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Comment by wingerlang | Hacker News Reader

Slightly off topic. On the soylent funding-website it says you can 'buy' one weeks worth of soylent for $65, that's $260 for a month. Is this not an insanely high cost for a months worth of food? When I was living by myself I spend waaay less than this (although I was in Sweden if that matters)

Or am I missing something.

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I spend about 700-1000$ on food a month because I don't like to cook or eat low quality food. If I swapped to a meal replacement a few days a week I would save quite a bit even at those prices.

IMO, There may be a lot of ready to eat foods out there from soup to frozen food etc, but if you actually consider how much salt and preservatives are in most of them there really not healthy. Existing meal replacement shakes etc are heather, but tend to be focused on dieters vs direct meal replacement. So, IMO there is plenty of room for Soylent, but I fear there going to get the taste or nutrition wrong as it's a vary hard problem.

What do you eat that costs that much? I spend ~¥25,000 ($250) a month on food for two people (not including eating out once a week or so) and that's making no special attempt to save money on food. We eat a lot of fresh veges, fish and meat.

Given that you eat out only once a week and buy lots of fresh veg and fish I take it you like to cook, which is exactly what the original poster claimed he wanted to avoid. How much do you think it would cost you to eat as well as you do now, but with almost all meals eaten at restaurants? I imagine that $1000 a month isn't too unreasonable.

Well if you're eating out a lot, you're getting bombarded with salt anyhow.

Cooking is pretty simple, FWIW. With a slow cooker and a rice cooker you can pretty much eat as much as you want with 10 minutes of actual prep a day.

Yes, I also find this expensive (but not insanely given that I probably pay around 300 EU a month for now). I guess the high price could be explained that you are not only paying for the food but also to fund the Soylent campaign (with all the R&D, industrial process behind it). I surely hope it gets cheaper though.

Is this not an insanely high cost for a months worth of food?

Depends on what you like. When I was a student I spent a lot less than that, now I send a lot more. $260 is a reasonably nice dinner for two at a restaurant here in Sweden.

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