[freeflight]

> I'm having problems understanding why would anyone want to consume something like that.

Nothing of what Soylent Green does is new, companies like Fresenius, Nestle, Abbot and whatnot have been manufacturing balanced liquid nutrition for medical needs for decades.

I'm far more surprised these established players in the enteral nutrition market haven't started their own push for something like this, trying to sell their medical products as convenience lifestyle products. I guess they wouldn't want to cannibalize their own profits from the medical sales by offering a more affordable non-medical lifestyle alternative.

As somebody who works with this kind of stuff, parenteral and enteral nutrition, I think there's a real market here. But I'd vastly prefer offerings from established companies, rather than some random guys buying bulk ingredients on Amazon and mixing them up in moldy warehouses.

[floatingatoll]

Soylent is innovating in “as bland as possible”, which is really quite amazing after decades of crappy over-sweet protein shakes.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Er, it's "Soylent" - not "Soylent Green". Soylent Green is, infamously, made of people:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zAFA-hamZ0

:)

[d0lph]

Do you have any examples of products that are meant to be a meal replacement, and that contain all necessary nutrients?

> random guys buying bulk ingredients on Amazon and mixing them up in moldy warehouses

Is this based on something, because I highly doubt they are sourcing ingredients from amazon, this is needlessly inflammatory. And moldy warehouses, do you really have so little to say about Soylent you have to make things up?

[mrgoldenbrown]

Soylent has had multiple, well publicized problems with mold and at least one instance of journalists finding rats running around the factory floor. https://www.google.com/search?q=soylent+moldy

https://www.google.com/search?q=soylent+rats

[d0lph]

There was one journalist that found rats in the kitchen, during the beta phase of soylent. Presumably when they hit production they used standard manufacturing techniques.

The mold is unfortunate, but only with Soylent 2.0, the pre-made bottles. As soon as they found out they issued a recall, like any responsible company.

[freeflight]

> Do you have any examples of products that are meant to be a meal replacement, and that contain all necessary nutrients?

The tube feeds [0] are pretty much exactly that. Those Fresenius ones are not flavored but other manufacturers, like HiPP/Abbot, even have flavored tube feed, as some tube patients like having the flavor come up when they have to burp.

A step closer are the "nutritional supplements", which is a weird name for it in German we call it "Trinknahrung" which literally translates to "liquid nutrition". These are usually flavored and come in a variety of forms, like powder or even puddings.

I've "eaten" the stuff sometimes for diet or after tooth operations, it's pretty okayish when cold, like a milkshake. The biggest issue is that you have to be really careful about how fast you drink it until your digestive system adapted to the high-calorie contents, as drinking too much too fast will also make it come out too fast, so to speak.

[0] http://www.fresenius-kabi.co.uk/4347.htm

[d0lph]

Where can I buy a tube feed exactly?

Do you have any examples of Trinknahrung?

[freeflight]

Pharmacies, Amazon, even eBay. Afaik Fresubin 2Kcal DRINK is the highest calorie Trinknahrung from Fresenius. Amazon.com doesn't offer that many, what's there is quite expensive [0]. Never realized this stuff is so rare outside Germany, until now.

In contrast, Amazon.de has a wide selection of different high caloric Trinknahrung, the Fresenius stuff even has Prime delivery [1].

[0] https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Da...

[1] https://www.amazon.de/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_17?__mk_de_DE=%C3%8...

[d0lph]

It looks like you are not meant to live off of Fresubin. Just 2 bottles, or 800 calories is certainly not enough.

> 2 x 200ml bottles per day will provide 40g protein, 800kcal and meets the average adult recommended daily requirements for vitamins and trace-elements# (DOH 1991).

You would need to drink 5 bottles to meet average calorie requirements. I don't know if there are health risks to consuming 2.5x above the daily requirements, but it was clearly not designed to be a total meal replacement.

[freeflight]

> It looks like you are not meant to live off of Fresubin. Just 2 bottles, or 800 calories is certainly not enough.

The DRINK bottles are designed as a supplement to the tube feed, but it's all pretty much the same stuff with the main difference being that DRINK is flavored for oral consumption.

> I don't know if there are health risks to consuming 2.5x above the daily requirements, but it was clearly not designed to be a total meal replacement.

There ain't and it is. How do you think people with jaw/throat issues keep on eating? Larynx cancer is very common, just like many other cancer types directly affecting the mechanical ability to chew/swallow. I've patients living only on that stuff for over 10 years, still living.

Tbh I'm kinda surprised how skeptical you seem of something which has seen decades-long successful medical application [0] and has its roots in NASA research for astronaut nutrition, which rates among the most solid food-science we have.

Fresubin 2Kcal DRINK isn't the only variety, Fresenius has literally dozens of other varieties for the sole purpose of adapting the diet to the patient from low caloric, to fibre, to diabetic, pretty much all the manufacturers do because peoples nutritional needs are individual.

And that's just enteral, going parenteral you can get all your food/water/nutrients from 1-2 infusions per day. Tho the port [1] used for such applications is still a pretty big infection risk.

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

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_(medical)

[mcguire]

Their initial setup was filmed. https://pando.com/2013/11/12/vice-investigates-soylent-finds...

[d0lph]

I thought it was a bit sketchy you linked to an article about an article, instead of the directly linking to the article itself.

> A few of the packets were infested with mold, but that didn't bother me; I was a beta tester after all, and the packaging hadn't been finalized yet. It'd gotten punctured en route somehow, and moisture had got in—which did highlight its vulnerability to mold, an important point given that Rob touts its non-spoiling benefits as a solution to sending nutritious food to far-flung places.

So, while they were developing their product, in beta stage a few packets got moldy? That's what beta is for! Finding these issues, then resolving them.

Kinda funny reading the original article clears all this up, unlike the propaganda piece you posted.

[mcguire]

"Balanced liquid nutrition for medical needs" is not exactly what comes to mind when Soylent is mentioned.