Needlessly aggressive dissent only serves to create noise where there could be dialogue. Make a point to the best of your ability and maybe you'll find your time better served.
Great article. For the last two years I've been removing processed food and low-nutritional-value food from my diet, and it's been a real eye-opener regarding the claims of "food" companies I otherwise thought were credible.
One thing I've found hugely important is that nutritional claims are presented with references and sources which can be traced back to non-subsidised research.
Finally, it's always worth mentioning the Weston A Price foundation on articles such as this. Whilst they can seem a little fanatical at times, they back up all their claims with references from unbiased studies.
I hope the Soylent product marketing literature contains as many references as this article.
It's somewhat patronising that you're suggesting I cannot visit my local farmer's market or farm to buy food not tainted by large corporations.
Our commercial interests have next to do nothing to do with this. We run a site that will lists all sorts of products - lots of them bad.
After we release our next version of this site, if Soylent were to get onto the shelves and sold at any store we work with, it'd get listed here as well -- right alongside the rest of the crappy meal replacements. We'd then make money off of its sales through those stores. I'm not hiding that.
It's about as third-party as you will get in this business. We do not create our own products and we don't particularly care for anything in this "category".
Speaking to the oat powder, that argues our point. I'll take my carb sources with nutrition, and with all other things considered equal, I will outperform those who do not.
The quality of the current version of this product is abysmal, and marketing it like it's anything but that is the true crime.
See response to Aaron. This isn't exactly competitor - we are product-neutral. If Soylent were to get listed at any store we sell it at, it'd get listed on our new site.
Would love honest feedback on Hatchet-job - We are technologists, athletic junkies, and then writers. Yet, from my point of view, you read all 3700+ words and went out of your way to find the comment box, so it couldn't have been that bad.
Not a competitor. Read above comments on that.
Why should we wait if they (team Soylent) aren't either? If they weren't already marketing and selling an unfinished product, we wouldn't have to warn our readers.
Recall right from the beginning of the write-up: "Recent movements to bring natural fats and leafy green vegetables (of all things) back into Western diets have yielded phenomenal yet unsurprising results over the past decade."
Never lump all Americans together. There is a massive movement going on in the other direction. It's pretty clear what side of that movement we're on.
Thanks Larry. Looks like they slightly upped their game, as they addressed our exact concerns. Hopefully it helps someone.
*Great* piece! My only quibble is with the "saturated fat raises cholesterol" point. It is true that sat fat raises total cholesterol but it does *not* make the key lipid ratios (triglycerides : HDL, LDL:HDL) worse nor does it increase the levels of oxidized LDL. These are far more predictive of cardiovascular heart disease than total cholesterol so there is little reason to worry about sat fat other than from a pure caloric density standpoint. Even there, there is reason to eat satiating foods that last a long time than trying to count on pure willpower to resist the temptation to graze lower calorie foods all day.
Given this piece, your claim of product-neutrality is entirely false. If your intention was to make a product comparison, your emotions are totally in the way. I read the first entirely ax-grinding half before deciding it was *all* ax-grinding and spinning down here to comment.
Since you are appearing to be naive about this, I'll bite and point out the first three things that jumped out at me.
The title of the piece itself.
"White sludge" to describe a photo of something that looks like aioili, or pudding. It actually looks rather yummy.
"Software engineer" underlined and italicized, which points out your incredulity that an engineer could understand nutrition.
Fair enough, thanks a lot. I have no problem admitting that emotions are in the way.
Once things started getting aggressive in our writing, this likely should have been published on my personal blog.
But please realize that we see a LOT of companies "turn the marketing up to 11" (as someone else has stated about Soylent's efforts), then rake in tens of millions of dollars, all while leaving their customers worse off than they were before. It's a shameless industry, and it's tough to stay partial when you see it happening again and again.
As a brand, deciding where to draw the line on impartialness has been difficult. There's some GREAT supplements and resources out there that get overshadowed by a lot of the nonsense you see on Dr. Oz (or in Thursday's USA Today article). It gets to the point that you need to work very hard -- and shout pretty loud -- to get over the commercialized noise.
That said, Soylent's target demographic is not ours. Clearly, we're into sports nutrition. 80g of protein is "paltry" because we're athletes. We didn't properly define our angle, so it was yet another mistake.
Anyway, the discussion has been good, and I appreciate your comments. Next time, the aggression will stay on my personal blog, and the data will stay on the brand's.
"Soylent", from the original (and truly excellent) SF novel "Make Room, Make Room", by Harry Harrison, had nothing at all to do with body parts. That particular bit of distasteful nonsense came from Hollywood, as it methodically destroyed another fine book in the process of turning it into on screen trash with little resemblance to the original work.
Right, so it's great if your diet is perfect. In order for it to be perfect and not 'tainted' foods, you need to shell out a great deal of money every month and also monitor your blood work to ensure you aren't lacking in something. If soylent can improve the diet of 80% of the country while saving them money, what is so bad about it? It's surely better than the crap they are eating now.
I appreciate your keeping it civil.
Prototype or no, the article makes a good point that "real" food is the ideal, especially when it comes to understanding the body and the way it processes food. I've had misgivings about an all liquid diet, but I'm more concerned about things like various components of food that we simply don't understand or appreciate that isn't even considered by Soylent (different meat cofactors, etc). On paper, you seem to be checking off the boxes, and your anecdotal personal experience is positive, but while I was excited when I first heard of it, mostly because the idiot-proof practicality, I've had enough experience with medicine of my own to know natural is simply best, mostly because we don't understand it.
A very balanced and well though-out comment - either you're with us or against us; there's no middle ground.
Neil's right; there's plenty of alternative.
To be clear Rhinehart does recommend having two of these a day so 80 X 2 = 160. 160g of protein a day is quite fine, and heads up, you're allowed to have as much as you like. Yes you may not get everything you need from this drink, and some of what you do get may be assembled in a shoddy fashion but Soylent is immensely better than the typical diet consumed around the globe. I expect the formula to change as the newly formed company grows. I expect spinoffs and different forms/formulas to arise in order to fit many different body types and needs.
But unlike most other commentators on this article I will say, this is good for Soylent. They need to examine their formula as closely as possible. If the crew constructing Soylent are serious about getting this to children starving around the world then they need to make sure that it's the best possible product that they can construct.
I haven't once seen them (and this may just be my own fault) try to sell this product as an after workout supplement. It is true that Rhinehart is advertising Soylent as an entire meal replacement all together, and though I hope for this to someday become a possibility, I understand the criticism. Just remember that there are people out there who get 0 meals a day. For multiple days on end. I would much rather see this shipped to India/Central Africa than McD's, Muscle Milk, a box of Potatoes or really anything else(if we're talking about only shipping one thing that is).
They could probably use a chemist on staff, and I assume they eventually will have just that.
So if this idiot's idea is so stupid...why bother talking about it at all? It is not like people were starting to buy his crap and they needed to be better educated before they endangered their health. This is a nobody that 99.999999999999% of the world has never heard of and never will. (Then again, that same percentage has never heard of this site, nor ever will.)
I sure hope you are not counting on this being your financial future. Because I don't want to pay for your food stamps any longer than I have to.
Why bother trying to improve an idea that is so stupid that it is not worth saving?