SupermealX, India’s Soylent(nytimes.com) |
SupermealX, India’s Soylent(nytimes.com) |
Also, for those eating, a safe measurement of food diversity is to try and eat all of the different colors.
But more seriously you do have a valid (if taken to an extreme) point. But similar arguments are made by people on segways losing walking endurance (or cars even). Actual atrophy seems to require complete non-use.
It seems conspicuous that it wasn't mentioned that Soylent is the namesake of one of those movies. Is it assumed that most NYT readers will make / have already made the association?
Others might object to a mandated government subsidy for a product without relevant prior analysis of the existing market for minimum-cost diets (e.g., determining the cost of the Stigler Diet for the region).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/t-colin-campbell/whole-book-ex...
May I ask: how do you know soylent is shelf stable? Is it packed in a protective atmosphere? What testing have they done?
For comparison, an unopened and properly sealed tub of protein powder lasts well over two years.
The ones in disaster haven't heard the term yet..
Jesus fucking christ.
1) Soylent didn't invent anything. Complete liquid meals have been around for many years.
2) No one credible suggest soylent is useful to end world hunger. It's too expensive; it has the wrong nutrient balance; it's made in the wrong place; it requires too much clean water; it's worse than the existing emergency food products in many different ways.
For the tasteful rich - it is too bland.
For the average house - it is too unlike a home-cooked meal.
For programmers being used as disposable slaves - it's perfect! Less time eating, more time programming.
"Soylent is a food product (classified as a food, not a supplement, by the FDA) designed for use as a staple meal by all adults." -https://www.soylent.com/about/
"Soylent is designed as a simple staple food, and people incorporate it into their lives to varying degrees. Some people use it almost exclusively, while others use it 2-3 times per week. There is no right or wrong amount of Soylent to eat - the whole idea is to find a balance that works for you." -https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/201273045-How-do-I...
"Our goal at Soylent is to engineer nutritionally-complete food products that are optimized for modern consumers' lifestyles and budgets. Above all, we want to make healthy nutrition easily attainable." -https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/203709619-Soylent-...
So by using terms or phrases such as 'complete', 'almost exclusively', and 'staple', and going so far as to remark that it is classified by the FDA as a 'food' and not a 'supplement', Soylent is explicitly marketing their product as a primary or complete food and nutrition source.
Their words. Not mine.
1. Liquid diets aren't new
2. Cooking is easy and enjoyable, I don't see why people avoid it
3. Soylent is healthier than fast food even if it's inferior to well-made natural meals
4. It hasn't undergone rigorous, clinical testing
5. It's dystopic, dehumanizing
6. It's a dietary choice of others that makes me inexplicably angry
7. I've been trying it for 50-100% of my calories for X weeks and it's been great/terrible
8. It's based on outdated FDA recommended allowances
9. It ignores the social, cultural aspects of food
2. Cooking is easy and enjoyable
The product's namesake reminds me too much of cannibalism, coercive social engineering, industrial meat-processing with lax oversight, and neo-Malthusianism to produce any feeling other than nausea, regardless of whether or not the name was chosen ironically.
On the plus side, given Soylent is mediocre, I suspect that it can only expand the market for functional foods.
These don't sound like dealbreakers. One assumes that it can be made more cheaply with scale; with adjusted nutrient profiles; and in places where it is not currently being made.
If existing products are better, then Soylent will presumably face some problems on this stage, given that world hunger is in fact still a problem. But I don't think they'll be those ones.
My wife and I were at the Biltmore estate in North Carolina a couple years ago. We wandered through the gardens, and we were chatting with a couple of ladies about what we had seen. They were shocked that we had walked a half mile from the parking lot instead of taking the shuttle. “You walked all the way from the house to here?!”
Given:
- The FDA considers it a food
- Soylent considers it a food
- Soylent users are on record as consuming mostly or all the product for their primary complete food source..
- ..over long periods of time, including the founder, who supposedly lives on the stuff.
- Of those users, most are reporting positive results...
- ..and the negative results are generally of the classes "don't like the taste" / "gave me bad gas"
..then I'm left to conclude that it is a food, and a pretty good one at that.
There are some medical products that fit the goal, but I don't know of any that are marketed to the general public. Though, if you actually have a better alternative in mind I think a lot of people here would be interested.
Untrue. Ensure has many different products, and many of them are complete meal replacements.
From there site: https://ensure.com/nutrition-facts-questions-answers
"Can Ensure products be used as a meal replacement or a snack? Yes, Ensure ready-to-drink shakes and drinks can be used as a snack and as an occasional meal replacement."
Other than this, yes, it's just another liquid meal replacement.
I see this a lot. It is ridiculous.
Plus the extent that Soylent is a substitute for Ensure or Boost or those peanut bars they give to starving earthquake victims isn't total: Soylent is based in consumer feedback while Ensure/Boost have stopped innovating; Soylent is aiming for use in perpetuity while Ensure/Boost are meant to be stopgap measures, etc.
I like the product a lot so I'm going to be speaking vehemently about it, but that doesn't mean I'm not open for criticism. I'm wondering what your thoughts are.
Untrue. Ensure keep bringing new flavours and slight changes to formulation. That's tricky to do because regulation - the fact that Soylent appear to ignore all regulation is a bug not a feature.
> Soylent is aiming for use in perpetuity while Ensure/Boost are meant to be stopgap measures,
Soylent supporters need to stop spreading this lie. It's been debunked in every single Soylent thread. It's purely dishonest FUD by now.
It's telling that Soylent kickstarted with a bunch of bullshit medical claims, and that while they've dropped those claims they continue to make borderline dishonest claims.
Ensure is used as a total meal replacement for people with severe illness and for people being fed through a naso-gastric tube (sometimes against their will).
But if you're a doctor you probably one of the other Abbott brands, which have licencing and testing to support them.
http://abbottnutrition.com/brands/abbott-brands
EG: http://abbottnutrition.com/brands/products/ensure-plus-thera...
> For interim sole-source nutrition.
Design goals matter, Jevity/Oxepa/etc being designed for feeding tube use has little focus on taste.
Another example, Osmolite is sole-source nutrition but it's low-residue which is not good for healthy people who need more fiber.
PS: You can look through there brands, but there is a reason they sell so many different kinds as they each have different trade offs.
ED: I have had significant digestive issues in the past so I have done some research into this. And, talk to a nutritionist before going on any unusual diet, it's easy to mess things up long term.