years ago for me.
I ate two months' worth of Joylent (a Dutch version of soylent) this year, three weeks consecutively at the longest. I had an amazing time with it:
- It was cheaper than what I normally spend on food each day.
- The fact that I had no groceries to do, no dishes, and no cooking made my lazy self amazingly happy.
- I had a way more balanced diet than I would normally have done and this clearly showed both in my general mood, and also how energetic I was. I haven't been able to wake up in the morning as easily as then ever since.
- I also loved the taste! I think it took me no more than 3 servings to just build up a craving for the drinks.
Why does every Soylent news story come along with the requisite 'Soylent doesn't make sense to me so it can't make sense for anyone' post? Stop for a moment and remember that everyone's lives, finances, schedules, priorities, etc are different.
I use Soylent 1.5 along with my girlfriend. It's a faster, easier, and less expensive way to have breakfast (and sometimes lunch) each day. It's especially handy when funds are tight. It's easier to prepare and far easier to track calories for those of us shedding a few pounds. And it's more complete nutrient-wise than what the majority of Americans ate for breakfast.
I don't do it so I can work more 16 hour days changing the world at Hooli. I do it so I can enjoy my life more. It helps me have the funds and the time to relax and enjoy the meals I do prepare or go out for with friends.
> I guess if you're a meta-human weirdo who claims to have no inherent desire to consume tasty food and just wants to "get it out of the way", Soylent is for you. I don't believe you actually exist, though.
Here I am, right here! 28-year-old woman, just to give some demographic information. I don't like cooking, I don't want to deal with produce that goes bad before I get around to preparing it. Soylent is a lovely time-saver for me.
What is with the vehement anti-Soylent crowd who just can't believe some of us have more enjoyable ways to spend our time than cooking, planning meals, preparing ingredients, and grocery shopping?
I'm not surprised that there are people that would rather use prepared or quick-mix products than cook on their own.
I'm somewhat surprised that, given the vast array of viable prepared and quick-mix meal products, both shakes and otherwise, that have been on the market much longer than Soylent, that so many of those people think Soylent is something revolutionary. Its clearly a triumph of marketing.
My vehemence about soylent stems from the blatent lies they told during fundraising. They dangerously and irresponsibly made claims that they shouldn't have, and got away with it.
I hope they make a vending machine that mixes it on the spot.