20,000 Customers Have Pre-Ordered Over $2,000,000 of Soylent 543
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Less than a year ago, Rob Rhinehart published a blog post explaining how he had stopped eating food and begun living entirely on a greyish, macro-nutritious cocktail. Today, he told Motherboard that he's sold more than $2 million worth of Soylent to tens of thousands of post-food consumers worldwide—and that it's on track to ship next month. 'We have crossed $2,000,000 in revenue from over 20,000 customers, with more every day,' Rhinehart told me. 'International demand is really picking up as well.' This despite the fact that Soylent isn't technically on the market yet, and has thus far only been available to beta testers. Rhinehart's company spent much of last year tinkering with the formula—the version he tried first was deficient in sulfur, and contained since-jettisoned ingredients like cow whey. But there's been a steadily building crescendo of publicity—both positive and negative—around the project since its inception."
"post-food consumers" (Score:5, Insightful)
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You don't have to replace your entire diet with Soylent.
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Most meals are just an inconvenience.
Re: "post-food consumers" (Score:5, Insightful)
As a different AC who can cook quite well, and considers cooking a rather major and serious hobby with considerable cumulative time and effort investments: I agree most meals are an inconvenience. While I cook most of my dinners from scratch, quite often breakfasts and lunches are more about fitting into a schedule,often lacking time, equipment and space to make a properly cooked meal. Unless you want to precook something specific to that meal, or take a decent chunk out of your lunch time to prepare something (even though I can prepare a decent dinner in 15 minutes, that would be a large fraction of my lunch time, and the entirety of my breakfast time), you end up with either leftovers or paying someone a lot more to get something decent, quick, and healthy.
If I had the option to replace a meal with a 5 minute drink, I would frequently exercise it for meals, because eating well is not the only pleasure in life and cooking is not my only hobby. I would rather get back to working on other interesting projects during the day, and even possibly get home earlier to have more time to concentrate on making a single nice meal, then spreading time over three meals.
I don't view every meal that I don't cook as a wasted opportunity, because sometimes the compromise is letting me make gains elsewhere, and I'm not trying to maximize every meal at the expense of any other priority or preference. I also don't consider every glass of water I drink to be a missed opportunity to drink something more interesting or better. I don't consider every packaged program I install to be a missed opportunity to program my own, nor would I question someone else's interest or skill in programming because they choose some packaged programs over doing everything from scratch.
Re: "post-food consumers" (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yeah, that's the impression I got, except with a much broader range of nutrients, a full selection of calories, and no crappy artificial flavors.
Re:"post-food consumers" (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. I think this might work as an emergency ration, or perhaps a diet regimen, but I'm not seeing the attraction otherwise.
It also makes me think about something I read decades ago. Supposedly a scientist extracted every known vitamin and nutrient from rat chow, and fed it to rats, leaving out the leftover "non-nutrients." Eventually the rats sickened and died. The lesson of this, as told by the nutrition types I heard it from, was that we have not identified all necessary vitamins and nutrients in foods, so it's risky to think you can make fully nutritious artificial food.
But I just finished a 12-hour work day, so I'll leave it to someone else to track down a reference.
Re:"post-food consumers" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"post-food consumers" (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I wouldn't care to be one of those gambling my health on the foodless diet, but I could certainly see the appeal of using this for a meal or two a day - it's likely more nutritionally complete than anything I normally eat, even if it's missing trace stuff. Hopefully he can get the price down to something more reasonable though - I mean a few bucks a serving? I can cook up a %$#@! awesome spread for that and be eating delicious, nutritious leftovers all week to defray the prep time.
I could also see this being a valuable asset for food-assistance programs of all kinds - dry, stable, almost flavorless powder that could be used as either a shake or an ingredient, and provides the most complete nutrition science can recommend? Where's the down side?
Re:"post-food consumers" (Score:4, Interesting)
That lesson was learnt by the British Navy before lime juice, and by some Arctic explorers almost just over a century ago (Karluk). State of the art diets let to deficiency problems that seemingly random fresh food could fix (eg. seal blubber and offel).
I don't know much about seal blubber (though I believe it, like many animal fats, has decent concentrations of important fatty acids), but the idea that offal would solve nutrition problems isn't weird at all. I'd hardly call it "random fresh food."
Organ meats have high concentrations of lots of nutrients, since that's where a lot of specialized chemical stuff happens inside an animal. It's not surprising at all that -- particularly for mammals and things related to humans -- eating organ meats would provide a number of useful things that we need but which aren't found in decent concentrations elsewhere.
Ask anyone from many traditional cultures around the world -- organ meats are often considered delicacies. For some reason in the past century or so, Americans and other Western cultures have started to develop an aversion to offal, but that's a recent and somewhat stupid development.
Admittedly, the tastes and smells of organs can often be a little more unusual than your average steak. But with a little experience (and particularly with good recipes), they are quite delicious. We consume lots of things that taste weird or even bad the first time we encounter them (bitter foods like black coffee and beer come to mind), but because some of these foods have effects from consumption that are "useful" or at least desirable to us (coffee gives us "energy," beer gets us drunk), we get accustomed to flavors that are not often appealing at first.
Many traditional cultures still view offal in the same way: it may seem a little unusual, but the nutrition is more than worth the initial "eww!" experience.
More importantly, kids are exposed to these things at a young age (they are often even preferentially given to kids, because of their nutrition), so it doesn't seem "random," much less "weird" or "gross."
Re:"post-food consumers" (Score:4, Informative)
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I bet it's full of "chemicals" too. Probably loaded with DHMO.
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I could see the appeal of a meal or two a day this way, especially if you blended it in with some fruit or something to make it tasty. I often eat meals simply to fuel my body, a quick shake would be a lot less of an interruption, and thus leave me more time to cook later when I'm actually in the mood to sit down and enjoy my food.
Not to mention I'd probably be getting a much healthier and more balanced diet than is often the case, no doubt my body would like that.
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Considering that good food and cooking are some of the great pleasures in life, no thanks! I find the concept pretty depressing, actually.
I'm not sure why anybody would attempt to live on this stuff (though cooking is an arduous chore, so I suppose it does avoid that); but it seems like it has a fairly compelling use-case as an equally convenient alternative to far less benignly constructed convenience foods. Microwave TV dinners are almost as joyless and probably kill you faster.
Re:"post-food consumers" (Score:5, Interesting)
Cheap food for prisons?
Re:"post-food consumers" (Score:5, Informative)
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In your opinion. I really don't care what stuff tastes like because I'm partially anosmic (adult onset) reducing my sense of smell and taste so everything tastes like dirt if it has any kind of strong flavors.
Even before that I wasn't crazy about eating for flavors so it didn't bother me that much.
But How Does It Taste? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, I stole that from Futurama
Guy is a loon (Score:5, Interesting)
Under quantitative, apparently his blood work improved quite a bit. Yeah, your blood work tends to improve when you eat a simple vegan diet, and that's all soylent contains. Vegan ingredients with a 2 oz mix of fish and vegetable oil per day.
I guess it's nice to have a supremely convenient and very healthy diet that makes you feel better, but he's laying it on pretty fucking thick. Not to mention you could create a diet of the same health benefits with maybe 15 raw ingredients. You could just put the shit in a blender if you wanted...
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"I now have the body of a 12 year old
I'm not sure that's an improvement over what I have now, and I'm balding.
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It's called marketing for a reason. Nobody comes up with a new diet that you pay $$$$ for the food and says it makes them feel like crap.
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You do NOT want to fiddle with white powder on airport, nor do you want to carry a bit of it on you when travelling.
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I've brought meal-replacement/-augment powders with me on travels, usually in a large plastic jar, usually off-white coloured powders.
On XRays it looks like liquids, so always take it out of your carry-on (don't put it in your checked-in luggage).
Best experience yet was in Poland, where an officer opened the jar and sniffed it - I had to bite down on my lip to keep from laughing out loud from the look on his face (it smells...bad'ish), though I'm sure he noticed I found it amusing. He proceeded to ask me to
BP-5 (Score:3)
If you want to buy BP-5 and can't buy it there's a similar product (virtually identical except in taste and packaging according to the German Wikipedia) called NRG-5 which might be easier to obtain.
Re:Guy is a loon (Score:5, Funny)
I now have the body of a 12 year old
That's not cool. Let the parents have some closure.
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I read that as "The body of a 12-year old" as being one of the ingredients.
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It could also just be that he was fat and lost the weight. That does feel like a super-power until you get used to the new normal.
Just had a meal (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Steak ( bloody ) in green pepper sauce, no potatoes or whatever side dish
3) "Mohr im Hemd" ( Austrian chocolate dessert )
accompanied by Rhine wine. How does that compare to slurping some soylent ? The table conversation ? The joy of eating ? I simply don't get it, what the fun of soylent could be. Must be me.
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Re:Just had a meal (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't for the special occasion, nice, weekend meals; this is for the every-day-grind food.
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This isn't for the special occasion, nice, weekend meals; this is for the every-day-grind food.
So go to McDonald's every day and order a McSoylent, instead of the daily Big Mac and friesr? :)
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This isn't for the special occasion, nice, weekend meals; this is for the every-day-grind food.
So go to McDonald's every day and order a McSoylent, instead of the daily Big Mac and friesr? :)
Given McDonald's corporate history, I wouldn't count on it to provide a healthy McSoylent, instead of the over-flavored slop that they usually sell. Soylent is supposed to be the convenience without the coronary heart disease.
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Yeah but you could already do that if you wanted to. Meal-replacement liquid diets aren't exactly a new thing; your local supermarket or CVS probably sells Ensure.
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My supper was red beans (cooked with tomato, onion, pepper, garlic, spices, hot sauce and ham stock) with rice, and hummus with vegetable spears. The hummus was store bought and the beans were canned, so the meal took me about 20 minutes to cook.
I had no dessert, instead I had an ounce or so of calvados (French brandy made from cider).
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it has the nutritional value of drinking a cup of fat
Which actually has high nutritional value (depending on the type of fat).
Fat is a necessary and important macro-nutrient, the problems come when you eat too much of it at the exclusion of other nutrients.
Here's a question... why? (Score:3)
Why would you never want to eat food again? I enjoy food. Taste is a sensation essential to enjoying life. Our bodies are made to naturally consume nutrients in the form of *food*, not powder.
You know why you get stomach cramps for a few days with this stuff? Because it's basically the same idea behind feeding tubes for patients who are unable to process food. I can tell you from personal experience that it's pretty miserable.
I can understand the use of this stuff for a malnourished population or maybe a field military operation where supplies are rationed and space is tight, but as some fashionable movement to create the "post-food man"? Why would you do that to yourself and deny yourself the essential pleasure of eating?
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"Why would you do that to yourself and deny yourself the essential pleasure of eating?"
Not everyone is a foodie. Me, for instance. I consider eating to be a hassle and something that just gets in the way of other more interesting things. If I could do away sleeping as well, all the better.
Having said that I doubt I could do this 100% of the time.
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Why would you never want to eat food again?
Because I don't care about food, never did, and I have a handful of minor medical issues which might be fixed by eating soylent?
Because Soylent costs about half as much as regular food?
Because drinking Soylent takes 5 min, while making and eating a meal (best case scenario) takes a half an our of preparation and fifteen minutes of cleanup?
Because Soylent requires no time spent shopping, and no refrigeration needed, while the alternative takes a 2-hour trip to the supermarket each week?
Is it so hard to belie
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You think you don't care about food, but when you've had nothing but tasteless sludge for a month or so you'll most likely realize that you actually do care about food. You care about texture, you care about taste, you care about the things that the act of eating does to your body. Maybe not a lot, but at least a little.
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You think you don't care about food, but when you've had nothing but tasteless sludge for a month or so you'll most likely realize that you actually do care about food. You care about texture, you care about taste, you care about the things that the act of eating does to your body. Maybe not a lot, but at least a little.
Wow, you know more about me than I do.
Here's some info: not only don't I care about food, I don't even *taste* food except in extremely broad categories. Mashed potatoes and veggies and non-beef meat all taste the same to me, I can only distinguish between them by texture (and other attributes, such as "crunchy"). All coffee tastes the same, all wines of specific classes taste the same, and I can't tell the difference between most beers, or between liqueurs.
Not only do I dream in black & white, I *remem
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Why would you never want to eat food again? I enjoy food.
This is a false dilemma......this isn't a replacement for delicious food, it's a replacement for crappy food you cook yourself when you don't have time. It doesn't prevent you from eating delicious food whenever you can (and want) to get it.
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Food which provides all nutrients homogeneously is apparently used as punishment in prisons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N... [wikipedia.org]
However, while it doesn't exactly sound enticing to me, I could actually see eating Soylent. I love to cook, but I've had a pretty demanding academic curriculum which not only makes cooking difficult, but sometimes it's hard even to remember to eat anything besides snacks. The days and work just kind of blend together. Also, I've taken up bodybuilding, and the recommended diet win
So you can have more time for that other F-thing? (Score:2)
But there are other bodily pleasures you can enjoy besides Food, and it also begins with the letter F. So I'm alll for a "post-food" diet if that would really make me feel younger and, uhm, sexier. As for this particular man's claims, I'm sticking to my fish and veggies.
Possibly good for you (Score:3)
There's the remote possibility that eating soylent might be good for you.
If you look into nutrition studies, you find lots of little anecdote studies (meaning: one-off scientific studies) that look like a small piece of a larger puzzle. Beef and chicken contain antibiotics which can trigger mild allergic reactions, glutin (from wheat) is a mild poison made by the plant to discourage predators, bread is now made with Bromine instead of Iodine (which the body needs)...
There's just a zillion different ways in which our diet is non-optimal, and a zillion little ailments with no known cause.
(Vitamins typically use Magnesium Oxide as a supplement - but this form isn't bio-available. Is Fibromyalgia caused by low Magnesium?)
A diet consisting of a everything you need without all the additives might just cure some of these diseases; though, I wonder whether lack of roughage will cause problems.
Still, it might be an interesting impromptu experiment. The effects of eating Soylent will be something to watch.
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And eating heavily processed sludge will be better for you?
You can't distribute this sort of stuff without preserving it in some way and whatever way you do it is going to either add things to it or take things away(freezing or cooking), etc.
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And eating heavily processed sludge will be better for you?
You think you could wait until we get some evidence before you frame it as "sludge"?
We are supposed to be scientists, aren't we?
You May Never Have to Eat Again (Score:2)
but you'll sure as shit have to shit again.
The problem I have with this is that I don't think (Score:5, Insightful)
we really understand nutrition well enough to hack it. We keep learning that things we'd overlooked were significant -- phytochemicals, resistant starch, and a practically un-ending parade of classes of fats.
Still, we *are* being nutritionally hacked by food companies all the time, so I suppose this can hardly be worse. But the food companies have a specific goal in mind -- to get us to eat more of their product while making that product cheap as possible. I don't think we're at the point where someone can look at a nutrition textbook and design a healthy synthetic diet.
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Awesome! (Score:3, Insightful)
I encourage all the "healthy People" and all of the "diet gurus" and all of the Activists to jump on this bandwagon.
The ones jumping off the "eat stuff" bandwagon will help me get cheaper foods to support my PETA habit... (People Eating Tasty Animals)
To toss a stab at the "oh god it takes so much effort to make food" whiner.
Open a crock pot, drop a slab of beef in it, open a jar of pepperoncinis and dump the contents in, turn on, walk away for a few hours, then consume. It takes less than a few minutes to prepare, and you won't get sick from mixing powders together.
Nasty shit which sounds like Nutraloaf (Score:2, Flamebait)
Nutraloaf [wikipedia.org] is this shit that some jails and prisons feed to their inmates who are in solitary confinement for punishment purposes. It sounds very nasty, not unlike this Soylent shit.
juicers (Score:3, Informative)
I'd like to toss out a healthy and tasty way of getting nutrients - I have a juicer that I use to juice up two medium tomatoes, a green pepper, a couple of carrots , and a beet.
I add a bit of vinegar and some salt.
It's tasty and has the carotene for the eyes, the beet contains nitrates so it's good for the circulatory system, and you've got all the good stuff from tomato and green veg.
Adding kale is a boost as well.
A lot more work goes into cleaning the juicer but I've had an improvement in eyesight and general health feel that may be psychosomatic, but could care less since I do feel better..
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You are aware that the "carrots help you see in the dark" thing was a lie the Brits told to try to cover the fact that they had radar? As far as I'm aware there's zero evidence whatsoever that carrots or any nutrient in them does a damned thing for your eyes.
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Re:juicers (Score:4, Funny)
You are aware that the "carrots help you see in the dark" thing was a lie the Brits told to try to cover the fact that they had radar? As far as I'm aware there's zero evidence whatsoever that carrots or any nutrient in them does a damned thing for your eyes.
Carrots don't help you see in the dark, but they can prevent you going blind
http://www.blindness.org/index... [blindness.org]
http://www.goldenrice.org/Cont... [goldenrice.org]
That's why I masturbate using carrots. Don't want to go blind!
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Somebody above turned me on to the idea of making smoothies in batches and freezing them as single servings - just move one into the refrigerator the night before and you're good to go. Seems like an excellent idea on several fronts, clean up time being one of the big ones.
I've heard that the carrots-for-the-eyes thing is mostly urban legend based on World War disinformation campaigns to mask actual night-vision research. Mostly, because a deficiency is in fact bad for the eyes, but you don't need much, a
Re:juicers (Score:4, Informative)
but could care less since I do feel better
How much less could you care? You sound enthusiastic about the food, but not about cleaning the juicer. But you seem to have SOME cares about that, since you could care less. Can you clarify?
Variety ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Variety ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Funnily enough nobody is forcing you. You are clearly not the target for this product, but so far about 20,000 other people are.
I am one of the pre-orderers of Soylent. Why? I enjoy tasty and varied food but I don't always have the time or money to eat the way I'd like to eat, so I end up spending more money than I'd like on restaurants/takeout or eating really unhealthy food like Cup Noodles. Soylent appears to be a relatively affordable way to get a fast and nutritious meal replacement. While I try it out I will probably replace lunch and/or dinner with Soylent since for me these tend to be the most inconvenient meals. Other pre-orderers seem to view it differently and see food as more of a hastle that Soylent will help them avoid, but to each their own.
You might ask why Soylent and not an existing meal replacement drink? *shrug* For me at least it's really down to supporting Rob's stated vision for the project. I haven't done detailed research on how or if Soylent is different from existing products but I do know that his goal is different and going for total food replacement is probably a higher standard than instant breakfast drinks or diet drinks, which may mean something or nothing. I just ordered one of the lower tiers to try it out and if I like it I'll buy more, assuming the product continues to be produced.
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Sounds like there's not actually that much to be bored of - a tall glass of thick water a few times a day? You could mix and down that in under a minute and get on with adding variety to other aspects of your life. Actually sounds like a pretty good deal to me, at least for those times when I'm only eating because I need to. No more rushed or tedious meals, just down a quick shake and reallocate the time you save to nice leisurely meals when you're in the mood to really enjoy them.
Pre-ordering food? (Score:5, Interesting)
This "pre-ordering" thing has gotten out of hand when someone takes $2 million in pre-orders for a food product. Even worse, their current payment policy:
"When is my card charged?
Since we have already reached our fundraising goal, your card will be charged immediately."
Since they promised shipment in "early 2014", and it's early 2014, If they don't start shipping in volume within days, they're going to run into trouble with the FTC's Mail Order Rule. (The Mail Order Rule can be summarized as "ship within 30 days of promised delivery date or offer a refund; after 60 days, send a refund unless the customer explicitly gives you more time in writing").
Fibre etc.? (Score:5, Interesting)
I poop a lot less
That should be something to worry about. What I've read doesn't say much about fibre, but our digestive systems have developed not only to deal with directly useful food to absorb, but also to process such 'indigestibles', and to deal with all the variation we get in a normal diet. Without this work there is every likelihood that long term harm to the guts will result. We already know that this happens to factory farmed animals fed on processed food rather than their normal diet.
As someone who's drinking it right now... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been drinking my homemade "soylent" (with a lowercase 's', because it's not his brand) most weekdays for about 2 months now. In fact, I'm drinking it right now, literally. Actually not literally, I set it down to type. I adapted it from various recipes I found online, all started by the ideas of the creator of Soylent. I'm also a competitive athlete, so I tweaked things quite a bit, particularly the macronutrients. So, as the (seemingly) only commenter who actually has experience with it, I'll point out a few things:
1. To those whining about lack of fiber...it has plenty of fiber (33.45 grams to be exact). More than that little bit of shredded lettuce in a Big Mac extra value meal. In fact, my bowel movements seem more regular on soylent than when I eat regular food.
2. I eat better on it than without it. Meaning: Okay, what if my recipe isn't perfect? What if I'm missing something? Well compare that to what I would otherwise normally eat on a weekday...maybe some toast for breakfast, a microwave chicken burrito for lunch, and a reasonably healthy but probably too large meal for dinner to make up for the slice of toast I had for breakfast. Then I have to try to work those meals around my workouts, which probably means downing some extra calories. Some days I ate well, some days not.
3. It's a timesaver. This is related to #2. If I wanted to take several hours to create the healthiest most ideal meals every day, then perhaps it would come out healthier than soylent. But let's face it, that just doesn't happen. I've tried that in the past, and it always falls by the wayside. I'd rather be out having fun...obviously if cooking was your version of play (e.g. it's your favorite hobby) then this isn't for you. I can hold my own pretty well in the kitchen and have always enjoyed making delicious meals once and a while, but 90% of the time it just seems like work.
4. I eat at better times. I spend 10 minutes in the morning mixing it up. Then it's right there, available to me anytime, all I have to do is go to the fridge and poor it into a glass, or take it with me in a water bottle, so I can eat at ideal times that are the healthiest, meaning my caloric distribution throughout is even and/or at proper times around my workouts, rather than having too few calories in the morning and too many late at night like most people do. Otherwise, I end up being too busy for awhile, then by the time it's my next meal I end up either just throwing something in the microwave and/or eating too much all at once, or I go too long before or after a workout without eating, or I eat right before a workout and my stomach isn't happy...you get the idea.
5. I never feel too hungry. I don't crave junk like I do otherwise. If I do have a thought like, "gee, some chips sound good," I don't feel compelled to eat them because I don't feel hungry, plus I know I can eat them on the weekend if I still want them.
6. I chose to eat normal on the weekends because that's when it becomes a social thing. Also, by knowing I'm going to eat other foods on the weekend it keeps me from craving junk, and also if I am missing something from my soylent recipe that only exists in regular food, then I'll still get some.
Missing the point (Score:3)
I like eating home cooked food. I like time. These two goals are at odds with each other, because making home cooked food takes lots of time.
Some nights, I just don't feel like cooking or I don't have time to cook. I just want something quick to satisfy my hunger. I would probably end up eating fast food, which is terrible for me nutritionally.
Soylent is for those nights for me. When I don't feel like cooking and I just want to feel full. It would be nice to have something filling but also healthy, and that's where Soylent comes in vs just getting fast food.
I imagine that most people who preordered Soylent are similar to me in this sense. Very few people plan to stop eating altogether and subsist solely on Soylent.
It's not about replacing food, so please, get over that idea.
If you've ever come home from work, and hacked away at a project until the wee hours of the night, and thought "damn, I'm so hungry, but finishing what I'm working on is more exciting than eating right now. I wish I could just make my hunger go away so I could focus on what I want to work on." then you might be able to understand my desire for something like Soylent.
I don't get it; this is a solved problem (Score:3)
I don't understand this. At all. Complete "solid food replacements" have been around since forever. As in, actual nutrition companies that have some clue what they are doing have sold this stuff for people with chewing problems, and for use with feeding tubes, for decades. Some of it even tastes pretty good and has a texture that won't make you gag.
Why the big hubbub about a complete amateur developing a nearly-unpalatable copy of what's already been done? Oh, I forgot! Crowdsourcing! Open Source! If the guy took BitCoins as payment, the Slashdot trifecta would be complete.
Last Minute Reveal of Sucralose (Score:3)
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Is there any soy in Soylent?
Hardly any. Please see blog.soylent.me for a preliminary ingredient list, once the formula is finalized we will be releasing the official Soylent v1.0 ingredients/nutritional breakdown.
Re:Somebody wasn't paying attention (Score:5, Informative)
This nitwit has borrowed the name, probably having seen the derivative film and never twigged to the fact that the word meant something.
Or, if you read the linked article, you'll see that he specifically corrects the interviewer, telling him "Actually, in the original book Make Room! Make Room! Soylent is made of soya and lentil."
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So the product soylent is not in fact a substitute food?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
no, it is more like a plant-based version of concrete. You take a little bit in a bowl, add water, add some cooked peas, and a cooked sugarbeet [cut in 1/2in cubes], mix it all together and eat before it hardens.
It winds up hardening to a solid in your stomach, and you lose weight because you can't physically eat as much. It's the cheap, home version of getting your stomach stapled.
Re:Somebody wasn't paying attention (Score:5, Insightful)
This nitwit has borrowed the name, probably having seen the derivative film and never twigged to the fact that the word meant something.
It's a metaphor. He's not saying it's the exact same stuff that's in the book. Maybe it's silly, but it's also catchy. If he didn't know what he was doing when he named it, then perhaps it would be reasonable to call him a nitwit, but that's clearly not the case. It's like Sex Wax surfboard wax. Did the creators really think it was actually intended to be used for sex? Of course not. They named it that because it's catchy and people buy it. It also happens to be the best wax on the market IMO.
Re:"Soylent Green is people!" (Score:5, Funny)
thanks for the spoiler alert.
No matter it's Soylent or Soylent Green ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... where's FDA ?
I mean, FDA (the Food and Drug Administration for the uninitiated) is supposed to have been tasked to oversee the safety over ***FOOD***.
This guy is selling his Soylent brand ***FOOD*** to 20,000 people to the tune of $ 2 Million, isn't it time FDA takes some samples and have them tested for safety ?
I am never for BIG GOVERNMENT, but there are times the government does need to step in to assure the safety of the food people buy and eat - especially when this guy use the word "Soylent" as his brand of food, which originally means Soy and Lentil, when his food doesn't even contain Soy.
Re:No matter it's Soylent or Soylent Green ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't imagine that the FDA would have much to say, beyond the usual cleanliness checks, etc. that any food company faces. After all doesn't pretty much everything in his concoction qualify as a ingredient or food additive? Hell, it's probably a lot closer to real food than a Twinkie.
Re:No matter it's Soylent or Soylent Green ... (Score:5, Funny)
I wouldn't imagine that the FDA would have much to say, beyond the usual cleanliness checks, etc. that any food company faces.
I dunno - if they find that he's grinding up people to make his "food", they might be pretty pissed.
Re:No matter it's Soylent or Soylent Green ... (Score:4, Informative)
As I recall, it's not food in the eyes of the FDA. It's a dietary supplement. Muchlike Slimfast shakes don't fall under the same privy of the FDA as, say, that box of Kraft Mac & Cheese. As such, there's different regulations.
Note, I'm not extremely knowledgeable about that topic, I merely am recollecting off of what I read in my research last time this topic came up on /.
Re:No matter it's Soylent or Soylent Green ... (Score:5, Informative)
Where was the FDA when Canada began exporting machine oil made from rape seed and began selling it as healthy cooking oil?
More commonly known as canola oil it is made from a variety of rape seed that was selectively cultivated to have less aftertaste, lower saturated fat and acceptable levels of erucic acid.
It is perfectly safe for human consumption and is the third most common vegetable oil used for cooking.
Re:No matter it's Soylent or Soylent Green ... (Score:4, Informative)
I buy rapeseed oil preferentially. My daughter has peanut allergies, so it is a decent alternative to peanut oil for high-heat.
Almonds are poisonous in "natural" form, as well. People get hung up on the funniest stuff.
Re: (Score:3)
His point is WHARRGARBL GOVERNMENT ALWAYS BAD. Don't try to reason with him or give facts.
Re:"Soylent Green is people!" (Score:4, Funny)
The spoiler is: Soylent is cut with dog poop. High in nutrition, this substance is found everywhere. Dogs gobble it up like bon bons.
All natural, this, is the secret ingredient in Solyent.
Soylent Brown is poooooodle
Re:"Soylent Green is people!" (Score:5, Funny)
wait are you saying it's made OF people?
Re:"Soylent Green is people!" (Score:5, Informative)
Only in the film, which is a *terrible* adaptation of "make room, make room" by harry harrison.
Soylent was not made of people, and furthermore was almost irrelevant to the plot (of the book... the movie hardly has a plot, it's junk) other than being cheap, somewhat nutritious, and "what you got" if you weren't rich.
You want a truly great read, get the book. You want a horrible viewing experience, get the film.
Re:"Soylent Green is people!" (Score:5, Insightful)
You want a truly great read, get the book. You want a horrible viewing experience, get the film.
You want to make up your own mind instead of being told what to think by someone on the internet, do both.
Re:"Soylent Green is people!" (Score:5, Funny)
You want a truly great read, get the book. You want a horrible viewing experience, get the film.
You want to make up your own mind instead of being told what to think by someone on the internet, do both.
For completeness:
You don't care about it: do neither.
Re:"Soylent Green is people!" (Score:5, Funny)
wait are you saying it's made OF people?
I'm not sure. My pal Mitt told me Soylent Green is made of corporations.
Re:"Soylent Green is people!" (Score:5, Funny)
No, that would be Torgo's Executive Powder.
Re:"Soylent Green is people!" (Score:5, Funny)
Get over yourself,
I tried that once. Turns out it's quite painful to apply the Many Worlds interpretation locally.
Re:Somebody wasn't paying attention (Score:5, Funny)
I want Soylent Brown.. A tasty coffee/chocolate breakfast version! High in caffeine!
I hope that's what it tastes like.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Food isn't supposed to cause that much drama.
Soylent Grey is really _____ ! (Score:2)
It's not green, so it doesn't have people in it yet. So what secret will we discover is the ingredient in Soylent Grey?
Re: (Score:3)
It's not green, so it doesn't have people in it yet.
I'm pretty sure the people-based version would taste better.
So what secret will we discover is the ingredient in Soylent Grey?
I'm not sure, but I think this is the stuff they were eating aboard ship in 'The Matrix'.
Re:Soylent Grey is really _____ ! (Score:5, Funny)
It's not green, so it doesn't have people in it yet. So what secret will we discover is the ingredient in Soylent Grey?
Old people
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm, Thanks for the idea. I never thought of freezing smoothies - I could maybe work with that...
You can buy this (in a non-nasty form) today (Score:5, Insightful)
Go to your local drugstore. Go to the "Nutrition" isle. Purchase Ensure, Boost, Slim-Fast, or one of the store-brand generics. It has a smooth texture (unlike Soylent), a palatable tasted (unlike Soylent), and was developed by people that have some clue what they are doing (unlike Soylent.) If that's not enough calories for you, ask the Pharmacist to order Nutren or a similar product.
These are professionally-developed products that have been in use for years and years. The high-test stuff, such as Nutren, is used for people with feeding tubes (but it is flavored and can be drunk) and they live off this stuff for decades.
Re: (Score:3)
My argument against Soylent is that it is developed by somebody who is not a nutritionist by either experience or training. If a Nutrition PhD student developed this stuff, I'd consider it. If it wasn't nasty glop, I'd consider it (although I'd certainly hesitate to try and live off of it.)
When it comes to things that could poison me, I'm totally on board with that ideology.
However, I can't help but keep in mind that the aeroplane was invented in a shed by a couple of bicycle repairmen.