I'm sad about yet another delay. I hope they can get this sorted out. I ordered a little later in the campaign and wasn't expecting my 30 day supply until late Dec or early Jan. but now we're looking at late April.
Why go with an exotic, new protein source like brown rice when there're others available in huge quantities and very good quality like whey protein isolate ?
Whey protein may not be 100% for vegans, I guess. But then, it's something so remote from milk, just as rice isolate is remote from rice.
Wow, what a crazy thread! They are going about picking nutrients the way I would go about picking some web framework. Hey lets pick Rails what dynamic languages no way ok how about Servlets no way dude no semicolons for me ok then how about Play dude its like so boilerplatey ok fine how about scalatra fine scalatra it is. There's no thought that some human is actually going to put this thing in his mouth, what effects its going to have on his health and well-being. Nutrition as a Service.
>Were you expecting a magical revelation from the gods of nutrition?
Unlike subjective ad-hoc-cy garbage like web/js frameworks, nutrition is a sound science well studied for hundreds of years. We know which people in which climes eat which food groups in what proportion, how they fare relative to each other, impact of food groups on your bile/blood/bowels , ...
There are, as you choose to call them, "gods of nutrition", with PhDs and years of experience studying the damn thing in their labs. To randomly pick brown rice over whey because "hey I don't want to support industrialized cattle farmers"...that would be like my toddler picking candy over broccoli because it just tastes better! This is supposed to be an MRP that real people eat, and hopefully has no adverse effects on them. Its not some random 8080 server that serves json whether you code it up with or without semicolons.
> There's no thought that some human is actually going to put this thing in his mouth, what effects its going to have on his health and well-being.
What do you mean? That is the whole point of the discussion.
They are citing studies and talking about what effect the various ingredients in the formula will have on the body.
I think debate is going to be present in the creation of anything, even amongst those with experience, so that part doesn't bother me too much.
However, to me Soylent feels as if a bunch of business experts with no software experience sat down to have a detailed debate with an open internet forum about what design decisions should be made in the construction of an electronic banking system or FEA modeling software, the whole way using only Wikipedia as a resource and without consulting anyone with past experience building such a system.
Actually, Soylent's development process reminds me a bit of many Bitcoin products: overconfident hype-prone attempts to design high-value systems with limited domain knowledge and a certain disdain for regulation, authority, and expertise.
If I weren't opposed to giving them money I certainly wouldn't be opposed to trying Soylent and perhaps using it as a meal-replacement shake at times. After all, the stuff is almost certainly more nutritionally valuable than a lot of the things I eat. But as a complete meal replacement, I feel things need to be pretty damn right and I don't think Soylent have the domain experience or testing to market their product as such.
Too bad they aren't interested in assisting the poor. This could have been a godsend. The market their price targets will likely show little interest. They like and can afford food.
I'm skeptical that a packaged product like soylent would be able to compete in price with regular food. Their market, at least for now is going to be a) people who want a strict diet and b) people who would rather eat a milk shake than cook normal food.
At about $9/day, it's still too expensive for a lot of poor people. You can eat rice and beans for $1 a day, or a healthy variety of food for $5-6/day (though requiring more time to prepare obviously)
They have (somewhere), but even more interesting is that they are kind of treating this in a sort of open source manner. They either plan to (or already have) publish the recipe. It's not going to be a trade secret, and they expect competition. The kickstarter they did basically gives them enough funds to establish supply lines and produce a viable product. Any real competition would have to jump through similar hoops, and that takes time. One of their goals is to make the product ubiquitous ('like coffee'), so as long as they're making money, they don't care if they're even the market leader. Of course, for the short term, they will be.
To that end, Soylent has a DIY section where people have contributed recipes so you can make soylent yourself, often with a button to add all the ingredients into your amazon cart.
The thing to remember that when you DIY, you're buying the ingredients in bulk and it seems expensive. Take for example the [QuidNYC's Superfood for him](http://diy.soylent.me/recipes/quidnycs-superfood-for-him) which will cost you $437 up front, but gives you an ~80 day supply, so it really comes down to $5.50/day. Also, if you compare that to the Soylent campaign prices, it's $255 for a 1 month supply, or $130 for a 2 week supply. There's no real "trial size" at this point, so it's rather difficult to try a bunch of recipes and see what you like.
“I’d like this to be something that is like coffee — a commodity something that’s available everywhere. Maybe a utility like water and power. Something that is ubiquitous and easy to consume,” he said. “I’d like to see it in grocery and convenience stores soon.” ( http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/01/soylent-1m-preorders/ )
You have to keep in mind this is an early adopter, hot-off-the-manufacturing-line, hey-look-this-might-work version. Give it time to grow, mature, and let economies of scale kick in.
> and RFI has ordered several pallets of rice protein via air freight, so the manufacturing process can begin earlier and supporters can start receiving shipments.
With tricks like that, it's unlikely Soylent will become affordable anytime soon. But then, experimental food technology, small scale, etc.
I'm still pretty sure that if it does become big enough to be distributed to grocery stores, it'll find a way somewhere in the diet department, right next to the diet shakes and whatnot.
With a steady supply line and a better understanding of demand after initial launch the supply line can be smoothed out and cheaper methods of transportation can be employed. Right now they are paying to speed up the process and make up for lost time.
I'm not going to speculate on its future success but even if it lands amongst the diet shakes it would be in a multi billion dollar market.
That's just how early R&D is when you have a physical product. I can't count how much crazy crap I've seen rushed from China to make a deadline or meet early turn outs. Sometimes engineering time and early adopter happiness are worth a lot more than the one off cost of some air freight. Its not like (at least I hope not how) that's how their supply chain will be working in the long term.
They went into this with zero experience and have just been trying to hire to fill the gaps, and it shows. They will get better at the contracts (make non-fulfillment hurt contractually) and stuff will improve.
It is really hard to be a newbie to the creation of physical stuff -- lots of learning. They are doing it at a decent scale to boot.
Can't speak for who you're asking directly, but: lentils, rice, beans, frozen veggies, corn tortillas. Can make delicious meals with a well-stocked spice rack (which costs an initial hundred bucks or so upfront, but depreciation maybe adds at most a couple quarters to each meal).
Fresh veggies are doable too, if you're smart about where you shop and what you buy.
I'd suggest people to go shopping at your local ethnic store for spices vs. buying pre-packed spice racks or those tiny spice bottles from whole foods or your local markets.
You'll get X times quantity for 1/Yth the cost. The same goes for Lentils, Beans and Rice
> well-stocked spice rack (which costs an initial hundred bucks or so upfront, but depreciation maybe adds at most a couple quarters to each meal).
Then there's the bulk options for spices you use regularly and in sufficient quantity to keep the quality of your stock reasonably high! Being from the Southwest, that tends to include copious amounts of chili powder, paprika, and a few others for me since I go through them so quickly.
I really like your post though. It doesn't cost that much to eat well, if you're willing to sacrifice some time in exchange. And it's probably healthier, too (lower sodium, plus you know more or less what you're putting into it).
It's not hard too eat so that it only costs ~5$ a day depending on your situation. Most simple meals like a sandwich or some pasta can be made for ~1$ and a little more effort. Where I live in Philly a little ad hoc produce stand sets up right down the street regularly with very cheap produce. 5$ would buy lettuce, some apples, carrots, potatoes, etc - enough for a couple days. I can go to the Italian market and get cheap rolls and meat. The Amish and Mennonites have markets around. There are grocery stores where I can get bags of beans, rice, and other staples very cheap.
The problem is if you're in a situation where it's like you get 5$ at the beginning of each day, you can't buy in bulk and save. Likewise if you live in a "food desert" it's harder to shop.
My wife and I eat really cheaply. I generally eat three meals a day, usually tofu or some sort of fish like tuna or salmon. My wife eats similarly. It's not quite $5 a day, but we get by on about $200 a month with occasional spikes due to replenishing a store such as spices, flour, etc.
I'm just hoping it isn't successful. I'm not looking forward to a future where a co-worker at lunch time says "No thanks, brown-bagging it today!" and guzzles it down.
If your coworker is brown bagging it, what do you care what is in their bag? I ate lunch with coworkers today and one of them had eggplant. I hate eggplant with a passion... but what do I care what she ate?
You can hope it doesn't catch on at your work, or that it doesn't enable your co-workers to be anti-social, but to wish for its failure as a product seems overboard and selfish.
There are millions of people that work with very limited breaks that would appreciate a cheap and relatively healthy alternative to fast food or crap from a cafeteria.
This is a stupid amount of petty intolerance. What other people eat is their own damn business, and if you don't like it keep quiet and don't try to push your personal preferences on other people.
You can look at my comment history and see that I never post comments like this.
This is an exception because I find this so utterly repulsive and repugnant.
Somewhere deep down in my soul I find this just anti-human, like a bunch of transhumanist lemmings that can't wait to jump off the whole humanity train so they're going to start by eliminating food. Next comes truth, followed by beauty.
Anti human? You mean like prosthetic limbs? You mean like artifical organs to replace failed natural ones? Wow, I thought the "humanist" mindset parodied in the recent deus ex game was a complete invention. Apparently it really exists.
Thanks for the most absurd thing I've read all year this side of 4chan.
Prosthetic limbs and organs attempt to replace their natural equivalents. Why you would think I have a problem with that, I have no idea.
So far I haven't seen amputees opting for tentacles instead of legs, or people deliberately amputating healthy limbs so they can run faster with blades. That would gross me out.
> Why you would think I have a problem with that, I have no idea.
Because you're having this visceral, irrational reaction to what is essentially a nutritionally-modified Ensure or Slimfast or any other meal replacement drink that's been around for the past 20 years!
Wait until prosthetics are on equal ground with the real thing - I'd wager once that time comes, willfully trading the real limb for an artifical one will become a real thing.
When I have a deep aversion to something but I don't know or can't say why, I interpret it as a sign that I need to think about my philosophies until I can articulate the reason for my emotional reaction. Sometimes, I find the emotion was based on a false belief from ancient indoctrination, and I have to change my mind.
So, could you articulate what makes you so opposed to the idea?
It seems like this continues to push forward and tries to be a real product, but there are two things wrong with it. 1) outside of a really small group of people (unless I'm mistaken?), it doesn't seem like there's any demand for it and 2) it has one of the worst product names I've ever heard of.
I don't think the group of people is really small.
People I talk to about Soylent tend to think about it in a binary "all or nothing" way. Yes, there are few who would do use it for the majority of their meals.
There are many people, however, who appreciate the occasional healthy/quick/cheap meal.
Soylent might not yet be "cheap", but it will be big if it gets there.
What's with the comments on here trying to torpedo Soylent because of its name?
First of all, Soylent passed $2 million in orders, so there is a demand for this, even in its uncertain, preliminary state.
Second of all, what's wrong with the name? You'd have to be absolutely off-the-rails crazy to think even for a moment that it's actually made of people, which leaves the only other meaning - food substitute.
Really, what is it with the undue hate coming at Soylent in this comment section? Jealousy?
Don't confuse demand for hype. There's a demand to have a trial phase with the product, but not for the actual product itself. We'll see if there is actual demand once that phase is over.
No one is demanding a trial phase with the product, as such is not an option. The only option is the product, and there is $2mil worth of demand for the product (likely higher since that number was reported).
Why are you trying to cut them down? "We'll see if there's an actual demand"? There is an actual demand. $2 million in demand. That's undeniable.
"This rice protein is the highest mesh size on the market, which results in a smooth and creamy mouthfeel." This is why I backed Soylent. For the mouthfeel.
I'm unsure that I understand the whole Soylent thing. Is it for lazy people or is it for people who simply don't enjoy food? I know it's not about solving some sort of food supply problem, as we've not seen tons if it being distributed for free to the hungry. And it can't be about eating healthy, because eating healthy is easy and doesn't require buying chemicals from shady manufacturers. So what's it all about?
I typically don't eat breakfast because I either don't have time, have run out of eggs/cereal/milk, or don't feel like eating one of the three typical breakfast foods. If I could supplement/substitute breakfast it would be really nice.
Sometimes I eat fast food or some microwaveable thing because I am either exhausted when I come home, don't have food in the fridge, and I don't want to prepare anything or go to the super market. If I had a healthy and cheap alternative to a borrito, burger, or teriyaki chicken that would be awesome.
I'm not going to go 100% on Soylent and I don't think many of the people buying into it are, it's a meal alternative and another option for those 20-40% of meals that I simply am not going to cook for whatever reason.
So it's for people with poor time management skills or who have almost no foresight? I'm glad I am able to take the minute to throw together a tofu sandwich in the morning but maybe I'm blessed with a less hectic morning routine than most Soylent users.
I have plenty of time in the morning to make a lunch to take to work. I don't want to. Your "holier than thou" comments are not helping anyone. So you're not interested in Soylent... why be a jerk about it to people who are? I hate tofu... should I trash talk all the people that put that disgusting, vile creation into their mouth?
I'm not making comments, I'm asking a legitimate question. If you have the means, the time, and the ability to make a meal for yourself then what provides the motivation to say "Nah, I'd rather eat this." For example, most folks on HN have the means, the time, and the ability to build their own custom computer rig. Some choose it, and some choose not to and for various reasons such as they simply don't need a custom rig, or they aren't sure that their craftsmanship will yield a better result than a store bought product and so forth and so on. So, when it comes to food (which is infinitely more important than what computer system you're using) what is the motivation for drinking a paste of dubious origin vs. eating solid food that you build yourself?
Sorry. Usually legitimate questions don't involve reducing people interested in Soylent to various negative buckets like: Lazy, no foresight, poor time management skills. I mistook your comments for condescending snark. Still not sure I am wrong but since I'm not a mind reader I'm not going to argue about what you were thinking. I can just go off of what I read.
Perhaps lazy is a bit of a strong word....I guess I meant....people who...don't want to perform...tasks? I've still not seen a legitimate answer. I mean if someone didn't have teeth, or if they were allergic to a lot of things, or if they literally didn't have 1 minute to spare either in the morning or at night then I could see it. Or if they were really into fitness and weight loss and wanted to fit into that new swimsuit by spring break then maybe I could see it. But it doesn't look to me like Soylent is nutritionally flexible enough (it comes pre mixed in pouches) to be used as an actual nutritional supplement for the masses (nutritional needs are different depending on many, many factors). So maybe it tastes good? But does it provide the variety that can be found either in nature of even at a restaurant? So maybe some people simply don't care for variety? So why not make a Soylent-like product that's more customized to your nutritional needs? The guy published an extensive blog about how he did it so you can too. So does it really come down to just not having the time or the inclination to feed yourself? It just seems like letting someone push a slurry of chemicals into your body, and paying them to do so no less, is a strange life choice.
If I thought for a second that you actually wanted a legitimate answer, then I would give you mine. But when you say things like "literally don't have 1 minute to spare" I know you just want to put people down. You don't want to know because you have already judged everyone and it shows in all of your comments. I'm not going to waste any more time thinking I can convince you of anything when you so clearly have already decided. Which is fine. You don't have to like the idea of Soylent. But you also don't have to shit on like that.
I promise that my intention isn't to shit on anything. It just seems to me that most people are trying Soylent either because it saves time or because it's easier than cooking proper food. And those two reasons, to me, don't sound like a good reason to try a nutritional supplement.
Most of the things we all eat comes from dubious origins. The average meal comes from several different continents and from animals and plants grown under a wide range of conditions. If you buy all of your ingredients in their least processed form then you have a shot at knowing roughly where it came from. Good luck if you buy anything canned, in a box, or pre-made at a restaurant and don't even bother trying with supplements.
Soylent isn't from another planet and isn't made of some crazy chemicals just invented. Looking at its ingredients list isn't any stranger than looking at the ingredients list of almost any product in the supermarket.
I'm lazy when it comes to food: my primary motivator with respect to food is not being hungry. While I like to eat food and definitely have types I prefer over others, I don't like to source them, prepare them or clean up afterwards. I also don't like that I have a whole room dedicated to the storage, processing and cleanup of food and food-related paraphernalia.
Basically, aside from the 'provides vital sustenance' aspect of it, I don't believe food enhances my life in any way. A product that claims good, fast, palatable nutrition with a minimum of effort? I will give that a try.
I drink protein shakes in the morning about once or twice a week (usually the morning after a workout). Soylent appeals to me because it seem like a more "complete" protein shake.
I haven't purchased other meal replacement drinks because I frankly wasn't aware that they existed until I started following all of this.
It's for people who don't care about eating enough to spend hours every week just preparing healthy meals, but care enough about eating healthily that they don't want to just eat fastfood/takeaway all the time.
I also contest your statement that eating healthy is easy, unless by easy you mean 'requires careful planning and constant vigilance'
It doesn't take hours to eat an apple on your way to work in the morning. And it doesn't take careful planning nor constant vigilance to grill a salmon steak and prepare a small salad. It takes about 40 minutes to do that and costs maybe $10, for two meals for two people and with about 5 ingredients (salmon, lettuce, olives, red pepper, olive oil).
Reading your other comments, it seems you've already formed a negative opinion of this product based on your existing lifestyle. Hopefully I can explain it a way that makes sense.
I have plenty of time to make food, but it's not just making the food.
It's coming up with an idea of what meals I want to have each week, it's going to the grocery store and purchasing the food. When it comes to putting it away, you have to decide if you're going to eat this steak right away or if your're going to freeze it for another day. If you have frozen meat, there's a good chance you'll have to take it out and thaw it the night before so you can cook it.
By no means is this an onerous task. It's really all just part of daily life for a lot of people. But here's the rub. If you don't have time (or "lack of foresight") to get your groceries on Monday, you're not going to be able to spend 40 minutes to grill that salmon on Tuesday. You certainly won't be eating the leftovers of that on Wednesday.
I clean the house because a dirty house is distracting and becomes unsanitary. I can even enjoy the process and the satisfaction of making clutter go away. But I don't plan out cleaning the house. I try to keep it tidy as I go, and if it gets out of hand and becomes a problem, I dig in and start cleaning. I don't hire a cleaning service because it's manageable with my lifestyle.
I have a fairly large yard that I have to mow each week. It usually takes me about 3-4 hours each weekend between the riding mower and the pushmower. Sometimes I need to get the weed eater out and trim around the house. For years, I had no problem doing this on a Saturday morning. When I got married, my wife and I divided this job up and it cut down on the time. But when we had my kid last year, we could never seem to find the time to mow the yard each week and by the second week the yard was looking like a hay field. So we started paying the neighbor kid to do it. It became amazing to come home from work and see the yard cut. Just removing that from my list of things that need done became a relief and allowed me to focus on other things that were more important to me (like replying to posts on hacker news ;).
The crux of the matter is about priorities. I may spend a couple hours building a new PC, or more likely, spend time out in my hamshack setting up an PC to radio interface because that's what I enjoy. I make time for those activities. I also enjoy eating or drinking with friends as a social activity. I could have friend over and fire up the grill or we can go to a restaurant and eat. But other things are done out necessity. But when it comes to getting a meal for myself, I could care less. I'd much rather spend my time working on my radios or solving computer problems or teaching my son how to read. Going to the grocery store is really far down on my list of things I'd like to do. But since I didn't go to the grocery store, I don't have supplies to make a meal with.
To get around this, I can swing by any sort of fast food place (Subway right away), I can order pizza, or I can stock up on frozen meals from Sam's Club. My freezer has a lot of 2 minute breakfast sandwiches. But none of these are really that healthy.
So when I heard about Soylent, it struck a chord. I can theoretically by this in bulk, it has a long shelf life, and make it in the blender in a couple minutes. People have done meal replacements before of course, but this seemed to be much more complete than those canned milkshakes or protein bars ever were (and I've tried some of those before). So now whenever I look up from whatever I'm working on and realize I'm hungry, I can make something that (hopefully) tastes good in 5 minutes and take it back to whatever interesting thing I was doing.
Another benefit of this time saving is that you don't have to go right back to work. If you have 30-60 minute lunch window, most people spend the bulk of that time obtaining and consuming food. Imagine having your thermos at the ready and you take it with you to go read a book, or just stare out the window, or maybe you go for a job and eat it when you get back. Most people are focused on the lunch in lunch break, but might enjoy using that break time in a different way.
You're just going to replace the time you don't spend on yourself with time you spend at work. I'd rather be taking time to make and eat food (and my team takes hour long lunches at minimum) than gulping something down and then wondering "what now?" as I sit in front of the workstation. Meals are incredible. They are social, they are spiritual, they are international, tasteful, satisfying, new, nostalgic. Soylent is a bland smoothie that supposedly meets your body's "needs" without meeting your body's needs.
>Another benefit of this time saving is that you don't have to go right back to work. If you have 30-60 minute lunch window, most people spend the bulk of that time obtaining and consuming food. Imagine having your thermos at the ready and you take it with you to go read a book, or just stare out the window, or maybe you go for a jog and eat it when you get back. Most people are focused on the lunch in lunch break, but might enjoy using that break time in a different way.
Every time we have a thread about Soylent on HN, without a doubt, it turns into a debate between people who love the product/concept and people who absolutely loathe it.
I've always found it interesting that a lot of the most disruptive companies have this effect at some point, in various degrees. Apple, Uber, Airbnb, and recently Secret all come to mind.
I'm not saying this is any kind of a predictor for the success of Soylent, but it's still interesting.
Soylent threads also get a lot of snarky and rude comments directed at the people who love the concept. The others you listed (with the exception of Apple) don't get that so much. I don't think I've ever read an Uber or Airbnb thread where the people against it were so rude to the people for it.
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