Comment by chasing | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chasing | Hacker News Reader

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No, it's how you take food very seriously.

I'm fine with the idea of meal replacements, but:

1) I think they already exist. They just aren't marketed to trendy 20-somethings. (This is what Soylent does well and why, I assume, they're getting investment. The actual product can be completely reformulated until it comes reasonably close to being a good meal replacement: It's the brand that's become valuable.)

2) The Soylent team sounded like such snake-oil salesmen out of the gate that they simply don't have much credibility, as far as I'm concerned. With all of the made-up benefits they touted at the start, now they have to dig themselves out a deep pit of bullshit to actually demonstrate the value of their product.

It's important that we don't treat this kind of food product like a toy. Which is why it's important to be critical of unsupported claims. (And critical of supported claims, as well.) Especially those made by young people with no particular background in the field they're purporting to be experts in. Food is not a toy. It's not Tumblr. It's not Zynga. It's something we require to survive.

Do you ask for the same level of rigorousness when McDonalds release a new item on their menu? I'd hazard a guess that more people consume that new item than anyone will ever consume in Soylent.

Remember supersize me, that guy started having liver problems from eating McDonalds... Yet nothing changes and McDonalds keeps selling crap.

Food is a toy, and Soylent are very far down the scale of "bad food products I can buy"

> "Do you ask for the same level of rigorousness when McDonalds release a new item on their menu?"

If this new menu item is intended to be eaten full-time to the exclusion of everything else: yes.

If Soylent's angle was "running late? don't have time? give Soylent a go!" I don't think anyone would have a problem with it. The claim that bothers people is that it obviates the need for any other food.

Do I request that McDonald's not lie about the nutritional quality of their food? Yes, as a matter of fact I do.

Not all food is super-healthy, and that's fine. I like tasty food that's not particularly good for me sometimes.

This is not what Soylent claims to be. It claims to be something you can replace almost all of your food intake with and remain healthy.

If McDonald actually advocated the diet the Supersize Me guy had, then I suspect far more people would be concerned. I don't think the food substance is what has people concerned here; rather the hype and claims surrounding it are concerning.

On the other hand... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Head

People are concerned about the hype? Not the product?

So does it concern you that in McDonalds ads there are always attractive slim people, when in fact at most stores you see average looking obese people?

Are we arguing truth in advertising? Or Danger in food products?

> People are concerned about the hype? Not the product?

Where 'the hype' includes claims of total meal replacement over long periods of time.. yes.

I don't think many, if any, people are concerned that this stuff is literally toxic. The concern is what will happen if you use it as advertised: constantly, exclusively, for extended periods of time.

People eating McDonalds for every meal every day of the week is troubling, I don't think anybody actually suggests you do that. McDonalds certainly doesn't suggest that you do that, though I sometimes feel that many people wish they did suggest you do that so that McDonalds would be easier to flay alive. Being appalled by McDonalds is an international sport after all...

There really isn't that much of a problem with eating a greasy deep-fried cheeseburger once in a while, and there isn't a problem with skipping a meal or two and having a shake instead. That isn't what concerns me, that isn't what seems to concern DanBC ("I think that's the worrying thing about Soylent. I really wish they'd kept it experimental, or pushed it as suitable for daily use but not all meals, or some such."), and that isn't what I see concerning other people in this thread. The literal product, the substance Solyent, is almost certainly perfectly fine to consume. So are cheeseburgers.

I see your point. I agree.

> McDonalds certainly doesn't suggest that you do that

I thought part of the problem was that McDonalds /did/ suggest you /could/ do that, without any ill-effects - that their meals were healthy and you could eat breakfast, lunch and dinner there without a problem.

McDonalds never claimed that their food could be consumed to the exclusion of every other possible food. They offer breakfast options, but none of their marketing made the claim that eating at McDonalds every day was recommended.

On the other hand, soylent is making the claim that it's healthy to use soylent as a complete replacement for food. Thus, the standards are much higher in terms of truth in marketing.

I appreciate that there's a difference in marketing, and McDs isn't actively suggesting you should eat there everyday (unlike Soylent), but take a look at this page:

http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/food_quality/nutrition_c...

There's no mention of food from other places, and the final paragraph ("Variety keeps things interesting") certainly implies you could eat there daily without problem, to the exclusion of other food sources.

To me the problem is the combination. Soylent market themselves as a full meal replacement solution, no extra nutrtition required. This means they need to prove that a) it does provide everything the body needs, and b) that continuous consumption has no bad side effects.

Mcdonalds on the other hand never market their food as a complete meal replacement solution. In fact, here in the uk, they're very careful to point out you still need a healthy balanced diet (admittedly due to regulations, but still... They do it, Soylent don't)

> Do you ask for the same level of rigorousness when McDonalds release a new item on their menu?

No, because I've already dismissed McDonald's menu as not having any relevance to anything I care about.

EDIT: OTOH, were people promoting McDonald's new menu items as the solution to real problems (both personal and global), I'd react with the same kind of skepticism as I do to Soylent's claims.

McDonalds or any fast food company isn't making bread or meat in their labs from some chemicals in the factory. All they are doing modifying naturally occurring foods and optimizing them for taste. As unhealthy as they might be, they are still don't fall on under the category of something that has potential to harm your body fatally in an irreversible way.

And prolonged exposure to anything. I mean anything will cause harm to your body. Its not just McDonalds.

Soylent is a bit like a drug company releasing a new drug.

No, it's how you take food very seriously.

Do you think it's possible people are taking food too seriously?

Empirically, Soylent has been on the market without causing any problems for a few months. What if it doesn't cause problems for a few years?

I'm interested to understand why people choose food to get so passionate about. When a new source control system comes out, people don't get so heated. Why for a food company?

Some theories:

- Food is a major component of identity. It conveys things about your values and belief systems. Thus, like other identity factors (race, religion, political position, sexual orientation, socio-economic class), when this is challenged, some people are particularly sensitive and respond very defensively.

- As food choices are widely accepted to be a major factor in overall health (and thus, susceptibility to serious illness, life-expectancy, etc), it's natural for there to be a significant amount of fear behind people's positions in the discussion. I.e., when someone says "this diet will give you a greater chance of positive health outcomes than the one you currently follow", that can be frightening to people who harbour fears - conscious or subconscious - about their health and their expected lifespan.

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