7 ms·

I will comment on Soylent as a product, not the 1.6 update specifically, sorry, just want to make a few points (I think some of you are in for a tough ride, jus

by cisstrd 10y ago

I will comment on Soylent as a product, not the 1.6 update specifically, sorry, just want to make a few points (I think some of you are in for a tough ride, just passionate, not my intention to attack anyone personally): -) psychological value: eating has a great psychological value, it's pleasure (if not, you should eat better food) -) social value: you probably won't go out with friends to have a glass of Soylent, would you? -) Arguments about "increased productivity" because of less food preparation are ridiculous... if you can work all day long without needing a break, congratulations, you are everything common sense and science tells me is not possible. We need breaks, regularly, and why not use that to cook something. And cooking doesn't take hours a day. -) Health: Because the supplement industry is such a thoroughly regulated and well behaving industry? If you believe that, do your research. I want to know what I am eating, and I don't when buying this mix of various powders they most likely buy in themselves. Would you give this crap to your children? Do you think we already have unlocked the key towards the perfect nutrition? (spoiler: no, we haven't, studying this is hard) -) You can't cook: It's not hard, have you ever really tried? You don't need a Michelin star to cook solid and good food. -) Unhappy with your current diet? Then change it, why ditch food altogether? -) Cost, so it's not about productivity or health now, but about saving a few bucks? I doubt you save much if anything at all, it's not that expensive to buy good food, and isn't this mainly marketed towards high income people to begin with? You can afford it. -) Soylent is revolutionary: It's not, 100% food replacements have been used in medicine for decades (just no one was crazy enough to ditch real food for it if not needed) - you can even buy it, it's far more expensive though than this, and of course I am still not for it as a food replacement for healthy adults. -) Trust your body: Every body is different, the reason we have cravings for food is because the body tells us what it needs. This can fail us, for example when we eat too much sugar and our blood sugar levels are creating massive cravings for more down the line (I am not making a case for Coca-Cola here though), but all in all, it's an incredibly accurate and needed thermostat. If you eat more, you will ditch your blanket at night subconsciously to burn more calories by cooling down, if you eat less you will feel more cold and not do so. It's downright arrogant to think that some individual having read some studies and reports knows what is absolutely best (besides commonplace arguments like "sugar is bad", "being overweight is incredibly unhealthy", no proper doctor would ever make such bold and arrogant claims) My opinion: This is part of a not well regulated industry, a repackaged and cleverly marketed mix of food supplements that have been available for decades, sold with incredibly high profit margins. They buy in their stuff, they mix it, prep it up with some nice fancy talk, sell it, and see dollar signs in their eyes. Everyone should be able to do whatever he wants to as long as he is not harming others. If you think Soylent is great, then by all means, I won't stop you, I am passionate about food and am disgusted just looking at this. If someone thinks this is healthy (spare me your cherry-picked study citations), then - with all due respect - you are delusional

thatswrong0 10y ago
Every time I see a comment like this, I'm amazed at the commenters inability to not take everything to the extreme. YOU CAN EAT SOYLENT AND STILL EAT FOOD. If you don't have much time on your hands, and you want a quick meal, it works really well and is better than, say, McDonalds. 1) Eating isn't pleasure for me 2 to 3 times a day. I eat lunch because I'm hungry. I'll go out and eat a nice meal once or twice a week. You can drink Soylent and still eat food. Everyone is different. 2) You can drink Soylent and still eat food. And I only eat socially a couple times a week anyways. 3) Cooking takes time to prepare, time to fetch ingredients, and time to cleanup. This is a non-negligible amount of time. I'd rather spend 10 minutes total on a meal than 30+ mins. 4) Do you know if everything that goes into every processed food you eat? Do you have verification? 5) You can eat Soylent and still eat food. 6) This clearly isn't about cost. 7) Soylent is evolutionary in the sense that it's one of the first food replacement marketed to consumers that doesn't have a load of sugar in it. 8) Doesn't every company have dollar signs in their eyes? How is that a fault? They're providing a product that people want at a price point people are willing to pay. There isn't much to complain about there.
- cisstrd 10y ago
  I am going by how they market it, not by how you use it. If company makes market claim "x", which is ridiculous and I criticize that claim, someone then saying that he personally hasn't bought it because of claim "x" does not make my point invalid at all. 1) We differ there, I can well get all of my calories from normal food without being annoyed by eating. 2) But it's marketed as complete food replacement, not as a simple nutritional supplement. Though I don't fancy the supplement industry either. 3) I think it's stupid to consider this time as waste instead of time well spent. I had rice with fresh salmon today: Wash rice, put it in the rice cooker with 1 1/2 parts of water and some salt - wait 15 minutes (you can do whatever you want there) - use a non-stick pan, some olive oil, fry the salmon, use some spices, in between you can start cleaning up whatever kitchen equipment you have used - 5 minutes later rice is cooked, salmon finished, arrange it on a plate, some soy sauce and Wasabi on the side. Total time of work maybe... 8 minutes? Total time to clean up... 2? Total time to eat (quick eater)... 5?! And that's a pretty decent dish I think, I have my go to foods too, when I really can't be bothered. I can easily have a banana, an apple, eat some peanuts (100 grams have 620 calories, important and healthy fats, 25 grams of protein), can make some hard boiled eggs (can make them in the morning, eat them during the day), I can just take some bread, butter, tomatoes, and salt, sit in front of the computer watching something and eat during that. Takes no time really, and in the end you don't have much to clean. Food allows for creativity, be creative. Have we all forgotten how to deal with real food?! I hate to go to the store to buy, what I can I buy in bulk, sometimes I buy things frozen (it's often incredibly healthy food, when immediately frozen the nutritional value is great) and when I really can't avoid making an effort, it's not a waste considering what I get out of it. 4) Standards for food production are higher, I can touch it, I can see it, I can ask where it's from. Not sure where you have been buying your food. A banana I eat is not the product of a badly regulated industry, where hobbyists create mixtures of their liking. 5) It's the same point you made with 2) 6) It's an argument I have encountered multiple times, and it's also something I remember from the early days of Soylent. "It only costs x dollars a day and is all you need" (see my intro) 7) You mean "revolutionary"? It's not revolutionary by any means, if you mean it's revolutionary because it has taken something previously not used as mainstream food and marketed it as such, then yes maybe. I don't think that's a great achievement. 8) You are only addressing part of my ending here, talking about the high profit margins and that I think they are acting in bad faith was part of the larger point, that what they are doing is fundamentally easy and a lot of it is simply improvised, they don't really know themselves, but they claim to know. They buy it in, they mix it, dress it up, and market it. Anyone can do it, I can't however raise cattle, grow tasty bananas, peanuts, and catch delicious fish every day. So talking about profit margins, I think their profit margins are quite higher than people realize, their expertise is lower than what people think, their claims are 100% marketing, what they do is easier than people give them credit for.

by cisstrd 10y ago

thatswrong0 10y ago

Every time I see a comment like this, I'm amazed at the commenters inability to not take everything to the extreme. YOU CAN EAT SOYLENT AND STILL EAT FOOD. If you don't have much time on your hands, and you want a quick meal, it works really well and is better than, say, McDonalds. 1) Eating isn't pleasure for me 2 to 3 times a day. I eat lunch because I'm hungry. I'll go out and eat a nice meal once or twice a week. You can drink Soylent and still eat food. Everyone is different. 2) You can drink Soylent and still eat food. And I only eat socially a couple times a week anyways. 3) Cooking takes time to prepare, time to fetch ingredients, and time to cleanup. This is a non-negligible amount of time. I'd rather spend 10 minutes total on a meal than 30+ mins. 4) Do you know if everything that goes into every processed food you eat? Do you have verification? 5) You can eat Soylent and still eat food. 6) This clearly isn't about cost. 7) Soylent is evolutionary in the sense that it's one of the first food replacement marketed to consumers that doesn't have a load of sugar in it. 8) Doesn't every company have dollar signs in their eyes? How is that a fault? They're providing a product that people want at a price point people are willing to pay. There isn't much to complain about there.

cisstrd 10y ago
I am going by how they market it, not by how you use it. If company makes market claim "x", which is ridiculous and I criticize that claim, someone then saying that he personally hasn't bought it because of claim "x" does not make my point invalid at all. 1) We differ there, I can well get all of my calories from normal food without being annoyed by eating. 2) But it's marketed as complete food replacement, not as a simple nutritional supplement. Though I don't fancy the supplement industry either. 3) I think it's stupid to consider this time as waste instead of time well spent. I had rice with fresh salmon today: Wash rice, put it in the rice cooker with 1 1/2 parts of water and some salt - wait 15 minutes (you can do whatever you want there) - use a non-stick pan, some olive oil, fry the salmon, use some spices, in between you can start cleaning up whatever kitchen equipment you have used - 5 minutes later rice is cooked, salmon finished, arrange it on a plate, some soy sauce and Wasabi on the side. Total time of work maybe... 8 minutes? Total time to clean up... 2? Total time to eat (quick eater)... 5?! And that's a pretty decent dish I think, I have my go to foods too, when I really can't be bothered. I can easily have a banana, an apple, eat some peanuts (100 grams have 620 calories, important and healthy fats, 25 grams of protein), can make some hard boiled eggs (can make them in the morning, eat them during the day), I can just take some bread, butter, tomatoes, and salt, sit in front of the computer watching something and eat during that. Takes no time really, and in the end you don't have much to clean. Food allows for creativity, be creative. Have we all forgotten how to deal with real food?! I hate to go to the store to buy, what I can I buy in bulk, sometimes I buy things frozen (it's often incredibly healthy food, when immediately frozen the nutritional value is great) and when I really can't avoid making an effort, it's not a waste considering what I get out of it. 4) Standards for food production are higher, I can touch it, I can see it, I can ask where it's from. Not sure where you have been buying your food. A banana I eat is not the product of a badly regulated industry, where hobbyists create mixtures of their liking. 5) It's the same point you made with 2) 6) It's an argument I have encountered multiple times, and it's also something I remember from the early days of Soylent. "It only costs x dollars a day and is all you need" (see my intro) 7) You mean "revolutionary"? It's not revolutionary by any means, if you mean it's revolutionary because it has taken something previously not used as mainstream food and marketed it as such, then yes maybe. I don't think that's a great achievement. 8) You are only addressing part of my ending here, talking about the high profit margins and that I think they are acting in bad faith was part of the larger point, that what they are doing is fundamentally easy and a lot of it is simply improvised, they don't really know themselves, but they claim to know. They buy it in, they mix it, dress it up, and market it. Anyone can do it, I can't however raise cattle, grow tasty bananas, peanuts, and catch delicious fish every day. So talking about profit margins, I think their profit margins are quite higher than people realize, their expertise is lower than what people think, their claims are 100% marketing, what they do is easier than people give them credit for.