[mojowo11]

This comment is kinda silly. Like, the problem here isn't Soylent, it's that you were depressed. And the problem with your friend using Soylent to watch her weight isn't Soylent, it's that she ate more of other crap when she drank Soylent as a meal replacement.

I drink Soylent occasionally -- once every two or three weeks, maybe. Normally I use it if I know I'm going to eat a huge dinner, or if I ate a giant lunch and don't need to consume many more calories in the evening. It works great for me.

Yes, if you misuse Soylent, it will not be a good thing for you. That goes for, like, everything.

[giaour]

The founder of Soylent has repeatedly pushed his product as a solution for world hunger, unhealthy diets in the first world, and poor time management. I think critiquing the product on those terms is fair.

[deeth_starr_v]

Agreed, while the intentions of Soylent are probably sincere, when I first heard about it my response was "nope nope nope".

My parents were hippies and we grew/raised most of our food when I was a kid. But my grandparents had embraced the new space-age diet: margarine in place of butter, tang instead of orange juice, kraft instead of cheese, etc. I thought it tasted awful compared to real food.

As we have found out, some food choices like trans fats have an impact on health. There's really too much noise in the nutrition related data to draw wide ranging conclusions. But buyer beware.

For me I think the safest option is the "whole foods" (Polan) route. For me it would be "eat what your grand-grand parents ate". I was even a vegetarian and eating fake-meats and then realized I was just eating chemicals. So I started eating meat again.

Edit: Changed wording on first sentence

[refurb]

and then realized I was just eating chemicals

You do realize that everything you eat is chemicals, right?

[hammock]

I hate this argument. Usually people are talking about synthetic or non-naturally occurring compounds ancillary to the reason for eating the food.

In other words, are you eating processed cheese for the protein, or for the potassium sorbate? Only one of these is a "chemical" is the vernacular.

[humanrebar]

> Only one of these is a "chemical" is the vernacular.

The vernacular is wrong in this case and encourages ignorance. "Preservatives", "dyes", "perfumes", "thickeners", and "artificial sweeteners" are all words that everyone understands. We can say "artificial ingredients" instead if we want a catch all. The English language is really expressive.

"Chemicals" is a buzzword used a lot by hucksters to push sales through pseudoscience. We must demand better and more specific reasoning than "chemicals" if we want the words "shown by science" to be meaningful as well.

[ajmurmann]

To add to your point, many of these "chemicals" aren't even all that artificial. Some thickeners for example come from algae and gave been in use since centuries just in different countries. Looking at some traditional food like ham they are incredibly processed we just are used to it.

[deeth_starr_v]

I apologize for using "chemicals" rather than using correct terms. I was just using it as a shorthand for something grown vs something made.

Edit: This seems to be your argument, that engineered is the same as non-engineered. Because they are all the same basic building blocks. Right?

[deeth_starr_v]

Yes, I get that using the word "chemicals" is problematic. I understand that food is made up of the same proteins, fats, etc.

When I hear hucksters marketing organic, GMO, or Soylent. I'm always cautious. Caveat emptor.

Edit: I'm not anti-GMO. Nor the concept of Soylent. But I use a headset rather than hold my phone up to my head. Even though there's no definitive proof we can get cancer from smart phones. I just think there is additional risk here.

Edit: Also, your "chemicals" point is like arguing that Global Warming doesn't exist because it's snowing today. It's true, but not relevant to the discussion.

[BHSPitMonkey]

Plenty of naturally-occurring compounds found in various plants and animals are toxic for humans to consume. To say that naturally-occurring foods are inherently better for us to eat requires an awful lot of cherry-picking (no pun intended).

[hammock]

Right, and we don't eat them....what's your point

[stale2002]

Your grand grand parents probably died of polio or something, so I am not sure if taking their advice on health is a good idea.

[aetherson]

Polio is not a disease caused by malnutrition. Also, your ancestors probably did not die of it -- it mostly affected young people, so people who died from it usually didn't have descendants.

Quibbling aside, health in general was certainly much worse in our great-grandparents' days, but for those who weren't straight up underfed, nutrition was probably not worse. I'm not sure it was as magically better as some would have you believe, but there is decent evidence that traditional diets were more-or-less fine, and that the modern diet has something wrong with it.

[projektfu]

Most of the impetus for Federal nutrition programs in the US was because of the large number of malnourished and unfit to serve draftees in WW1.

[deeth_starr_v]

No, a heart attack at 48 and cancer at 91. This data tells you little

Edit: Sorry, misread. All I know is my great grandfather was a pony express rider and got colon cancer

[tomc1985]

It's only bad advice if they died of malnutrition

[hammock]

>"eat what your grand-grand parents ate"

Not possible, unfortunately. Meat and vegetables are so totally different now. For example meats are raised on GM corn and antibiotics, altering their balance of omega 3's, impact on gut health, and other things. While today's vegetables are massively decremented in micronutrients- and may have less arsenic-based pesticide residue than your greatgrandparents', but more of other pesticides.

[metamet]

They still exist. Eat locally from farmers. All my beef is grass fed (which have higher omega 3's), for example.

And if you can't because of where you live, there's a good chance neither could your grandparents had if they lived there as well.

[leshow]

Or you could take an omega-3 supplement and eat normal beef. There isn't much evidence to show that grass-fed beef has any measurable effect on health.

[cabinguy]

There isn't much evidence to show that supplements do either.

[lambdadmitry]

However, there is strong evidence that any type of beef may cause cancer.

[theoh]

Better to eat how your great grandparents would have eaten if they lived somewhere notorious for long, healthy lives.

There's such a gap between Soylent and something like Wendell Berry's ideas:

https://www.ecoliteracy.org/article/wendell-berry-pleasures-...

People do mention that in relation to Soylent, encouragingly (whether it's altogether right or not). Historical perspective is very important.

[leshow]

Do you have any evidence? I'd love to see a comparison of nutrients in produce over the decades.

[Scottn1]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an...

[briandear]

Any peer reviewed, legitimate studies that suggest GM corn causes problems with beef? It's popular to critique GM, but it often seems like a knee-jerk reaction rather than based on actual scientific studies. And by studies, I don't mean an article in Mother Jones, but actual science.

[SimbaOnSteroids]

I mean it tastes better but that's not peer reviewable, the major issue currently is that the microbiom of a cow's digestive track really can't handle corn that well and as a result methane output of the live stock skyrockets contributing more drastically to anthropomorphic climate change.

[paulcole]

yeah, the apples of today are so different from my grandpa's apple that a bottle of soy sludge is a much better choice nutritionally.

[jboggan]

Learn to hunt. Its rewards go beyond better personal nutrition.

[Lambdanaut]

> Not possible, unfortunately

My wife raises our livestock and garden while I work. Yesterday I had a sandwich and I know where every ingredient came from(our yard). Look, it's not impossible. It just requires you to look outside of your modern context.

[vkou]

You grow, thresh, and mill your own grain? That must be a lot of work.

[komali2]

My great grandparents ate nothing but potatos, no thanks.

[deeth_starr_v]

What's your point? My great grandparents were Italian and Irish.

[komali2]

Eating only potatos isn't healthy, why would I emulate their diet?

[CaptainZapp]

I would add:

And refrain from "food" that comes with a version number. But that's just me.

[sneak]

Orange juice, from your example, is pretty bad for you, especially compared to the low glycemic index carbohydrates found in things like Soylent.

File under "false dichotomy".

[iopq]

Glycemic index means nothing. Cake has a low glycemic index (someting like 30, depending on fat content). Oatmeal has a higher glycemic index (55). Does that mean we should stop eating oatmeal and substitute it with cake?

[akgerber]

Meat is chemicals too. Just more complex ones, usually.

[deeth_starr_v]

Yes. It's like comparing snow to climate.

[chaostheory]

I agree with you.

For everyone else, I just want to add that there is a place for things like Soylent, beyond the marketing. We're most likely not going to be able to continue our current method producing food cheaply. I could be wrong but things like Soylent will probably be the future that mitigates this issue for a lot of people.

[deeth_starr_v]

Yeah, meat/food substitutes are likely central to our population growth rate, but let's be intellectually honest. I'm not sure it'll work. I'm really hopeful the meat substitutes will pan out. We haven't figured out cancer yet. You're betting on us figuring out food?

Edit: because cancer is complex, the same a food and nutrition

[chaostheory]

> You're betting on us figuring out food?

Things like Soylent are already here. It's not vaporware. Yes it's not perfect or ideal but it's an answer to really inefficient food production whose water and nutrient needs aren't sustainable for a growing population.

[unclebucknasty]

>it's an answer to really inefficient food production whose water and nutrient needs aren't sustainable...

But, is it? The ingredients include oats, grapeseed oil, soy derivates, and whey. I'm sincerely having trouble seeing how this represents more efficient food production.

In fact, it would seem to be less efficient from that perspective: it still requires the resources for crops/farming, derives isolates from foods that are otherwise more whole (what happens to the rest?), then adds a degree of processing that requires still more resources.

Isn't it more efficient to just eat whole foods rather than extracts from various foods that, by definition, require energy/processing to obtain and must leave some waste in the process?

Maybe it's more convenient from the consumer's perspective, but I don't see how it solves the production problems you suggest.

[deeth_starr_v]

I'm not calling it vaporware. We don't understand clearly about our gut bio/digestion/food absorption. It'd be great to hear an expert on this chime in, but my guess they would say "we don't know yet".

I'm not telling you to not eat Soylent or that it won't potentially be great for the human race. But again, we don't know.

Edit: fixed wording Edit: What if they get something wrong like including trans fats? I know this a "playing to fear" argument, but there is a long history of industrial foods being not healthy. It just takes a new generation of suckers to come of age.

[ng12]

The Soylent of today doesn't claim that though. It says right on bottle that it can replace a meal but it should not replace every meal. In that respect it's not much different than Ensure or other meal supplements.

[paulcole]

Their website definitely claims that Soylent is a complete substitute for all food.

[ng12]

Where do you see that? It only claims it's a meal substitute, which it is. The only other recommendation I could find was this:

> As a nutritionally complete food source, Soylent should be considered a food product just like any other. You can include Soylent in your diet for as long as you’d like, in any amount that suits your needs. There is no right or wrong amount of Soylent to eat - the whole idea is to find a balance that works for you.

[staticassertion]

And Soylent can be fine for those things. It's simple to see that it's faster than cooking a meal. Does that mean you'll spend that time better? No. It's simple to see that your calories are measured out for you - does that mean you won't eat more than you should? No.

Both examples had underlying issues that Soylent did not solve, because it never could. Doesn't mean it can't solve those same problems for others.

[Romanulus]

Just because someone is too far gone to get help from a product that _CAN_ help doesn't mean it is the fault of the product.

*edit: clarity.

[Judgmentality]

Sure, but some things are more likely to be misused than others. For instance, Facebook. It's obviously a wildly popular and profitable product, but studies show that the more you use it the more likely you are to be depressed - but Facebook has a financial incentive to addict those users regardless.

Anyway, I'm not really a fan of Soylent. I disagree with its health benefits. I think the company is pushing it as a far more miraculous product than it is (especially considering the recalls they received for their health bars which seemed like poor quality control). I also think it tastes awful, but obviously that is completely subjective.

[dmix]

Facebook causing depression when used too much? What were the alternative groups doing? Correlation is a tricky thing to measure. I'm not sure how I feel about these types of studies or what utility they really provide.

Other than maybe giving the reader some perspective on their life. Anything used in a poor context, for example not combined with the right attitude, environment, etc can cause issues.

Often we just fall into negative cycles and need to be kicked in the butt to change them. We often fixate on one specific thing, like I quit smoking and suddenly became healthy (but I also worked out, started eating better, spent less time/money on a neutral/negative activity, etc, etc). There are always so many moving parts.

At most you could critique Solyent if they advertised as the solution to your health problems. Rather than something to replace 1-2 daily meals when you're on a tight schedule. The former is a complicated multi-faceted lifestyle thing that no company could offer with a single product but that won't stop them from positioning the product that way. But we should be smart enough to know it will only ever (potentially) be a component of it.

[Judgmentality]

So I actually decided to look for the source and you're right - the results are a lot more complicated than I thought. I guess I'm a victim of confirmation bias.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/09/07/49287102...

[TeMPOraL]

Thank you for checking it out. This "Facebook causes depression (studies show!)" meme is being repeated left and right, even on HN, and it's kind of annoying at this point.

[matart]

Reminds me of the "Diet Coke causes depression" over depressed people could be more likely to drink diet coke.

[angusb]

Kudos to you for fact-checking!

[brilliantcode]

Soylent's behavior needs to be brought to the attention of the FDA and you can do so with the following link:

https://www.fda.gov/safety/reportaproblem/

Let's not forget about alleged mold in Soylent not that long ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/soylent/comments/53eikw/mold_on_soy...

This is yet another example of how dangerous VC money is because it enables idiots to push their garbage with little to no oversight.

[GavinMcG]

Sure, the underlying problem is depression. We can still have a reasonable discussion about things that enable that depression, or extend it. That's not at all a silly concern.

[mojowo11]

Meal replacement shakes have been around for, what, 2+ decades now? Saying that Soylent has come along and now somehow enables depressed people strikes me as insanity.

Depressed people misuse all kinds of perfectly valid products and services. Being mad at Soylent, or pizza delivery, or the internet, or beds, or any other thing that depressed people might end up leaning on in an unhealthy way seems pretty silly to me.

[mbesto]

From the parent's comment:

> I think many people approach Soylent as a way to solve some of their problems, but people should realize it won't be and can't be.

I'm not sure the parent's tone indicated that they were "mad" at Soylent and honestly your response to it is fairly insensitive.

> Meal replacement shakes have been around for, what, 2+ decades now?

Reading the copy on the Soylent website suggests that it saves you time. If meal replacement shakes have been around, then what is Soylent's value proposition and what makes it different?

[vidarh]

> If meal replacement shakes have been around, then what is Soylent's value proposition and what makes it different?

Marketing. Initially based around the idea of replacing all food with it (which even the founder stopped doing during his initial trial).

It's tapping into a lot of sentiments around food as a "problem" or "nuisance", where a lot of the other shakes on the market have gone for the health and fitness angle, or the "I'm too important and busy to sit down and have breakfeast so I'll down a shake on the go" angle.

But it's not bringing much more than marketing.

[Questron]

It's: "Look! I'm busy! I'm important! I eat special food!"

[nf05papsjfVbc]

Are you unwilling to consider that there are people for whom food is not a priority and is actually a nuisance? Like say cleaning one's home - which some enjoy and some find a chore.

[JohnJamesRambo]

Meal replacement shakes like Ensure are meant to be supplemental to food. Soylent markets their product as ALL you have to eat, if you so desire. That could have a very different outcome on someone's health. The OP was giving his experiences with it.

[DanBC]

> Meal replacement shakes like Ensure are meant to be supplemental to food.

I wish people would stop saying this.

There are many products, some are Ensure brands, that can be used as sole source nutrition products.

They don't market themselves like that to the general public because they're big companies with lots of lawyers who are cautious about that kind of claim.

[JohnJamesRambo]

What Ensure products are meant to be all you ever eat?

[brilliantcode]

Except Soylent marketed itself as a replacement. All those shakes you talk about are aimed at supplementing. They weren't stupid enough to tell people to live on it because of the legal liability.

[DanBC]

I agree Soylent used irresponsible marketing.

But many of those other products can be used as sole source of nutrition.

EG fortisip: http://www.nutricia.ie/products/view/fortisip

> Fortisip is a Food for Special Medical Purposes for use under medical supervision. Fortisip is a nutritionally complete, 1.5kcal/ml, ready to drink, milk shake style nutritional supplement, for the management of disease related malnutrition. Fortisip can be used to supplement the diet of patients unable to meet their nutritional requirements from other foods, or used as a sole source of nutrition. Fortisip is available in 200ml bottles, with a flexible straw attached, in 8 flavours: Neutral, Vanilla, Chocolate, Toffee, Banana, Orange, Strawberry and Tropical Fruits.

Ensure original: https://abbottnutrition.com/ensure-original

> For interim sole-source nutrition.

[ambrice]

How is it irresponsible marketing?

[ambrice]

Oh right, we already had this discussion. At least they got upgraded from "unethical marketing" to "irresponsible marketing". But how long can you continue to claim that the company engages in irresponsible marketing based on (allegedly) exaggerated claims during a Kickstarter?

[derefr]

It seems to me that everything that enables depression is almost always otherwise an objective good. Internet access enables depression. Having shelter that won't be taken away from you for lack of monthly payment enables depression. A family willing to take care of you enables depression. Remote work enables depression. Etc.

Depression, in this way, is kind of a weird bogeyman of an argument: its prevalence would be increased by anything that makes life easier. And so, naturally, the solution is reactionary: eliminate depression by eliminating progress! (This is the same sentiment behind the phrase "idle hands are the Devil's workshop"—made clearer with the knowledge that Christianity considers sloth–or in other translations, sadness—a sin.)

[GavinMcG]

What if it's not a bogeyman, but something that really is pervasive and should be addressed? I don't think the commenter or anyone I've read is saying "eliminate progress". Have you, or are you just making it up for rhetorical effect?

Look, it's not crazy to grant that each of those things is a benefit and bring up the fact that there are downsides. It doesn't have to be all good or all bad. We can say "ordering pizza is great, and we should consider the fact that some people rely on it to the detriment of their physical and emotional well-being."

[derefr]

Making life hard on people with a problem, doesn't make the problem go away. It just makes people struggle harder, with worse options, that wear them out even more, as they struggle through the same problem.

It's this same attitude that ends up with heroin addicts on the street: these are almost always people who, at one point, had chronic pain; and then became addicted to their (much less scary) pain medications; and then, when someone decided to make it hard to live an easy life while addicted to pain medications by taking the supply away, they "solved" this problem by finding a different opiate to consume that they could access.

A person with depression will be able to have an easier time having depression if they don't have to cook for themselves, yes. But you know what that easier time means for them? More emotional energy left over to maybe try to get over their depression! And you know who's never going to get over their depression? The person stuck spending the little time they feel like getting out of bed each day trying to scrounge up a meal, pay bills, take care of children/parents, etc.

In short: things like Soylent are, at worst, a crutch. Even when misused and relied upon long-term, they're still letting people have the opportunity to get better, in a way that forcing them to "walk it off" would permanently disable.

[GavinMcG]

Do you have any special expertise or qualification in this area? I ask only because what you're describing is a perfectly reasonable-sounding but naive view on how depression works.

It's not as simple as "easier/more efficient = more emotional energy to get over depression". In fact, you might have it backwards. Therapies such as behavioral activation therapy[0] exploit the fact that our mood can follow from our behaviors. (You might be familiar with this, for example: force yourself to smile for thirty seconds, and see how your mood changes.)

I experience a chronic, mild to moderate form of depression called dysthymia[1]. For me, there are two things that can make a world of difference in how my day goes. One is leaving the house shortly after getting up, which prevents me from starting the day by flopping on the couch and wasting hours online, then feeling guilty. The other is taking a shower after getting up, because if I don't, I generally won't leave the house. Both of these actually take effort, especially some days, and your read on things would suggest that just not doing them would leave me more time and energy to "try to get over" my depression. But in fact, it's precisely the immediate investment in myself and my day that makes the difference.

As it happens, cooking also ties in for me. I enjoy cooking, generally, and I feel proud of the food I cook for myself and especially for others. On the other hand, here's what happens when I order a pizza: I feel guilty about being lazy, and I feel hopeless about the prospect of getting out of whatever funk I'm in when I can't even get myself to put together a meal. That said, I take what I can get: I was alone a couple Thanksgivings ago, and had been in a low stretch for a few weeks, and it was a victory to make myself get up and go to the gas station for Bugles and Swedish Fish, rather than ordering in.

I'm telling you this personal stuff, which doesn't feel terribly comfortable, because I constantly hear naive bullshit[2] about how depression works, and it is supremely unhelpful. It is not simple. And my experience isn't going to be the same as anyone else's. But the person who has to scrounge up a meal, pay bills, and take care of others could absolutely be doing better than the person who "has it easy", because they've got structure, activities that get them out of their head, and others who they can be responsible for or even live for.

I'm not saying Soylent shouldn't be on the market, and I'm not saying pizza shouldn't be able to be delivered. But the idea that thinking about how all these factors fit together is "silly" and worth dismissing is really wrongheaded.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_activation

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysthymia

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit

[derefr]

I do have personal experience with depression, yes. I didn't mean to suggest that there aren't things that take effort but which yield more "spoons" than they consume.

Rather, my point was more like this: I have a friend who, right now: is in debt; is transitioning from male to female but can't afford to keep paying for the relevant drugs; is too sore (from the drugs) to work more than one shift per week at their job; is depressed (from gender dysphoria); is insomnaic (from a side-effect of an anti-depressant); is tired all the time (from insomnia); has very little willpower to do anything (from tiredness, and depression, and chronic pain, and, well, all of that.) Their only passion in life is art—but they not only have no emotional energy left over to do said art, but their wrists and arms hurt too much to work on their art even when they're inspired (because of the drugs, but also because their job is labor-intensive.) And they'd look for a new job, but...

This friend of mine would benefit immensely from anything that could "lighten the load" on them, to the point that they would be able to find both the physical and mental energy—at the same time—to do a single enjoyable thing for a minute per day. With all of it together, it's a swirling vortex that sucks them back in each time. (And I constantly wish I lived within 1000km of them, so I could go help them out a bit.)

So—I guess I was more considering the case of "depression + chronic pain" than depression alone. It's a terrible motherfucker of a place to be.

---

> It was a victory to make myself get up and go to the gas station for Bugles and Swedish Fish, rather than ordering in.

Here's a question: do you think being unable to "order in" would make your depression less? If you didn't have that option?

Consider what it would feel like to be homeless+carless+penniless. You'd have to put quite a bit more effort into life each day in order to survive. Probably interact with more people. Would your disposition improve?

Because that's not my experience. I went through a period in my life where I was depressed, didn't go to work, got fired, got evicted... and continued to be depressed. All of those things made the depression worse, not better.

These experiences, at the time, served to tell me that I didn't deserve to have a job; to have money; to have a place to live. And, on top of that, they made life harder in a particular way where each day was then a reminder of how much of a fuck-up I was. Bootstrapping back up to a regular life required engaging with the world, but engaging with the world as I was meant a constant confrontation with just how far bad I had let things get. The fact that I had to get food from a food bank was a reminder that nobody thought I deserved money to eat—and I didn't want to be reminded of that, so I just didn't go, and let myself starve. Etc.

At that point, it would have been quite nice to have replaced those activities that cost emotional energy, with energy-neutral ones. Having some free Soylent laying around with no "aura of self-pity" attached to it, would have left me with more energy for the rest of the day.

Yes, it would have been nice to also add on experiences with positive affect, on top of removing the negative ones. I did do a few of those: forcing myself to dress up nicely for job interviews every day and go to a downtown library to send out resumes made me feel a lot better than doing so from home.

But those things do require some amount of a crutch, before you can generate enough initial emotional-energy "steam" to even contemplate doing them. That's the real use-case for anti-depressants, after all: they take enough self-loathing and grey affect away from things to let you contemplate ideas like actually making it to your therapy appointments every week. To me, things like Soylent solve a similar problem.

[jklinger410]

Convenience of any form enables unfavorable outcomes. Delivery pizza may have caused suicide, from this perspective.

[GavinMcG]

Yes! It may have!

Why is that not something that can be discussed? I mean, I'd bet good money that delivery pizza is a net benefit, but I can still admit that some people probably rely on it in a way that's unhealthy.