Soylent: Could It Change The Way We Eat?
The creator of a food replacement product Soylent has shipped out the first round of product after receiving over 3.5MM in VC and crowdfunding and developing the mix over the past year. According to Wikipedia, Soylent is an open sourced food substitute optimized to fulfill the average human's nutritional needs in the form of a powder + water shake. It was pioneered by an engineer, Rob Rhinehart, as a complete substitute for eating regular food. It sells for 3-4 dollars a meal depending on how much is purchased and is recognized as a safe food by the FDA.
There are also a ton of home made variants that are quite close to the batches being sent out. Here's an example of one of the more popular recipes. All the ingredients can be bought off Amazon and cost $3.50 a day. At costs that low, an invention like this can become a serious contender as a solution to feeding the hungry domestically and the impoverished or disaster-stricken abroad.
As someone who just started living alone and working I could see myself saving a lot of effort, time, and money spent on normal food by making a few batches.
Would any of you guys try this out for a bit? Do you think there'd be a stigma against it in your office if you had it at lunch?
Sources:
http://soylent.me/
http://diy.soylent.me/recipes/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_(food_substitute)
I have protein shakes pretty often and hugely prefer eating real food...I personally have no desire to switch to a permanent meal replacement
Does it come in a green version?
That would be like putting regular gas in a Ferrari.
I'm going to be starting a new job soon, and I'll be working pretty strenuous hours, so I've decided I'll probably give this a try. Not as a complete replacement, but mainly as a time/money saver. I imagine I'd replace 3-4 dinners with it to cut down on costs and improve my previous down time, while using some of the money saved towards buyer higher quality meals at other times (mainly lunch). If it works, great, if not then at worst I'll have saved me a few bucks for a month or two.
Also,
If anything, it's like putting pure gasoline vs. ethanol-blended gas in a car. You tend to get better performance when there's not a lot of unnecessary additives in it (food or otherwise).shrugI did soylent for roughly 8 months until work required me to travel and I couldn't bring ingredients with me.
Simply put, I never felt better in my entire life. I was a fucking machine, best shape of my life and I had an immense mental clarity.
It takes a couple of weeks to adjust but after a whole you won't have food cravings. Start small and replace a meal or 2 meals a day, especially if 1 of those that loads up at lunch or dinner and wants to avoid the post meal crash.
Going to get back on it shortly.
Definitely willing to try based on your review. Do you end up feeling satisfied/full without the eat in between meals?
I never felt hungry. Your body is hungry when it doesn't have what it needs to function. Your body gets its fuel through food usually, in case of soylent, body gets its fuel through shakes.
fuck soy. I like my testosterone
This is interesting, is one serving roughly equivalent to a main meal (lunch/dinner)? Wikipedia says 500+ calories per serving which seems great if you can tick off your lunch and dinner with one serving each.
Edit: This gave me some second thoughts http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/27/soylent-style-powdered-food-shows-bad…
After reading it, it does appear that these mice, after being fed purely a powdered form of food, showed signs of significantly higher adrenaline and corticosterone levels, blood glucose, and blood pressure (diastolic mainly). However, the scientists also injected some of the mice with liraglutide (an analog of human GLP-1) towards the end of the experiment and the injections reduced or reversed nearly all of the negative aspects of the powdered feeding (when compared to the group that got solid food). Considering there are so few studies on long term ingestion of non-solid foods, I think it would be better to see the affects both on with a larger sample group, and in a longer time-frame (1-1.5 years vs. just 17 weeks).
Haha, would +1 @"GoldenCinderblock" if I had any SBs.
I can definitely see the huge potential in this for helping fight hunger, but with the costs associated, wouldn't the improvements therein be marginal at best? Figure it this way: if it costs $3 (conservatively) a meal, who would rather fund this over something like making PBNJs, which are probably around something like $0.70 each. Even in volunteerism there are costs associated.
On a more personal level, to me this seems a little boring. It takes the fun away from real food. We have our senses for a reason, and one of the greatest things in this world that we all take for-granted is real food. While this may supplement all of your nutritional needs, is it really better than biting into a juicy steak? Is it better than smelling something delicious you're cooking?
Don't get me wrong; I'm all for convenience and ease-of-use, and I drink at least two protein shakes a day (gotta get dem gainz). But nothing can replace real food.
This is sort of besides the point. Of course there are cheaper alternatives. You could just eat ramen for every meal, and that would be what, $0.80 a day? But that wouldn't be very healthy, and neither would scarfing down peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Take a peek at the nutrition label for Soylent:
http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Screen-Shot-2014-…
Have it three times a day, and you get 100% of every macronutrient, vitamin, mineral, etc. That's the point. Cheap, easy, and actually nutritious.
Do you have a source for this? Whey protein is just... protein. A macronutrient. I don't know how that's harmful.
Sounds OK for me (never tried it to be honest), but what about impact on your liver? Protein shakes (which I tried) seems share something in common with this, but they can be pretty harmful, expecially when you take them regularly for a long 3+months period of time
BR, Mark
Lol at protein being bad for your liver
Sorry maineaiac42, but it is not a joke. I was seriously in pro powerlifting back in student years and know what I am saying. Protein shakes (and other 'sport nutrition') may be less harmful than for example Cola or other 'not-very-healthy-products', but still have its own side-effects.
BR, Mark
http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Soy-again-linked-to-male…
@SSits - lol +1.
I really hope I'm not the only one who gets your joke. Might be getting old!
Why would they name it that?
I read an interview the founder did a little while back. He said it's not meant to replace real food, but more of a solution to just fuel your body for those regular annoying meals. He was tired of having to prepare frozen crap from Costco because that's all he could afford.
I see it as just another MRP substance. I wouldn't feel comfortable using it as a long term solution to eating solid foods, but wouldn't mind drinking the stuff 4-5 times a week to replace those meals where I'm too busy/lazy to prepare something. Much healthier than a frozen pizza or bag of chips.
I won't try it, but it's amusing to imagine a world where we could force foodies to live on Soylent for a few months, the annoying bastards.
This is too expensive too fight world hunger - better agricultural techniques and transgenics are much better.
But this could be awesome to fight expensive health costs and issues. A lot of really fit people just do their own version of a product like this at home (basically planning cals, micros and macros). When I started planning my diet, I never got sick again, got ripped, filled with energy and all that nice stuff.
Protein shakes are not bad for the liver - unless you're buying some crap stuffed with chemicals (it would be the chemicals default). People can get their protein from chicken, soy, whey shakes or whatever and they're all OK for healthy livers.
What is bad for people (and for the economy, because of the health costs associated) are lazy fat people stuffing themselves with endless burgers, fried crap and especially lots and lots of alcohol, which carries the biggest absolute external costs of any drug. Almos any kind of shake is better for your organs than that stuff.
Not sure why people are saying this is not feasible for humanitarian purposes.
1) Bulk costs will bring it down in price.
2) It doesn't spoil or waste space in transportation.
I have no doubt the US spends more, per meal, on aid then this would cost. Besides, it is fully nutritional, a major issue with food insecure regions. They might get some rice or something, but young kids aren't getting the nutrition they need during development.
//www.youtube.com/embed/9IKVj4l5GU4
Hello, I have some nutrition background and I would like to clarify some misconceptions. 1- People in coma are fed through a tube in hospitals so we know it is possible to have all the nutrients through shakes. 2- There is a psychological benefit in eating real food. 3- The human body is not hungry because it lacks nutrients; it is hungry because the stomach requires digestion every 4-6 hours. The human body will get missing nutrients from within the body either by breaking cells or organs etc. 4- A balanced diet will give you all the required nutrients + the human body can stock up nutrients. However, Soylent is great for people like me; I'm totally dependent on my girlfriend for food lol
I found it interesting, but how many meals you would change for Soylent? Maybe eating your normal breakfast and lunch with real food, and the other with Soylent?
@IvyLeagueVet what meals did you ate with Soylent?
As many meals as possible during work week BC I knew on select week nights and most weekends, I'd eat regular meals. There were many work weeks where I solely had soylent for all meals.
At the very minimum I'd start with replacing breakfast, graduate to breakfast and lunch and come a month or so into it you'll give a whole day a try.
I wonder what this tastes like? I also googl'd this stuff and there are a couple sites that break down the ingredients. Some vent on how they selected the lowest quality of vitamins, sugar forms (this product has sucralose) and how some items are GMO. I may try a glass if it's offered as a sample but I don't think I'll be shelling out for it.
I ordered mine the other day and can't wait for it to arrive. It seems to me that many of the criticisms were the same in nature as those made criticising the kindle replacing physical books.
I just checked it out. It looks to be pretty high in carbs. Not looking to become a diabetic.
On a more serious note, what are your shits like when you only drink this stuff three times a day?
While this seems like a very intriguing idea. My concern is that food is not just a sum of the parts. I tend to believe that food has natural synergy. This is why sugar is so destructive because it is stripped of the fiber and other nutrients that eating the whole cane provide.
I am all for this stuff and plan on buying some. IMO, the human body is pretty damn simple. This stuff basically eliminates the fluff and provides right to the point nutrients. No one says you have to live forever on it, but think of the applications. Imagine people traveling all the time for work and can't prepare the best meals, athletes competing in less than ideal countries, poor people who need these nutrients, but cannot afford or take the time to prepare these meals.
Fuck, how about my lazy ass. I'd happily crush this shit for the majority of the day, then maybe have dinner. I love food, but it is a pain in the ass. You either take time and prepare it or you go out and eat it. At best it is expensive. At worst it is expensive and unhealthy. Being able to drink this, precisely control my calories and nutrients, all the while saving time and money. Sign me the fuck up.
Plus you can simply add shit to this to make it tasty. How many of us pound 2-3 protein shakes a day and think nothing of it. Well replace that with this and you are already sucking down soylent.
I will always eat real food simply because my instagram demands it. But otherwise I want to mainline this crap and just go about my day.
We have the same mentality about food and it was the main reason for trying Soylent.
Some others' point, after 1st couple of weeks, your shits are solid but adjustment period contains mostly liquid shits.
As for taste, I modified my mixture to use a better tasting flavor of protein mixture and exchanged olive oil for Peanut butter. My shakes taste pretty good actually.
As for the carb content, I eliminated the carb source which was carbomaldextrin and used natural fruits for carbs.
Some positive reviews from a guy who tried it on business insider. Thinking it wouldn't be a bad investment for $85 just to have for the occasional meal replacement. Especially when you're in a hurry.
http://www.businessinsider.com/soylent-review-2014-7
Soylent- the Future of food? (Originally Posted: 06/17/2013)
I have first read about this guy, Rob Rhinehart, in his blog around february. Basically he was then starting this "experiment" of not eating food. Based on his words, he researched every substance the body needs to survive, plus a few extras shown to be beneficial, and purchased all of them in nearly raw chemical form from a variety of sources. He mixes them in some sort of shake and drinks it instead of eating. The substance is intended to provide all the nutrients and calories a human body needs—in other words, to replace food. Fast forward to now, he has crowd funded in just 2-3 hours the needed $100,000 to mass produce it. He has now over $600,000 in funding and he has been featured on various news outlets including Businessweek, Forbes, etc. The benefits of Soylent are that it is: 1) cheap- according to his calculation, under 200$ per month 2) healthy- since the project started, he and other volunteers were human guinea pigs and tested the product on themselves. They have reported great effects, and are doing frequent blood tests. 3) easy to transport and make
He says Soylent was inspired by how much time and money he was spending on food that wasn’t very good for him. “This is an old problem for bachelors,” he says. THIS. I am pretty sure that any of us that work in financial sector eat pretty shitty food, and would have a benefit of using this product. I personally would give this product a try, what do you guys think? I would also like to hear your opinion on the business side of this, as I think this new company is going to do very well if it doesn't get stopped in some FDA approval or regulation problems.
I would have posted the links, but as I do not have enough points, just google soylent.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/000/528/710/1f12d99aa9538e4e809dcef…
no thanks jeff
If this ends up working, this guy might have solved the issue of world hunger. That is fucking badass. HBS admit fo sho
This already exists and is/was apparently used in some prisons. It wasn't called soylent and I cannot remember the name but it became disused because prisoners claimed it was similar to torture. Apparently it was far to bland in taste and was boring to eat over and over.
Maybe this guy has solved the taste issue.
Do you really want to eat the same food consistently for every meal? I actually tried this with muesli and grew sick of eating it for 3 meals a day (at the time I was eating 5 smaller meals) within a week. A product like this would be good in certain situations, but I'm sure something already exists.
You realize you can eat it 1/3 or 2/3 meals. Lessens your food spending a shit ton.
I read that also about prisons. Apparently Kraft and Nestle have something similar to this, but it is considerably more expensive. As somebody already said, you don't have to replace all your meals, just lunch or dinner.
This is called ass rape.
I also heard it started in prisons. I also hear the green kind is the best/cheapest/most protien.
Is anyone going to try this? I'm actually tempted to purchase a week's worth.. is that crazy??
A good read and interesting article (pardon the caption on the picture): http://gawker.com/we-drank-soylent-the-weird-food-of-the-future-5102934…
I definitely plan on trying this. Would love to replace 2 or 3 out of 4 meals per day with it. It makes "eating" quick/easy/nutritious. I doubt everyone will take to it immediately, but the health-conscious and time-short people will.
Strangely, I'm kinda interested in this. Sometimes it's just too much of a hassle to make a meal, and eating fast food is as healthy as eating a fat latent salt lick. If this guy could make it taste like chocolate and vanilla, he might really have something.
OP, you've obviously never seen Soylent Green.
Nasty.
SPOILER ALERT
Soylent Green is made out of people.
Actually you are right, I haven't. Although I wondered why so many people criticized the name of the product.
What's the difference between this and the literally thousands of meal replacement products already on the market? We need the BB.com brahs to spit some knowledge.
Soylant was made from plankton. You had a bunch of different varieties, all made by the Solylant corporation. They were different colors. Soylant Green came about because humans were killing the plankton in the ocean and needed another nutrient sources. This was people, or specifically old people who essentially drank hemlock and died a Socratic death.
Soylant GREEN was people. The other colors were not.
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