Maximum Nutrition with Minimal Effort
October 11, 2016 6:27 AM   Subscribe

 
I can't think of a single way that this confirms my prejudices
posted by beerperson at 6:28 AM on October 11, 2016 [90 favorites]


I love that someone invented a food that causes "violent vomiting" instead of people just eating their fucking vegetables.
posted by selfnoise at 6:33 AM on October 11, 2016 [72 favorites]


ingredient in the bars. Those elements include algal flour, a sugar from beets called Isomaltooligosaccharide, and vitamins. However, the bars’ soy and the artificial sweetener, sucralose, are most suspect of causing an intolerance.

Okay, look, I've been working on coming around to this Soylent business, because I have a friend who has some food issues and we've been talking about suggestions for easy-to-consume meal replacements when my friend is too busy/stressed to eat and risks slipping over into not eating for extended periods, then eating a lot of junk, then getting sick. My thought was that Soylent would be a perfectly reasonable product for this purpose and probably a bit better than Ensure or something in terms of taste, mixing it yourself, etc.

And I'm not saying that one can't fill onself up with algal flour and artificial sweeteners if one likes, but this does not make me think "awesome tech elite who are too elite to eat the dumb boring time-wasting food regular people eat" so much as "people who do not read labels".
posted by Frowner at 6:33 AM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]


This is why I'm a breatharian.
posted by AFABulous at 6:34 AM on October 11, 2016 [18 favorites]


Algal flour is funky. I love it for an egg replacer.. Probably the best we used. But it makes my wife violently ill.

So we don't use that anymore.

My guess is it's something like that.
posted by Lord_Pall at 6:35 AM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]


Buzzfeed has the company's full statement, where they claim their employees at the rest of the questionable bars and were totally fine.
posted by almostmanda at 6:37 AM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


That picture of the slime-covered empty wrapper is incredibly unappetizing. Maybe it's just eater's remorse?
posted by AndrewInDC at 6:37 AM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


Are they sourcing from a new abattoir?
posted by Thorzdad at 6:39 AM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]


SOYLENT IS PE-*vomits*
posted by SansPoint at 6:40 AM on October 11, 2016 [12 favorites]


This is why I'm a breatharian.

Have you seen the conditions under which air is "harvested" for consumption? It's horrifying.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:45 AM on October 11, 2016 [45 favorites]


Maybe it's because they're eating something that's designed to meet nutritional needs without being food? Just a thought
posted by clockzero at 6:49 AM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]


What did their chief nutritionist have to say x the the situation?
posted by boo_radley at 6:50 AM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


Generally, customers say that stomach problems arise a few hours after eating a bad bar and pass within a day or two with no other symptoms.

Well, I'm on board with a product which may only cause a day or two of nausea and diarrhea!
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:50 AM on October 11, 2016 [10 favorites]


I've been seeing ads for the Soylent breakfast thing (mixed with coffee, I guess?) on Facebook, and their ad campaign is full of rageface memes. Which does nothing to change my prejudices about their product.
posted by backseatpilot at 6:53 AM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]


I just eat food. It's the way of the future!
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 6:55 AM on October 11, 2016 [28 favorites]


These breakfast bars taste like burning!
posted by evilDoug at 6:57 AM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]


rageface memes

That still exists? I guess memes really do go on as long as they have to....
posted by thelonius at 7:03 AM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Life Hack: Eat real food!
posted by XtinaS at 7:06 AM on October 11, 2016 [16 favorites]


We've been around the block on Soylent a number of times here, so maybe this has been remarked. But life is so damn short, and getting nutrition is one of the few things you have to do every day that can be made pleasurable, for many people, most of the time.

First-world attempts to hack a "meal-in-a-pill" have been going on for quite a while (one of the later OZ books def. has a reference to this), and I can see the benefits in a lot of situations (see astronaut food), but they always just seem so sad.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:07 AM on October 11, 2016 [21 favorites]


I hadn't read anything about Soylent in a long while. But the FAQ from the subreddit is a good way to catch up. Also, eww!
posted by Bee'sWing at 7:11 AM on October 11, 2016


This is what you want people it's not soylent.
posted by bukvich at 7:11 AM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Give peas a chance!
posted by freakazoid at 7:15 AM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]


From the FAQ:
Soylent is commonly prepared as a liquid but it's not really accurate to call it a liquid diet. The powder mixed with water is similar to well-chewed food.

Barf.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:15 AM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]


In all seriousness, I actually eyed these Soylent food bars with interest. I am absolutely useless in the morning and it's not uncommon for me to wake up and rush out the door without breakfast so I can get to work on time. I did it today.

The idea of a reasonably healthy, solid food mass I can chow on as I go to work without any cooking or mess really appeals to me. I'll eat real food for my other two meals each day.

But, boy, the Soylent folks really know how to shit the bed on marketing and quality.
posted by SansPoint at 7:17 AM on October 11, 2016 [21 favorites]


Maybe it's because they're eating something that's designed to meet nutritional needs without being food? Just a thought

I think my dad has this same issue but with is book discussion group. People eat Soylent because they know they need to consume food to live a full life but they don't really see how it's possible to enjoy eating so they go with a nutrient slurry instead. Similarly, my dad realizes that social interaction is a basic human need but he does not see how he could possibly enjoy it so he fulfills this need by attending a book discussion group he doesn't enjoy with people he doesn't particularly like (or dislike, he just doesn't care. Well, some of them he actually dislikes. Several of them. Most, maybe?). He has found the human interaction equivalent of a nutrient slurry.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:20 AM on October 11, 2016 [79 favorites]


Soylent users need to return to what worked for them before: having mom cook.
posted by tommasz at 7:24 AM on October 11, 2016 [15 favorites]


Metafilter: the human interaction equivalent of a nutrient slurry
posted by mama casserole at 7:25 AM on October 11, 2016 [64 favorites]


Yeah, snark away, but I know a couple people with eating disorders and metabolic syndromes for whom the liquid version of soylent has been a godsend (especially compared to existing products in this segment, which are often stupid-high in sugar)
posted by aramaic at 7:25 AM on October 11, 2016 [43 favorites]


First-world attempts to hack a "meal-in-a-pill" have been going on for quite a while (one of the later OZ books def. has a reference to this), and I can see the benefits in a lot of situations (see astronaut food), but they always just seem so sad.

I remember watching a video from I think the sixties in my sixth grade science class about astronauts and this amazing awesome woman who my science teacher (appropriately!) used to teach us the meaning of the word "egghead" explained that we could absolutely give astronauts all the nutrition they needed in a daily pill but psychologically it was a bad idea because people really need to eat (I think especially in a bizarre and unnatural feeling environment like space but I may be misremembering). Anyway it wouldn't shock me to learn that "food pill" is a solved problem for people who actually study nutrition but that there are very good reasons we don't actually make them.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:25 AM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]


Mealsquares. Mealsquares is the thing you want if you want something like this but for it to be made of things that bear a greater resemblance to food. Seriously, the smugness over this is stupid; very few of the people who do this actually replace every single meal with this sort of thing. How many people, women especially, drink diet or protein shakes for breakfast and lunch? In my experience, the Soylent liquid at least was gross--I have no tolerance for the taste of sucralose--but I'd rather have a Mealsquare than a Lean Cuisine for lunch on a given day. A very few people are just people who don't enjoy food and don't want to spend time on it, but a lot more people who use these products are just like everybody else, busy and looking for quick solutions for times they don't cook.

Soylent is just the same as any other quick meal replacement but marketed at a segment that, if you think it's dumb, is probably not you.
posted by Sequence at 7:27 AM on October 11, 2016 [33 favorites]


It is possible to completely ignore one's own feelings. Making a case for learning to accept those feelings as inputs for decisions would be a very useful exercise. By "learning" I mean, literally, learning how to access them, and then what to do with that information.

An analogy could be made to people who get transplanted hands or faces and who have to learn which sensations match which nerves. If you grow up discouraged from taking any notice of your own sensations or feelings, the ability to even notice them can be remarkably curtailed.

Then, when someone tries to explain why you wouldn't get nutrients (or social needs) in the most time-efficient manner possible, they need a remarkably detailed case to make any sense at all to you.
posted by amtho at 7:28 AM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


I love to eat, but my hatred of cooking vastly outweighs my love of food. I eat energy bars instead of meals all the time. But I don't trust startup bros to get nutrition right and I guess I'm glad my intuition nailed it this time.
posted by the marble index at 7:31 AM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]


Soylent is hilarious because it is the sort of thing imagined alongside nuclear-powered flying cars, living rooms you can clean simply by turning a hose on, and paper jumpsuits for everyday clothing. There is literally nothing technology cannot improve! [jaunty 50s music]
posted by entropicamericana at 7:35 AM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]


I still don't understand Soylent hype, there's a bevy of meal replacement options: Ensure to Jevity that one can literally live on.

Is it because it's being sold on the internet versus something that's more marketed to medical?
posted by wcfields at 7:44 AM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]


Why not try a banana instead. Jesus it even grows with its own 100% biodegradable wrapper.
posted by 1adam12 at 7:45 AM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]


The symptoms sound like food poisoning. They also sound similar to an allergy to shellfish proteins.

The spreadsheet is now up to 52 self-reported adverse reactions from redditors who have eaten the bars.
posted by zarq at 7:45 AM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


And if you can't believe /u/moosefartporn who can you believe
posted by beerperson at 7:53 AM on October 11, 2016 [18 favorites]


In all seriousness, I know someone with an unusually high metabolism (we are talking needs like, an extra 2000 calories a day or something) and he uses Solyent as a supplement to no ill effect whatsoever AFAIK (I saw the stuff in his car trunk and asked; that was the answer). He's not "tech elite" or anything, just someone who needs the extra nutrition. Just a data point.
posted by aperturescientist at 7:55 AM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


As another person with serious trouble digesting, I was curious about Soylent when it was first being bandied about online.

I think the idea was to make a product more *un*like Ensure, et al, in that it would not only attempt nutritional completeness, but have less crap in it. Hence the hype, or at least some of it. I would agree there is less junk in it than beverages like Ensure (or even others that tout themselves as better but still have a ton of sugar). But I think there is still a giant market for this stuff from that standpoint, and that ingredient quality/digestibility could still be significantly improved. It might increase the cost of said product, but I would pay for it if it did the job.
posted by bitterkitten at 7:59 AM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]


Soylent is commonly prepared as a liquid but it's not really accurate to call it a liquid diet. The powder mixed with water is similar to well-chewed food.

>>Barf.


No, barf is lumpier.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 8:02 AM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


My son's name is also barf
posted by beerperson at 8:03 AM on October 11, 2016 [30 favorites]


I still don't understand Soylent hype, there's a bevy of meal replacement options: Ensure to Jevity that one can literally live on.

Is it because it's being sold on the internet versus something that's more marketed to medical?


Soylent is being marketed as a food substitute one can live on indefinitely. It is supposed to be designed to supply all of the human body's nutritional needs long-term. Ensure is marketed as an occasional meal replacement. It's also (as folks are mentioning) supposed to be high in sugar.

Jevity (and Vital HN, also from Abbott Labs) would be an alternative option, but since those are associated with patients who have feeding tubes (such as patients who have (or have had) cancer or advanced diabetes) i think that may have some stigma to the average consumer. They also tend to be expensive -- and the powdered options require prep time -- but I'm not sure how they compare to soylent on meal-by-meal cost.
posted by zarq at 8:03 AM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


No, barf is lumpier.

It really depends on how "well-chewed" your food is, I guess.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:04 AM on October 11, 2016


I get that this kind of product may serve a need for some people in some circumstances; every once in a while I get annoyed enough with the upkeep required to maintain a human body that I even briefly empathize with people who find the use of this product genuinely preferable to eating.

What I don't get is the sweet sweet innocence required to believe that some tech rando so out of touch with his own body that he went out of his way to stop pooping is going to produce a trustworthy product. Engineers actually have Engineers' Disease; who are these people who have it by proxy?
posted by praemunire at 8:04 AM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]


Soylent is Futurama's bachelor chow. It's even branded to appeal to the techhead crowd, who mostly hate cooking.

I can't tell you how many engineer/programmer friends I had in my early twenties with fewer kitchen accoutrements than a bowl and a spoon. All they ate at home was cereal, their ovens used only for the occasional "emergency" frozen dinner. Even bagged salad was a step too far. Nice folks, but had no interest in the kitchen.

Packets of Soylent would be right at home in those shelves.
posted by bonehead at 8:16 AM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]


The powder mixed with water is similar to well-chewed food.

Oh! So, it's actually a Pizza King topping?
posted by Thorzdad at 8:17 AM on October 11, 2016


Surely prison loaf would be preferable to this glop.
posted by nicebookrack at 8:18 AM on October 11, 2016


Soylent: it's like diet shakes made for women, but made by techbros so you know it's good!

I am always reminded of the guy in Douglas Coupland's Microserfs who would eat any food, as long as it was flat and could be shoved under his closed door. I always envision him when thinking of Soylent's target market.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 8:18 AM on October 11, 2016 [12 favorites]


I had similar intestinal disturbances during a phase in which I consumed various meal replacement bars containing sucralose and high amounts of oligosaccharide fiber. It's a hard combination to avoid but I think the fiber source kind of sucks in the amounts dumped in these bars.

I suspect the fiber causes a temporary overgrowth of undesirable gut bacteria some of which can digest it just fine, and the Splenda may do the same--it can be broken down into fuel by persistent bacteria, and the free chlorine atoms may destroy other bacteria at the same time.

Soy protein is also indigestible garbage in my opinion, but my gut can't tolerate whey much either. So it goes.
posted by aydeejones at 8:19 AM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


Meal replacements, now with all the quality control and attention to detail you've come to associate with Silicon Valley startups!

I'm extremely sympathetic to the goal of Soylent. My partner has chronic pain and executive functioning issues that make preparing meals a chore, with the result that she often just doesn't eat anything until I get home in the evening. Which is super not healthy. So I really wish there was a true meal replacement along the lines of Soylent available for a reasonable price.

But the lead and mold issues were already a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge red flag, and this latest scandal is not exactly restoring confidence.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:20 AM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]


Soylentfreude
posted by Going To Maine at 8:23 AM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


Wait, we're against hosable living rooms now?
posted by LarsC at 8:23 AM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]


Soylent: it's like diet shakes made for women, but made by techbros so you know it's good!

Yeah, what I always found ridiculous was the arrogance of:

1. wandering into a completely solved problem
2. being completely oblivious that it is a solved problem
3. never doing the most basic research to determine that it was a solved problem
4. and then completely reinventing the wheel, except doing a really shitty job of it.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:28 AM on October 11, 2016 [37 favorites]


"1. wandering into a completely solved problem "

...except that it's not a completely solved problem. Diet shakes aren't a replacement for food.
posted by I-baLL at 8:29 AM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]


Eat food. Not too much. Mostly isomaltooligosaccharides.
posted by dephlogisticated at 8:31 AM on October 11, 2016 [23 favorites]


Tech Bro #1: What if there were some kind of way to move from one place to another place on wheels?
Woman: You mean like a bike?
*no one pays any attention*
Tech Bro #2: I'm sure that's a totally innovative idea that has never occurred to anyone else before. They'll build cities around it!
Woman: Like the Netherlands?
*awkward silence*
posted by leotrotsky at 8:33 AM on October 11, 2016 [24 favorites]



...except that it's not a completely solved problem. Diet shakes aren't a replacement for food.


There are a multitude of "meal replacement" options on the market, and have been for decades. Several have been mentioned in this very thread, and are the go-to option of choice for actual trained medical professionals who are treating patients that must have a reliable liquid meal replacement option. We're not talking about Slim-Fast here. We're talking actual products designed as full meal replacements for those on liquid diet restrictions.
posted by Doc Ezra at 8:37 AM on October 11, 2016 [20 favorites]


...except that it's not a completely solved problem. Diet shakes aren't a replacement for food.

First, there are absolutely meal replacement drinks that ARE a replacement for food. It's like literally in the name.

Second, it's not even hard to do it yourself! A smoothie with whey protein, psyllium husks for fiber, olive oil, a fistful of greens and a multi-vitamin is absolutely a replacement for food. Everything but the greens (which you can dehydrate if you're really concerned) is shelf stable.

This is not rocket science.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:38 AM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]


Someone else pointed out that Soylent could have been designed not so much for hyper-rationalist techbros but for depression sufferers; those who are incapable of getting joy from the taste of food or the act of eating, but nonetheless need sustenance.

Which suggests that going sufficiently far down the rabbit hole of techno-rationalism/neoliberal solutionism will involve deliberately inducing a depressive state in oneself, and calling it “enlightenment” (or perhaps “the red pill”). After all, any amount of cognitive effort spent feeling joy, or rapture, or love, or melancholy, or sensations of the sublime, is wasted effort which detracts from optimising oneself for one's rational goals, and thus the techno-Übermensch has no need for such things, but lives an ascetic life, stripped down to the bare minimum of additional weight. Hence nutrient slurry. If the lack of joy makes you feel sad, then sadness is just weakness leaving the body.
posted by acb at 8:40 AM on October 11, 2016 [18 favorites]


This is not rocket science.

But then, the vomiting.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:46 AM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]


Come now - it's vomiting that is weakness leaving the body.
posted by Frowner at 8:49 AM on October 11, 2016 [11 favorites]


I'm not the first person to point this out (perhaps not even on MetaFilter), but if you want inexpensive, low-prep food that you can live on your whole life, that product is called beans and rice and 2/3 of the world's population already subsists on some variation of it. Pop a multivitamin with it. Put it in a blender and chug the sludge or whatever, mash it into a bar shape and let it dry out. If you really don't care about anything except making your stomach shut up for a while, that problem has been solved for a millennium.

Of course, then you would be eating the same thing as non-white people and your relationship to the product wouldn't be mediated by technocapitalism, so I understand that is a dealbreaker for some people.
posted by Krawczak at 8:52 AM on October 11, 2016 [29 favorites]


I feel like every thread about Soylent is an excuse to trot out the same tired wit:
  • "What were they thinking with that name" from people who 1.) didn't read the book or watch the movie and so don't realize that Soylent was a perfectly good source of sustinance until the government couldn't grow enough soy and lentils and started adding extra protein to Soylent Green, and 2.) don't realize that by expression shock/confusion/disgust at the name they are playing into the company's marketing plan.
  • Hurfdurf techbros should just drink ensure/eat their mom's cooking (that last one is just bonkers offensive)
  • There's obviously something wrong with the customers of this product -- I enjoy eating/cooking so everyone else should too!
  • A crockpot full of beans costs a dollar and gives you all the nutrients you need, so you're stupid/immoral for wanting a prepackaged/instant solution
We get it, Soylent is not a product for everyone (it's certainly not a product for me). But obviously there's a market for it.

The current issues though are why we need government oversight and can't live in a regulation-free, libertarian, free-market fantasy system. I feel for the folks in the company trying to track down what the problem is, but when it comes down to it, they were able to use their customer base as quality control for their product because it's "food" and not "medicine." If they were just a little bit further over the line into med/pharma product world, they'd at least have to have a robust quality system in place which would make tracking down the sources much much faster.

Anyways -- shitting (swidt?) on the idea of Soylent is basically saying that you don't want people who live different lives than you to be able to live their lives a little better. Shitting on the company for (apparently) fucking up so royally is absolutely fair game.
posted by sparklemotion at 8:56 AM on October 11, 2016 [32 favorites]


zarq: "Jevity (and Vital HN, also from Abbott Labs) would be an alternative option, but since those are associated with patients who have feeding tubes (such as patients who have (or have had) cancer or advanced diabetes) i think that may have some stigma to the average consumer. They also tend to be expensive -- and the powdered options require prep time -- but I'm not sure how they compare to soylent on meal-by-meal cost."

I know about Jevity because my Dad has had throat cancer. He's moved onto creating the most gnarly shakes to supplement Jevity (Peanut butter & anchovy, because if you don't taste it who cares)

$1.77 per can; 355 Calories for Jevity

Wikipedia says:
The subscription to liquid Soylent version 2.0 costs US$32.30 for twelve 400 kcal bottles, which works out to US$2.69 per 400 kcal "meal", or US$13.45 per day on a 2000 kcal diet if one were to consume exclusively Soylent.

So for ~2000 Calories of Jevity needs 5.6 cans, or $9.92 per day. AND, that's not even factoring in if you can get Jevity even cheaper through medical insurance. Though I don't know if you could get an Rx of Jevity because you find eating a waste of time.
posted by wcfields at 8:57 AM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]


but if you want inexpensive, low-prep food that you can live on your whole life, that product is called beans and rice and 2/3 of the world's population already subsists on some variation of it.

Add some grilled chicken, some healthy fat (cheese or guac), and some veggies, and you'll be just about perfect.

You will also have re-invented Chipotle.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:58 AM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]


You will also have re-invented Chipotle.

Well, Soylent has already recreated the gastrointestinal effects.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:01 AM on October 11, 2016 [13 favorites]


[you're saying soylent's customers are] stupid/immoral for wanting a prepackaged/instant solution ... shitting (swidt?) on the idea of Soylent is basically saying that you don't want people who live different lives than you to be able to live their lives a little better.

This perspective focuses entirely on the way that individuals relate to their material conditions, mediated by their cultural values. That is not what I, for one, was criticizing. People are going to live their lives in a way that is nigh-deterministically outlined by their material and cultural environment, and it doesn't make any sense to throw moral imprecations on them for doing so. However, the material and cultural environment people find themselves in is not eternal and immutable. Obviously, fuck this product and the economic and cultural values that give rise to it. Food (even healthy, low-effort food) is a thoroughly solved problem. This specific product is empirically garbage. What's the difference? The economic, cultural, and ideological assumptions that give rise to this specific product, as opposed to beans and rice or feeding-tube fluid.

That is what I, for one, am criticizing, not the plight of people who are chained to their desks miles away from an affordable lunch place (like me!) or who capitalism has so walled-in from communities and alienated from their bodies that chugging (empirically) poisonous sludge seems more appealing than spending two minutes making a sandwich.
posted by Krawczak at 9:16 AM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]


Food (even healthy, low-effort food) is a thoroughly solved problem.

Which is why nobody goes hungry anywhere, everybody is healthy, everybody is extremely happy about that, and things will obviously continue in this fashion uninterrupted until the end of time.

I know Metafilter loves to hate anything that even looks like it might have been done by a white guy from Silicon Valley and I knew as soon as I saw the word "Soylent" that the thread was going to be full of people going "I HAD PREDJUDICES AND I'M PROUD OF THAT IN A WAY THAT I WOULD FIND DEEPLY DISGUSTING IN OTHERS", but if you're honestly trying to claim that food and eating are solved problems you've moved from being self-congratulatory to self-delusional in your desire to stomp on a thing that you don't like.
posted by IAmUnaware at 9:25 AM on October 11, 2016 [18 favorites]


I think there's great potential for 'engineered nutrition' in everyday life. The fact that someone failed in the implementation does not necessarily mean the whole idea is a bad one. There are already better implementations of the 'meal-in-a-bar' concept-- Mealsquares and Twennybars are quite palatable and don't seem to have suffered the same quality control issues.

If I want to prioritize my food's nutrition over the pleasure taken in eating it, and closely track and control my intake, it's very easy to do so when 1 bar = n calories, protein, vitamins, etc. I can still take the time to cook or go to a restaurant when I feel like savoring a meal (and supplementing with more natural foods).

I don't understand what people find so odious about any of the above.
posted by sammann at 9:31 AM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]


Which is why nobody goes hungry anywhere, everybody is healthy, everybody is extremely happy about that,

Hard for me to see how Soylent actually represents any kind of advance on these issues on the previously-existing solutions. Indeed, to the extent, however minor in the grand scheme of things, that it contributes to the increase in wealth inequality, it is actually sending us backwards.
posted by praemunire at 9:49 AM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


wcfields: So for ~2000 Calories of Jevity needs 5.6 cans, or $9.92 per day. AND, that's not even factoring in if you can get Jevity even cheaper through medical insurance.

Ah, thanks. I was under the impression that it was a lot more expensive.
posted by zarq at 9:56 AM on October 11, 2016


inexpensive, low-prep food

The line between no-prep and lo-prep is relatively steep, mentally, and also demands foresight. I could make some rice and beans but I’d have to wait like thirty minutes to do so - more, if I wanted to find a recipe to make them not taste bleh. (De gustibus.) At the other end of the spectrum, I can eat a Clif Bar literally right now.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:59 AM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]


Why not try a banana instead. Jesus it even grows with its own 100% biodegradable wrapper.

Because (among other things) bananas have incredibly high glycemic indexes and as much as I love eating them aren't great on a frequent basis if you have blood sugar issues of almost any kind.
posted by blucevalo at 9:59 AM on October 11, 2016 [9 favorites]


Why not try a banana instead. Jesus it even grows with its own 100% biodegradable wrapper.

Also -and this is subjective, so bear with me- bananas smell awful and appear to have a texture just slightly firmer than poop.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:01 AM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]


. I could make some rice and beans but I’d have to wait like thirty minutes to do so - more, if I wanted to find a recipe to make them not taste bleh.

that's what Texas Pete is for
posted by thelonius at 10:14 AM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


Space Stix. I miss 'em.
posted by allthinky at 10:14 AM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oops. They were called Space Food Sticks.
posted by allthinky at 10:15 AM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


beerperson: "My son's name is also barf"

he's his own best friend.
posted by boo_radley at 10:22 AM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]


>>Which is why nobody goes hungry anywhere, everybody is healthy, everybody is extremely happy about that,

>Hard for me to see how Soylent actually represents any kind of advance on these issues on the previously-existing solutions. Indeed, to the extent, however minor in the grand scheme of things, that it contributes to the increase in wealth inequality, it is actually sending us backwards.


I more or less agree with the second comment's first point, but in what way does something like Soylent increase wealth inequality? Money that would normally be going to Verizon/Chipotle/Exxon goes to a smaller company instead. Is that not likely to be more equitable in the grand scheme of things?
posted by sammann at 10:24 AM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


I guess you could say they've...
disrupted digestion.

YEAAAAAAH!

Do we still do that meme? Because it seems appropriate?
posted by stet at 10:25 AM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]


Money that would normally be going to Verizon/Chipotle/Exxon goes to a smaller company instead. Is that not likely to be more equitable in the grand scheme of things?

Anything supporting the VC-Silicon Valley food chain (so to speak) is probably promoting wealth inequality. In this case, the effect is unlikely to be drastic.
posted by praemunire at 10:35 AM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


in what way does something like Soylent increase wealth inequality? Money that would normally be going to Verizon/Chipotle/Exxon goes to a smaller company instead.

I, for one, love eating at Verizon's. The xtreem japaleno shooters just can't be beat!
posted by entropicamericana at 10:38 AM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


I was hoping that people would get their food shaming release from last week's Blue Apron thread, but it doesn't look like it.

Anyway, as a person who been following Soylent and eating their products for over a year, their response doesn't surprise me. Soylent as a company is based on flawed principles that all derive from higher authority:

- The US RDI represents perfect nutrition (and is not just a bunch of guesses)
- The US RDI applies to every person regardless of weight, gender, activity level, age, allergies, etc.
- If the FDA says a food is safe (or more correctly, hasn't said a food is unsafe), then it is safe for everyone to eat as 100% of all their intake
- Manufacturing things is also perfect and nothing ever goes wrong

So when something goes wrong, Soylent isn't quite sure what to do, because they didn't claim any actual knowledge in the first place.

Every time Soylent changes their recipe, the true believer who eats Soylent 100% will complain that the new version has soy / xanthan gum / horse hooves and they are allergic / tastes funny / gives them explosive diarrhea so please bring back the old recipe. They do not get a response, because it breaks the worldview that people are exactly the same in every way, and all their ingredients are clearly safe to eat and have no side effects to anyone. Their response to this bar problem is similar (works for me, and I am exactly the same person as you, so I cannot understand this problem!).

Also their bars are their mass-market product which are largely shunned by the true believers because they cost considerably more and have taste (yikes!).
posted by meowzilla at 10:39 AM on October 11, 2016 [14 favorites]


We're talking actual products designed as full meal replacements for those on liquid diet restrictions.

These things exist, but many of them are either expensive or taste revolting, or both. One of the things that Soylent promised was something that actually tasted neutral. I don't think it succeeds at that, but I really, really want places to actually keep trying to solve this problem. I've done Ensure before, and it tastes revolting and it's full of sugar. I've done Slimfast before and similar things, and they taste revolting and are full of artificial sweeteners. Soylent is unfortunately also still full of sucralose but at least it's not trying to be sweet, so there's not as much--I'd be fine with it if it weren't for the aftertaste. The Mealsquares use some real sugar and some xylitol and the result is considerably more palatable than anything else I've ever tried.

The fact that people have solved this problem in terms of finding things you can put in your mouth to make you not die, that's great, I'm glad they've done that, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of room for improvement. Like, a loooooooooooooooot of room.

I also really want to cook more and I'm working on developing a healthier relationship with food, but meal replacements have helped me a lot and I really wish that people would stop treating it like it's somehow greedy for people who don't want to cook to actually eat things that're nutritionally complete and not gross. I think Soylent got overhyped, but that hype meant that other competing products also got off the ground, and that's resulted in some very interesting progress. And, in this case, one, uh, kind of shitty product. But all that proves is that they should have better processes, not that they should stop trying to make the product. It's a great lesson about "disruption" and lack of safety, but that doesn't mean nobody should be trying to make consumer meal replacement products better.
posted by Sequence at 10:40 AM on October 11, 2016 [14 favorites]


aspersioncast: First-world attempts to hack a "meal-in-a-pill" have been going on for quite a while (one of the later OZ books def. has a reference to this), and I can see the benefits in a lot of situations (see astronaut food), but they always just seem so sad.
I'm a college student. Between classes, homework, studying, and sleep, I don't always have time to go through the motions of three proper meals a day. I may not be able to go have lunch or dinner at the right time because I'm stuck in a solid block of lectures. If I could choose between dragging through a day with no energy or sucking up a "nutrient slurry"... well, I know which one I'd pick. I'm sorry if you feel that's sad.
posted by Spinda at 10:47 AM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]


I could make some rice and beans but I’d have to wait like thirty minutes to do so

If you made them from a box, sure. Making them taste like rice and beans should takes overnight* and at least a half-hour in just prep.

*or means having a pressure cooker.
posted by bonehead at 10:47 AM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


(and that's not counting the time to make one's own stock either)
posted by bonehead at 10:50 AM on October 11, 2016


Apparently I’ve been cooking rice & beans all wrong.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:54 AM on October 11, 2016 [4 favorites]


The Mealsquares look compelling, but they seem kind of fatty...
posted by Going To Maine at 10:57 AM on October 11, 2016


...Do college students not eat in lecture anymore? Was my school just weird like that?
posted by maryr at 11:22 AM on October 11, 2016


I think there could be an interesting technological opportunity for genetic- and metabolic-level customization of each customer's diet. It's an interesting/open scientific problem, and technologically, sets the bar a lot higher, so to speak.

I'm not paid to be Soylent's consultant but if they're trying to implement a sci-fi idea why not reexamine the problem they're want to solve, and really shoot for the stars.
posted by polymodus at 11:35 AM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


Apparently I’ve been cooking rice & beans all wrong.

It's really a dish that can be as simple of complicated as you want. Yeah, on one end you're making your own stock and doing overnight soaks and bunch of other fairly involved things.

But there's the other end to that. Boxed beans and rice, for one, but that gets expensive. Canned beans and a rice cooker, though? ~20 minutes, tops. Pop the rice in the cooker and simmer the beans, you're good.

Of course, 20 minutes of effort is legitimately more than some people are capable of putting into cooking, at least sometimes. Which is fine. And unlike some other dishes, beans and rice don't keep all that well in the fridge, so you can't just make up a huge batch and reheat meal-sized servings throughout the week.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:35 AM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


aspersioncast: First-world attempts to hack a "meal-in-a-pill" have been going on for quite a while (one of the later OZ books def. has a reference to this), and I can see the benefits in a lot of situations (see astronaut food), but they always just seem so sad.

I'm a college student. Between classes, homework, studying, and sleep, I don't always have time to go through the motions of three proper meals a day.


I'm pretty sure aspersioncast was specifically expressing feelings about first-world structural issues, and not socioeconomic inequality which certainly exists in the first world. Situationally, "astronaut food" is necessary and beneficial. For other demographics, necessary but maybe not so beneficial. Like, it's not your fault that that you "don't have the time" (!) to eat three proper meals per day, but for some of us who studied in college and looked back, it was a structurally exploitative situation that we'd prefer that others not have to go through.
posted by polymodus at 11:40 AM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


It's really a dish that can be as simple of complicated as you want.

...which is the point: if you are trying to cook a wolf, then you have to go as cheap as possible: dried grain and pulse porridge, which can keep a family going on less than a dollar a day even today.

Money means choices. If you want to forgo soaking dried beans, you can buy canned, but you sacrifice money (and flavour) to do so. If you don't want to take the time to boil rice, you can even use instant and do it in 15 minutes. Even further, you can use a ready mix boil in the bag from Uncle Ben's and get to your plate in 5 minutes. Or you could just pick some up on your way home.

None of those choices are morally wrong, but all are trade-offs, typically money for convenience and time. Tonight my wife has to run from her 9 to 5 to a student lesson to conduct her choir. She literally will not have time for more than a 5-minute break between end of work and 11pm. She typically takes a liquid meal shake to bridge that gap, so she's not falling over at the end of rehearsal. It's not always about exploitative structures, it can be just about how someone chooses to spend their time, effort and money.
posted by bonehead at 11:47 AM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


I was depressed for awhile and cooking was beyond my abilities so I virtually lived on Ensure and pre-made protein shakes. Prolonged use was... not kind to my digestive system. My stomach was in knots. I was constipated, then gassy, then my poop was the wrong color and stinky. Every time I'm tempted to drink more than one or two per week I try to remember what that feels like. I really don't see how drinking only/mostly liquid can be good for your GI tract - you need some fiber to move things along.
posted by AFABulous at 11:48 AM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


If people like it knock yrselves out.

If I'm in the matrix, I want steak, not the gruel they eat on the Nebuchadnezzar.
posted by Annika Cicada at 11:48 AM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]


I can't read anything about Soylent without linking it back to infant formula, and its sordid history. A commercial product appears, and a subset of the world clamors for it to replace a perfectly functional, if occasionally inelegant, solution (wet-nursing). It quickly proliferates among a small part of the population, until we discover, actually, there are parts to nutrition beyond the simplistic model of carbohydrates, fat, and protein. Now we have a whole lot of people with rickets or scurvy or whatever other deficiency disease the manufacturer overlooked because it turns out no one understands nutritional science well enough to replace a robust diet with a single consumable.

Now we just need to wait for the next phase, where we fix whatever glaring oversight we originally made, and then Nestle uses it to fuck over the poorest parts of Africa to enhance shareholder value.
posted by Mayor West at 11:56 AM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]


So, I've been enjoying the soylent drink for the past few months. I like the blandness. I like that I can leave it out or in my backpack so I don't forget to take it with me in the morning and end up buying lunch. Since it only replaces 12 out of the about 90 meals that I eat a month, I don't think it really needs to be more than that.
posted by pinothefrog at 11:57 AM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]


It's not always about exploitative structures, it can be just about how someone chooses to spend their time, effort and money.

Well the validity of such a claim depends on what constitutes "structural exploitation" and what the process entails. This is a complex and controversial topic; see e.g. David Harvey's lectures on capital. In leftist discourse, the term has a specific meaning in relation to personal choice, e.g. they are not exactly mutually exclusive. You seem to think otherwise and have used the term differently from its original context.
posted by polymodus at 12:13 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm not the first person to point this out (perhaps not even on MetaFilter), but if you want inexpensive, low-prep food that you can live on your whole life, that product is called beans and rice and 2/3 of the world's population already subsists on some variation of it. Pop a multivitamin with it.
I have a half-hour during which I can eat lunch, and today an appointment ran long and ran right through it. I'm currently cramming a Cliff Bar down my throat in the time I have between appointments, which is to say that I had approximately two minutes to prepare and eat lunch. I don't usually eat like that, but today this is what I've got, and I don't see how rice and beans would work.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 12:33 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]


The 1970s and Space Food Sticks say hello.
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:35 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


How are we a hundred comments deep and nobody has pointed a finger at the secret people ingredient.

So, so obvious.
posted by Muddler at 1:03 PM on October 11, 2016


customers say that some of the bars caused them gastrointestinal distress, including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
SOYLENT PEOPLE IS GREEN!
posted by comealongpole at 1:05 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]


Also their bars are their mass-market product which are largely shunned by the true believers because they cost considerably more and have taste (yikes!).

For some people, at least, the fuel-ness of Soylent must foster and extend an identification as sleek and efficient machinery -- the Shinies among us, as opposed to the Furries.
posted by jamjam at 1:47 PM on October 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


I'm not paid to be Soylent's consultant but if they're trying to implement a sci-fi idea why not reexamine the problem they're want to solve, and really shoot for the stars.

Because, again, this is something that people have been working on for a long time. And this guy's approach was "Hey, I looked it up and put it together, and it worked because I'm a young smart tech guy."

I guess they've hired consultants now, but that's after the founder made this his full time job, which gives him some conflict. I'm not saying he's automatically completely off-base, but that backstory raises suspicion in me, and it seems like at least some if it justified.
posted by lumpenprole at 1:49 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Sequence: "We're talking actual products designed as full meal replacements for those on liquid diet restrictions.

These things exist, but many of them are either expensive or taste revolting, or both.
"

Both are untrue, see my upthread on Jevity.

It's balanced nutrition made by an "actual" company that is FDA approved. It even had a decimal in it, Jevity 1.5. Not because it's a revision, but because they got it right from the get go and aren't toying with people's guts to find the right formula and calling it Jevity 3.00.13_RC3

I've tasted it, it tastes like liquid corn flakes. My dad's cat goes absolutely bonkers to lick the can lid after he ingests it.

Listen, if you want to drink tech-bro sludge out of some self-autist rationalism you have to admit, there's cheaper, higher quality, regulated, ready-to-drink life-juice made by a company that keeps millions of tube-feeders alive on their products.
posted by wcfields at 2:11 PM on October 11, 2016 [5 favorites]


self-autist rationalism

???
posted by tobascodagama at 2:20 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


if you are trying to cook a wolf, then you have to go as cheap as possible

Why am I trying to cook a wolf? Why do I need to do it cost-effectively? Is this a typo or a saying I am unfamiliar with? Because I would like to either be familiar with this saying or possibly make up a meaning for it.
posted by maryr at 2:39 PM on October 11, 2016 [7 favorites]


AFABulous: "I was depressed for awhile and cooking was beyond my abilities so I virtually lived on Ensure and pre-made protein shakes. Prolonged use was... not kind to my digestive system. My stomach was in knots. I was constipated, then gassy, then my poop was the wrong color and stinky. Every time I'm tempted to drink more than one or two per week I try to remember what that feels like. I really don't see how drinking only/mostly liquid can be good for your GI tract - you need some fiber to move things along."
I've been on liquid diets for weight loss reasons, and without getting into details my experience was very different from yours. Basically, everything was getting used so there was no gas or constipation and very little... byproduct. But that was done simultaneously with a regular exercise program. It could be your troubles were an indication that you weren't getting enough physical activity.
posted by Kevin Street at 2:49 PM on October 11, 2016


The funny thing is that, twenty years from now, Rob Rhinehart will be the next Scott Adams.
posted by My Dad at 4:09 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


> I was depressed for awhile and cooking was beyond my abilities

It could be your troubles were an indication that you weren't getting enough physical activity.


Calling out a depressed person for not doing enough physical activity seems a little victim blamey to me. One of the tricks of depression, in my experience, is that you can never "just" do anything.

(fn1 yes, physical exercise can help with depression)
(fn2 yes, it is possible to be too depressed to exercise)

posted by sparklemotion at 4:26 PM on October 11, 2016 [6 favorites]


No, it's a little (unasked for) problem-solvey. Absolutely no moral judgement was intended.
posted by Kevin Street at 4:36 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


I’ve tasted it, it tastes like liquid corn flakes.

NOPE.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:19 PM on October 11, 2016


Sometimes the smugness here is overwhelming. Your life and choices are not everyone's. People do not deserve to get sick because they're eating something different than you. And I say this as vegetarian for 15 years: you're not better than anyone because of what you eat. Have some compassion instead of all this schadenfreude because "you knew better than to eat that crap." People die from e coli on broccoli.
posted by greermahoney at 6:05 PM on October 11, 2016 [8 favorites]


I dunno, this is just the latest in a long string of quality control issues from Soylent. It's definitely at the point where caveat emptor comes into play.
posted by tobascodagama at 6:17 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Both are untrue, see my upthread on Jevity.

I did say "many", didn't I? Jevity's not marketed for this purpose. The fact that it's available for personal sale doesn't mean it's recommended for this purpose. Not everybody's nutritional needs are going to be well-served by it. (Carb content especially.) I'm not saying one shouldn't try that if one's interested in trying it; as I've noted, I don't actually like Soylent, and I don't recommend Soylent. I'm still looking at other alternatives myself. What I'm saying is that it's ridiculous to expect that people will stop coming out with new products in this space because you think there's one everybody should like already. It's not going to suit everybody, and why should it need to?

You can say that the anti-regulation culture of producing this is a problem without saying the product idea itself is the problem. This would be a problem with the distribution of even things that were closer to what people traditionally think of as "real food".
posted by Sequence at 6:20 PM on October 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Why not try a banana instead. Jesus it even grows with its own 100% biodegradable wrapper.

Well, the whole monoculture problem maybe

But also, why does anyone care what other people want to eat?
posted by listen, lady at 6:59 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


Why am I trying to cook a wolf? Why do I need to do it cost-effectively? Is this a typo or a saying I am unfamiliar with? Because I would like to either be familiar with this saying or possibly make up a meaning for it.

m.f.k. fisher book.
posted by listen, lady at 7:01 PM on October 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


I tried a soylent competitor once. Mixing it was a chore and the texture of the slurry was not terribly appetizing. Plus it gave me tremendous gas.

I'll take the rice and canned beans any day.
posted by Standard Orange at 11:06 PM on October 11, 2016


Scroll down to Food & Drink on Metafilter's own FAQ for better Bachelor Chow alternatives.
posted by eye of newt at 12:29 AM on October 12, 2016


Or you could just fucking replace your stomach with a bioengineered cellulose processor and eat old magazines from the Before Time like a normal fucking person. Wait, what timeline is this?
posted by No-sword at 1:22 AM on October 12, 2016 [16 favorites]


Sometimes the smugness here is overwhelming.

Honestly, the biggest turn off about Soylent is the apparent smugness of the founder. He very deliberately cultivated the idea that Soylent is the future of food, the baseline meal that we can all eat when it becomes impossible to get other, healthier products. (People are happy to point out that in the film the only real problem with Soylent was that it was made from corpses. The irony here is that the movie is set in an awful, critically overcrowded version of the Earth. Naming your product "Soylent" is pretty darn pessimistic about the condition of the globe in the present and the future.)

The notion of a meal replacement is fine, and if I could dissociate the founder from the product that would be great too. As is, I find it difficult to buy something that's been branded as an indictment of my lifestyle.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:03 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


Thank you, listen, lady!
posted by maryr at 8:20 AM on October 12, 2016


I find it difficult to buy something that's been branded as an indictment of my lifestyle.


which i guess is why indicting the lifestyles of people who might buy it or want meal replacement is cool!
posted by listen, lady at 10:38 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


I think that one reason the Soylent narrative pushes my buttons - and I admit that this is not really fair given the whole "meal replacements are perfectly reasonable" angle - is that women and working class people are judged so goddamn hard over every food choice we make, and yet this dude, who can't even handle shitting, gets this whole huge narrative about how this is all a rational choice not to waste time on food so that you can be even more awesome and code even harder. And while people here make fun of Soylent, it's very different from the sheer nasty misogyny and class-hatred that's usually turned on women and working class people.

He is rich and he's making a specialty product for well-off, internet savvy people. He gets so much less side-eye than, say, a working class woman who doesn't live on beans and rice. He is accorded so much more public space even when he's like "oh, why should I eat food and have to shit when I can hack my body and never shit again". His body is accorded space and dignity that is routinely denied to other bodies even when he's behaving like a crackpot.

I understand that this doesn't have anything to do with the actual legitimacy of meal replacements for people who need them or just prefer them.
posted by Frowner at 10:48 AM on October 12, 2016 [11 favorites]


Once again, I can't stress this enough, I'd have a lot less to say about Soylent and techbro dipshit behind it if they could meet the bare minimum standard of, like, not poisoning their customers.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:32 AM on October 12, 2016 [5 favorites]


But also, why does anyone care what other people want to eat?

Because there is a cost, often hidden, to every single thing that we do. We have no idea what the impact of fully replacing regular food with meal replacements like this on a large scale is. Toxic byproducts? Rising prices for specialized ingredients used in this product thus making it unaffordable to people who depend on it (see quinoa)? Population large scale health issues? This is the same exact argument used for cars - if I pay my own car and gas myself, who are you to tell me if I can or cannot drive it as I want? But the fact of the matter is, if there is large enough population doing similar thing, there's a noticeable effect on the planet.

To be honest, I do not know what the large scale effect is. If it will be good or bad. But neither do most of you. The key I believe, both in this case or water bottles from a topic a few days ago or car usage is moderation. Use it when there's a legitimate need - to use a power bar or meal replacement when your day is booked solid for example. (If your days are booked solid for the majority of the time - there's a problem with your lifestyle. And I'm not saying that condescendingly - you're really burning both ends of the candle).

Yes..I realize fully that eschewing this and falling back into eating food industrialized farming produces comes with their own sets of issues. But it's a topic of different day.
posted by 7life at 11:53 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yeah, snark away, but I know a couple people with eating disorders and metabolic syndromes for whom the liquid version of soylent has been a godsend (especially compared to existing products in this segment, which are often stupid-high in sugar)

I have a couple friends like this as well, but it doesn't really counteract the "moldy batches of stuff made in sketchy not food certified mouse filled warehouses" angle.
posted by emptythought at 11:54 AM on October 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


I find it difficult to buy something that's been branded as an indictment of my lifestyle.

which i guess is why indicting the lifestyles of people who might buy it or want meal replacement is cool!

Well, also I feel threatened by a CEO who advocates that we should all be trying to live like him or else we are bad people. I’m a nervous person, and don’t like being confronted by blunt pessimism about the state of the planet and things over which I have no control. But this isn’t really the place for that discussion.

So no, people should eat whatever meal replacements they want to. But Soylent should be less smug about itself.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:51 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


FYI: anyone can completely create their own supplement powder @ True Nutrition. You decide what goes into it from the sweetner, to the protein, to the flavor.

Not sure why people are drawn to Soylent besides the name and actual knowledge about supplements.
posted by P.o.B. at 4:24 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]


Why am I trying to cook a wolf? Why do I need to do it cost-effectively.

Eventually, common phone grammar-correction mistakes will become widely adopted and celebrated phrases used in the style of cockney rhyming slang. I find it deeply frustrating that this hasn't happened yet.
posted by eotvos at 6:08 PM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]


FYI: anyone can completely create their own supplement powder @ True Nutrition. You decide what goes into it from the sweetner, to the protein, to the flavor.

Not sure why people are drawn to Soylent besides the name and actual knowledge about supplements.


There's no option to add fiber. If you try to subsist on that, you're gonna have a bad time.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:11 AM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


For some people, at least, the fuel-ness of Soylent must foster and extend an identification as sleek and efficient machinery -- the Shinies among us, as opposed to the Furries.

This is the heart of why i think some criticism of the people using this is legit. I work in tech, and i live in Seattle. There's quite a bit of techbro valley culture going on here, and it's getting worse every month.

Soylent, and discussion of it is deeply associated with a certain type of STEM-bro(or occasionally, STEM-lady) who thinks that they're literally smarter and more educated than basically everyone and that yea... basically this. That they're above normal food and enlightened in that dark-enlightenment red pill sort of way.

There's a yuge difference between "i don't have time for this because of my life" and "this is below me".

Basically, the primary group of people consuming and promoting/creating this product have repeatedly demonstrated themselves to both be pretty gross, and also totally dunning-kruegered out in thinking they've gamed the stupid system and switching from a superiority complex to not understanding why they went wrong.

You're not really punching down when you're roasting affluent tech workers who think they're better than everyone else. Or i mean, i guess, that's just like my opinion but yea.

I mean in the end, food in fraught and complicated to talk about and unpack. There's all kinds of class shittiness and a million other issues that go into it. But this is literally marketed to and primarily purchased by elitist techbros. It's the food version of every bad, ill thought out, exploitative thing to come out of the valley. Can we just make fun of it and its strident supporters in peace? I'm totally all for this product conceptually made by people who don't just think they know what they're doing and with proper regulation. As it is though, both the creators and most consumers sound like those people who want to start a libertarian island state every few years.
posted by emptythought at 1:16 PM on October 13, 2016 [5 favorites]


emptythought: Soylent, and discussion of it is deeply associated with a certain type of STEM-bro(or occasionally, STEM-lady) who thinks that they're literally smarter and more educated than basically everyone and that yea... basically this. That they're above normal food and enlightened in that dark-enlightenment red pill sort of way.

Right. That's, I think, what rubs me the wrong way most about Soylent. That so many of its proponents seem to be of the sort where food, and the pleasures thereof, is secondary to pure fuel so you can keep writing code all day, and work on your business plan all night. It glamorizes a lifestyle of constant work that drives me batshit. Soylent-like stuff would be super-convenient for a lot of people. But the way they market it, and its proponents, never bring it up. Instead it's "drink/eat this and keep crushing it."
posted by SansPoint at 2:13 PM on October 13, 2016 [6 favorites]


There's no option to add fiber. If you try to subsist on that, you're gonna have a bad time.

You can buy bulk unflavored fiber for change per ounce. That's a two step process but you still have far more utility in making something that you like and would be far more likely to drink.
posted by P.o.B. at 5:06 PM on October 13, 2016


The Guardian has a new piece on this, saying that some customers who got sick report a "gelatinous substance" on the wrapper:
“There was a bright green liquid/gelatinous substance on the inner wrapper of today’s bar,” one reported to the company. “I ate it anyways, confident in my ability to digest anything natural. It otherwise smelled and tasted fine.”
That sounds like algae, and blue-green algal contamination was my guess from the get.
posted by jamjam at 6:41 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


"I ate it anyways, confident in my ability to digest anything natural."

Other delightful natural ingredients include: botulinum, tetrodotoxin, and arsenic!
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 6:56 PM on October 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


which i guess is why indicting the lifestyles of people who might buy it or want meal replacement is cool!

I really feel like we've gone through this territory in previous threads, but:

At least in my case, it's less indictment than pathos. I know several people for whom eating is a routine annoyance that they'd like to skip. And on a subjective level I find that sad. I'm not really hearing anyone in here indicting the idea of a product trying to help people with food intolerances or medical issues or various other dietary restrictions.

There is a structural criticism related to the whole "eat your peas, don't you know there are people starving in Africa?" But it's based on an emotional appeal more than any kind of logic.

I will indict the daylights out of the guy that produces soylent, who is pretty much the picture in the dictionary next to motherfucking engineer's disease.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:19 AM on October 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


« Older Classifying Voice   |   Even the word had power for me. Quilts. Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments