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Comment by jgrahamc | Hacker News Reader

I'd be interested in seeing a comparison of Soylent against Ensure Complete. They seem to be very similar in intent: http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-shakes and based on the nutrition information for Ensure Complete from that page and the rough description of Soylent (http://robrhinehart.com/?p=424) I do not see a major difference.

It would appear that to get the same nutrients as Soylent I would need to drink 4 bottles of Ensure Complete per day. From the Abbott store they are $41.99 for 16 bottles: a week's supply works out at $73.48. Very close to Soylent pricing.

What makes Soylent better?

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I agree. I can't imagine it is better than Ensure but, I'm not doctor or nutritionist. Ensure has the exact same intent and has been used, tested, and refined for ~40 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensure

Not saying it makes Soylent better or not, but Ensure isn't great. In one study, where Ensure was used instead of the standard glucose solution for an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test, some subjects ended up with 2 hour blood glucose levels over 180 mg/dL. It's marketed as having a low Glycemic Index, but the GI of chocolate cake and ice cream are actually even lower...

AFAICT, though, the only "better" about Soylent is that it's, like, disruptive.

The Soylent guy is an engineer who approached it like an engineering problem. It is supposed to contain everything your body needs on a regular basis.

Ensure is a food replacement that has a long history of helping people with medical concerns. My great-grandmother lived mostly on this stuff while going through chemo.

So far as I know, Ensure has never been advertised as the magic bullet to replace every food ever.

That's because if Ensure tried to the parent company would get sued/fined into oblivion the first time some one wasn't close enough to their assumptions on nutrient needs/uptake.

My father, whom after having some terrible lymph-node cancer about 15 years ago, finally couldn't eat. Due to scar tissue he was breathing in more food than he was eating so now he taking what is more close to Soylent called Jevity through a stomach tube.

http://www.abbottstore.com/therapeutic-nutrition/jevity+reg/...

Comes in many varieties of being calorie dense, and can work out to almost 50 cents a day at 1200 cal diet.

Typical consumer products are loaded with sugar, as most people are now accustomed to a large amount in the diet.

Looks like 4 bottles would be 204g total carbs, 80g of it sugar. Not as bad I was expecting, but not great. Soylent claims 200g carbs, but there is no further breakdown. From its positioning I'd guess it is lower, but I can't confirm it yet.

You're not the first one to wonder about that: http://discourse.soylent.me/t/soylent-mentioned-on-the-skept...

I'd be interested as well.

Looking at Ensure, I don't get the impression that you're supposed to be able to live entirely on it.

It looks more like a meal substitute (liquid nutrition bar) than a food substitute.

From the Ensure FAQ @ http://ensure.ca/en/faq/

" >For how long can I use Ensure?

Ensure products deliver complete and balanced nutrition that is always beneficial. There is no time limit to using Ensure products. In fact, long-term use is encouraged if you’re at a nutritional risk (for example, if you’re an older adult).

>Can Ensure replace a meal?

Yes. Ensure products are complete and balanced, when used in appropriate amounts they can be used to replace meals. "

I believe it is also used in hospitals with a feeding tube for long term sustenance however, I'm not finding a great source for that with a quick google.

Well, here's a source for that (they use it in Guantanamo):

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/29/3370916/more-navy-medi...

I wonder how the creator of Ensure (or Soylent) would feel knowing that they're products were being used in this way..

The creator of Ensure know that the products are used for force-feeding. It happens with anorexics all the time.

EDIT: But kefs makes a good point; you think you're making food and then you find out it's being used for something that you strongly disagree with. what do you do? Take the money? Or don't sell to certain markets?

People who have to live for years with a gastric tube rather than chewing their food to eat it (for example, some quadriplegics, like my late dad for the last six years of his life) life largely on Ensure or one of the very similar products from competing companies. Liquid nutrition products are very time-tested products, into which many hours of clinical observation and laboratory experiments have been devoted.

Here's a link about tube feeding from the medical point of view:

http://www.nutritioncare.org/wcontent.aspx?id=266

Ensure's goal is as supplement, or to fight food-related diseases (diabetes etc). Solyent's goal is to provide every day healthy food replacement for regular people.

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