Rob Rhinehart has made waves in the media both online and offline recently for creating what he calls “Soylent.”
Rob found himself resenting the inordinate amount time it takes to fry an egg in the morning and decided something had to be done. Simplifying food as “nutrients required by the body to function” (which sounds totally bulimic, I know, but I promise it’s not), Rob has come up with an odorless beige cocktail that he’s named Soylent.
This powdered nutritional concoction is purported to contain all of the nutrients that are needed to sustain human life, and is the solution to the world’s food-related woes.
This sounds fine and good and is actually quite an interesting experiment until you look at Rob’s background and his inane reasons for creating this powder:
“It’s environmentally friendly”
Nowhere has Rob Rhinehart explained where the nutritional sources of his Soylent product come from. For all anyone else knows, those nutrients came from food, thereby nullifying his points that Soylent is a way to live without food. Stuff doesn’t just magically appear in a laboratory then *poof* you’re teleported so you can purchase it in a store. It has to come from somewhere. Mankind’s technology hasn’t reached a point to where it can rearrange entire atoms in a cost-effective “green” way (while plants do this with the power of the sun). We have a long way to go.
“Soylent is easier than food”
And it’s also much worse for you too. You see, when people eat a balanced diet, they usually don’t have nutritional problems. Rob on the other hand already had a couple of hiccups a few months ago, one in which he suffered a minor sulfur deficiency. The previous critical nutrient he forgot was iron. He claims that this is just the process of experimentation, yet there is already talk of him rolling out his “experimental” product as if it were finally complete.
Judging by the amount of money they were pledged ($300,000+) there is clearly a demand for tube-fed World Of Warcraft fuel. I haven’t seen this much crowdfunding for something so silly since Anita Sarkeesian.
Rob’s problem is he is a software engineer, not a nutritionist or dietitian. While he is well-informed and educated enough to know the body needs certain nutrients, he’s applying the software development beta test phase to a product that is supposed to be a food substitute.
Personally, every time I see a software that’s in “beta test” stage I stay far away from it. Many software developers are embracing the Eternal Beta stage. Also, everyone hates betas in general; Rob is a huge one. If he had a woman cooking food for him, or if he could even cook for himself, he wouldn’t be complaining that he doesn’t eat well and doesn’t have time to cook, then this whole Soylent thing wouldn’t exist.
On another note, even the silly American FDA puts foods and drugs through extended trials before it is deemed as safe to eat. (The only way he’ll slip that one past them is if Soylent is labeled a “supplement.”) Note also that Rob has barely concocted this stuff in the beginning of the year and is already talking as if his food is the second coming of Christ. Total beta beta-testing.
“Foodies are reactionaries”
Rob’s criticized people who eat regular food as being “reactionary.” This appears to be a major case of projection, as Rob is harboring the same reactionary mentality that perpetuates diet fads and what led to this industrialized, genetically modified food mess that we have today.
He thinks that his own industrialized food product is going to save the world, and that “new” and “different” are necessarily better. My opinion is that it’s going to make it more likely for us to live out our lives in hermetically-sealed boxes like something out of THX 1138 or 1984, and living off of Soylent and Soma pills to stave off thoughts of existential dread and suicide.
The guy’s already taking a buttload of daily nootropics, who’s to say this isn’t for that reason?
“Food is a hassle”
Rob thinks that food takes too much time to cook, and that his product will benefit everyone. Clearly he has never heard of Intermittent Fasting or eating one meal per day. I have experienced both and experienced the same subjectively “miraculous” benefits that he and his followers have reported, which leads me to believe that the Soylent experiment is nothing but a glorified juice fast.
Eating one meal a day and fasting for the rest doesn’t take long, it doesn’t take much food, and it doesn’t take a lot of time either. Do I need to buy some powder to live off of? No. I’m sure that the time it takes him to mix a large batch of bulk powder for a month of Soylent is the same amount of time it would take to prepare a month’s worth of meals to freeze and heat up later.
Who is to say that Rob’s powder is what I need? I’m trying to get stronger and smarter, not “smarter.” If you have a weak, frail software developer’s body like Rob’s, who is to say that your mind is strong? A weak body is a weak mind. Sustaining the minimum is to sustain mediocrity.
“We need to change food”
Really now? Humanity has lived off of food since forever, and it’s been doing relatively fine. When we started thinking we could put preservatives into it to make it last longer than it should, we started getting cancer and shit. With that mentality, Rob is feeding into the exact same issues his product hopes to correct. I think the nootropics and lack of proper nutrition is starting to cloud his thinking. How is more of the same supposed to be different or even superior?
I must admit though, Rob raises a great point: modern food is inefficient. But replacing one manufacturing process for another is an admission that he simply does not realize that the problems lie within the system’s own mentality. Would anyone in their right mind with a proper knowledge of modern science advocate genetically modified organisms? Hell no, GMO science is based on outmoded thinking that one gene = one protein. But that’s neither here nor there.
My totally biased conclusion
Soylent is a glorified supplement, not a legitimate food by any means. Just because you can theoretically live off of it doesn’t mean that you should. It gives you the bare minimum of nutrition, like a baby formula. Baby formula sucks even though a baby can technically live off of it. Everyone knows that human breast milk is superior to baby formula for babies, so why anyone would think that Rob’s Soylent baby powder is better for you than food or even a substitute is beyond me.
Soylent is by betas and for betas who want to become omegas that never have to leave the basement. I personally can’t take Rob’s assertions and silly sales pitches about his Soylent product 100% seriously, but, hey, everyone needs to root for their own team. All of the benefits that Rob’s ardent cult followers have gained from Soylent are the same exact benefits that people receive from extended juice fasts. And while his idea is interesting to consider, Rob is a beta nerd and software developer with a clear bent for transhumanism and science fantasy. Nobody should be eating what he calls food.
Read More: Monsanto Ruins American Bodies
Dumb article. Ron Rhinehart did his research, is beta testing a food replacement shake, and got three hundred grand in investors. He applied mathematical problem solving skills to something that is usually guesswork and had the fortitude to test it on himself.
Props to him, astronauts trying to colonize mars are probably going to be eating soylent.
I was interested in it till I read this page: http://robrhinehart.com/?p=424
This guy clearly has no idea what he’s talking about. His ideas on nutrition are based equally on pop-culture myths as they are on ‘science’. To top it off, like any strictly vegetarian diet the protein level in Soylent is way too low for an active individual (which explains his frail and weak appearance) and he’s given zero thought to long-term toxicity effects (which often happen when you eat the same thing every day).
Just because investors back something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. They also backed this: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1351910088/3doodler-the-worlds-first-3d-printing-pen which is essentially a glorified glue gun. And you can get a glue gun at the hardware store for $5.
Making any money on all that nutrition knowledge?
I haven’t seen his math. Nutrition studies require meta-analysis to understand how that diet is going to affect people of different backgrounds, ages, genetic profile, and other factors. Soylent has not done any of that. It’s being done by anecdotal reports on their forum with no actual scientific method being applied to their studies (i.e. no blood work, no baseline data being taken before starting, etc…)
We’re a long way from colonizing mars. We haven’t even figure out how to stop the detrimental health effects of long term exposure to zero gravity.
You’re easily fooled.
Yeah, and all problems in the world have been solved in flashes of inspiration like Dr. House on TV and not in incremental steps over a period of years. You sound like just the guy I want making six figures a year heading my R&D department.
Actually, Rob did have regular blood work done while testing, and encouraged others to do the same. Rant all you want, but it looks to me like Rob did a lot more research before even starting his project than you bothered to do before writing this comment.
It has nothing to do with negativity. Mr. Rhinehart is hawking a product that is outright dangerous to one’s health. He’s going to get gullible people hurt.
The truly amazing part is that 98% of the comments on his website were positive. The original VICE article was making fun of him.
Do you have any evidence or reasoning that this stuff is dangerous? Or are you just full of shit?
Almost everything you wrote is wrong or false.
This article is pure haterate. Soylent is a great idea.
The idea
that you could replace traditional food with health supplementation is
interesting and legitimate. Soylent is just the first attempt at this
idea.
There is no reason anyone couldn’t come along and do what
he is doing but better – by having their blood and genes analyzed, and
customizing the ingredients for their body – like WellnessFX, a SF based
company is already doing with the help of top Crossfit coaches,
medical professionals, and dieticians.
What Soylent represents
is the first step on a new concept. Don’t like his method? I’d be pretty
easy to add fiber, decrease the carbs, and call it a “meal replacement
bar” which is a product already on the market, in a less nutritional
sugared-up form.
Yes, Rob may be a bit beta, but don’t use an ad
hominem to dismiss an idea professional athletes, doctors, and
nutritionists are already looking at.
There’s nothing new about Soylent. Replacing food with drinks or ‘protein pills’ or ‘protein bars’ or ‘Slim Fast’.
Soylent is the latest fad. Replacing food with a drink is dumb. We just don’t know enough about nutrition to be able to isolate all the components you need from food. We don’t even know, for example, why consumption of fruit and veg correlates with lower cancer rates. We just know that it does (sure there are theories, but they are only theories).
Soylent is misplaced. Sure, he’ll probably sell a load to dumbies who can’t cook and won’t cook. He’ll sell a load to omega males who never want to leave their basements. But it isn’t a substitute for food.
Yes, of course that replacing food with drinks is a degenerate idea. Maybe it’s another way to pussify society and submit men, since we use less our teeth and jaws in the process of digestion.
You dont need to replace all of your food with soylent. Its a great idea; eat your regular three healthy meals a day(or however many you usually eat) carry about a liter bottle of soylent so you can drink it instead of being tempted for fast food, and if its incovinient to pack lunch. It may not be nutritionally complete, but atm its not bad for you, like fast food is. Just treat it like a supplement rather than food
You want to use soylent as a replacement for fast food snacks??? Why would you do that? Grab an apple.
Cause the soylent has more nutrition than what an apple would provide of course.
Theory is actually what we call what were formerly known as laws. You know, like the THEORY of relativity? The THEORY of gravity?
You ARE correct that it “isn’t a substitute for food.” It is food. It’s liquefied veggies. What a crass idea! Vegetables! In a diet! What an ultimate faux pas that hast been committed!
I love all you couch nutritionists with no education on the subject popping out here spouting bullocks like you have an iota of a clue. Go home. You’re drunk.
No. You are completely wrong in your understandings of scientific laws and theories.
A theory explains why things happen. A law is a formula or proof that provides a consistent result that is maintained by observed phenomena.
For example, Newton’s universal Law of Gravitation provides a framework to measure and calculate the gravitational effects when something falls. Einstein’s theories on gravitation explain why the force of gravity causes things to fall.
Also, the legally protected term is dietician. Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist without any formal understanding, licensing, certification, or training. It’s like going to a toothiologist instead of a dentist.
No they’re not the first to get this idea. Slim Fast, Ensure, Nestle, etc. have done this before.
The fiber content from oat powder is going to be negligible at best. Their latest formulation is also lacking phytochemicals, natural enzymes, and even lacks a DHA/EPA Omega-3s (ALA does not count because the body cannot convert it efficiently)
These guys don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.
Actually none of those options you listed are any good. They’re mostly sugar.
Nothing replaces what you get in a meal. Besides getting ALL the nutrients one needs, you also get the life of learning and maintaining a skill that improves you as a person.
All this processed crap made by others for everyone is a curse in the long run. It is great if you are an astronaut on the first manned mission to Mars, it is another if you are lazy and refuse to improve yourself, nor feed on your own.
I get what you are saying, I just feel this is a disturbing trend. Even if it has everything, people will go to Costco, buy it in bulk; and still not work out. Lamenting why they are not healthy and still obese.
Great example of being an “improved person”. (irony)
I suggest you to continue improving yourself.
Me: You are such a stupid fucking cunt.
You: why? *sob*
Me: cause I said so. No hard facts required. Nor any long term study either.
You: You’re stupid.
Me: So’s fucking soylent and the dumb cunt who is peddling this horseshit. I hope you start taking it soon and reap the long term-side effects.
Soylent has sufficient fiber in it already.
Are you retarded? This is protein and carb powder with a multivitamin addition. Bodybuilders have been using this for years. Its not new and no it can never replace food completly.
Spirulina. Look it up. Been labeled as the ultimate food. Used to take it for years. Can say that it gives a hell of an energy boost. 100% natural. Rob Rhenehart is a cunt.
Spirulina just goes to show that you can’t always do it better than nature. Plus it’s completely renewable.
I am suspicious of utopian thinking.
seconded.
The modern man does what he can so that he doesn’t have to walk, doesn’t have to lift heavy things, doesn’t have to sweat, doesn’t have to meet others in person, doesn’t have to take responsibility, doesn’t have to love, doesn’t have to care, doesn’t have to cook and even doesn’t have to eat! So in the end he doesn’t have anything! He has no life left as it all has been artificially removed from him so that he could just do nothing, accomplish nothing, think nothing, be nothing and live not and be comfortably nothing.
Comfort is death.
Great insight. All of those things are hard work, and like a garden necessitates constant care and vigilance. Something one would think our current up and coming generation was somewhat allergic too? Of course, my parents generation and theirs before them said the same. So hopefully the world does not crash into the sea in twenty years.
Sex is not dirty, unless it is done right! Kids, like weeds, are very resilient things. Work, when done correctly is anything but ordered until you have enough people to order it as that is their only function.
It takes time, tears, sweat, betrayal, failure, success, perseverance…..etc. My heart is pumping, and my mind is telling me no. I do sense though that this generation raised by divorce may not have the heart for as many great endeavors as their parents generation have taught them hard work is the rallying call of the vultures who will steal everything (exes, lawyers, welfare professionals). Success, many have been told, is for suckers who don’t know any better to get a government job and welfare and not say too much.
Thanks for that comment. Cheers.
this.
>Rob found himself resenting the inordinate amount time it takes to fry an egg in the morning
What. The. Fuck.
Frying eggs is just about the easiest and fastest way to make yourself a nice protein breakfast. You put some oil in a pan, put the egg’s inside into it, heat that shit and wait 3 minutes.
What kind of numbskull do you have to be to fail this simple task?
No shit. I’m reactionary because I fry an egg? No, my frying an egg isn’t reactionary, a better description is “fucking lazy”, because that’s why I fry it instead of making whatever takes more than 1 step.
No I say he’s “fucking dumb”. And I want to suggest the guy who never realized the “can’t fry an egg” reference is employing sarcasm, is even dumber.
“No Shit.”
Yeah, that’s why I don’t like it when some guys claim that sexbots or artificial wombs are going to bail us out of the hard work of re-creating civilization and taking back the world from feminism.
You forget that you really can’t point out the meaning of life for anyone. There is no one truth. Who are you to blame? What makes another way of living more important or better than this? If you don’t like it, look another way
Dear Sir,
you have indeed made a meaningful point: life is a struggle and one should embrace it as such and never ever ever try to make it simpler and more efficient. The way this world goes I rather live in a cave, and NOT struggle myself back to the top of the food chain _if possible_, than fall for the petty facilitation(s) of life these days.
I throw my message in a bottle in the Mediterranean ocean hopefully it finds its way to you my dear sir.
Ironically,
Eric MOULOT
“Comfort is death” says someone on the internet, a poor victim forced to live with modern society luxury. So what is really stopping you from living in a cave?
Soylent
As in Soylent Green . . .
No thank you.
Great post.
This guy is making amateur Similac. What’s the point?
Ouch, that photo reaks of beta. From the hair cut, the teeth, to the hilarious photo of him trying his weak impersonation of a fitness model.
For a guy like me to notice any of this says a lot. My wife does not dress me, but when I want to shine (been in the military) I can pull off a suit like a signal light. I take care of myself, yet dress casual. I do not decorate, read fashion mags, nor care about HGTV or better homes and gardens. I hate checkout lines at the supermarket because my eyes get assaulted with the latest Kardashian fuck up I could never possibly care about. Yet, I have no choice but to see that worthless garbage. I don’t read MHM, Men’s Health or Maxim. I don’t talk to people when I work out at the gym. I’m usually pushing enough weight to not get bothered. I work hard, and can fix things.
With that said, what I notice about this guy screams beta in a way that I should not pick up on so easily. I am not wired that way.
Yet I do.
And who names a drink Soylent? It sounds like the shit in my kid’s diaper that I trick his mom into changing. Especially without knowing what’s in it there is no way I would ever drink or buy that crap.
Nothing replaces a homemade meal prepared with fresh ingredients.
Restaurants sell us food that is only good to adjust our moods. High in calories and sugar. Almost no nutrients. Their food is designed to provide immediate psychological satisfaction, not health.
IMO, a better version of this would be very useful. Cooking, eating, and washing the dishes probably takes up at around 2-3 hours of my day, I’d rather use that time to get me closer to my goals.
This article is a joke, right?
$400,000 pledged? He had better put some of that aside, he’ll need it for his legal fees when the FDA comes calling.
Ask any doctor, nurse, or bed pan cleaner (especially the bed pan cleaner) at your local hospital what months/years of liquid-only nutrition does to a person. Rob is an arrogant dumbass. Everything after the initial fast is slowly making him sick. And all his idiot followers, too.
Enjoy your future fecal incontinence, Rob! You deserve it.
dat low testosterone face
This articles reeks of stupidity and hamsterism. From now on, anytime the author(pill scout)…..more like pill CUNT actually, anytime you write something i am totally ignoring it from now on.
You bunch of faggots must have grown up without a strong male figure in your life hence you’ve all become irrationally, laughably, absurdly obsessed with “alpha/beta” dichotomy.
Can you live a day without panicking, weighing things in your head if it is beta or not? Fucking unbelievable!
I am guessing, that to somebody like you, SCIENCE = BETA. correct? In your mind, you must be superior to marie curie or schrodinger because these two are scientists…you, on the other hand, are ALPHA MALE! YEAH! Heck, in your mind, somebody that works with his bare hands building railroads must be superior to Bill Gates, correct?
I need to get the fuck out of this planet! Between feminism and retard losers obsessing about alphadom. fuck this shite!
Marie Curie is way more alpha than you.
Rob Rhinehart is selling snake oil. He is not a scientist. He’s a computer programmer who thinks he is also qualified to be a doctor. And while announcing to the whole world how great he and his dangerous product are, he wrapped it up in a bunch of pseudo-scientific babblespeak that appeals to people who don’t know any better (himself included).
There’s no science involved with what he’s doing. None.
Marie Curie is more alpha than i….ok. female cockcroach is more alpha than me….ok. xyz is more alpha than me….ok. heck, the fat lindy west is more alpha than me…ok.
my reaction to all that? i cannot even begin to give a flying fuck.
who gives a merde? who gives a shite?
why are you pack of stinking cunts soo insecuredly obsessed with alphadom?
are you people even alive? or are you just a bunch of organic tissue busying going through a mental algorithm to see if something is alpha or not.
“hmmm….let me have a cup of coffee…oh wait! let’s see…is drinking my coffee alpha or not alpha?…hmmm…”
I absolutely wont want to meet or associate with anyone of you in real life….every action you take, every move, every reaction is stultified, filtered, calculated through the algorithm of alpha or not alpha.
No real, visceral action like a living human being.
Bunch of fake people.
And you dont know what science is.
Might as well repost since it’s soo apt:
Me: You are such a stupid fucking cunt.
You: why? *sob*
Me: cause I said so. No hard facts required. Nor any long term study either.
You: You’re stupid.
Me: So’s fucking soylent and the dumb cunt who is peddling this horseshit. I hope you start taking it soon and reap the long term-side effects.
Let me get this straight: in your mind phantasy you are a soo alpha male i must be sobbing or something? Hehehehehe.
cool story, bro.
Hehehehehe.
Hey, while at it…why don’t you also phantasize yourself a galactic empire…surrounded by harem of fertile, hot, young women? Hehehehehe
good luck, man.
Learn how to cook, jackass.
Hey fuck you a.k.a. “some guy who took 2 minutes off sucking Rob Rhinehart’s cock to defend him because you’re in love and have something special and fuck anyone who says we don’t,” good luck with that. I hope you drink a lot of soylent in the future.
Let’s feed the troll with Soylent.
There’s definitely no Science behind Soylent. Where’s the double blind studies?
Will come after the crowdfunding. Thanks to all supporters.
I can’t believe you would say something so cruel to me about my sarcastic beta jabs.
My life is now officially ruined thanks to a comment on the Internet.
/sulking
Did you catch the author banging your mom again?
I’m sure the free market will decide if his idea is worth a damn or not. I don’t see it happening. Food is more than mechanical nutrition. I’ve tried to live on crap like Ramen noodles. It’s depressing. Eating a good meal is great for your well being.
This guy seems to meet the profile of what Aaron Cleary calls a crusader. He’s looking for fame and glory without much investment or thinking or work. And what better way to achieve that than a Pinky and the Brain type scheme except to “save the world”.
the thing is, the soylent he describes is significantly healthier than ramen. if you only eat ramen, its better to switch to soylent imo
Absolutely. But there is more to life than eating mostly a single product, no matter how well engineered it may be.
I was a geographic bachelor for a couple years. I was eating some pretty bland and cheap stuff. Since the soon to be ex decided to divorce me, I decided to hell with it and started eating good food. I feel a heck of a lot better.
Soylent may be bland, but it’s more nutritious than your average food. So yeah, basically for me it’s like this: soylent as a RAMEN replacer? FUCK YEAH! Soylent as a STEAK replacement? NO WAY!
Dude’s product might be useless, but you gotta respect the hustle. Dude is gonna be making mad dough by managing to sell people something they don’t need. And that is worthy of respect.
That’s essentially what it is. He’s got the backing of some idiots at YC and the blogosphere. Hopefully his diet doesn’t kill him before he can cash in.
An opinion that perfectly represents a boy of your demographic.
RIP Jack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUWTq9SWEZs
If we have to eat powdered shit to “save the world” then the world won’t be worth saving.
Human dignity. It’s what’s for dinner.
Wait… it’s a “green” food? And it’s called Soylent? We’ve seen that movie… it’s made from PEOPLE!
On a more serious note: eliminate food stamps and just give this stuff in unlimited quantities to anyone who says they are hungry. Our country is too rich to let people starve. Let them work for a living or live on Soylent!
you know, that might actually work to reduce the welfare populace…
Astronaut food. Last resort astronaut food. I wouldn’t feed it to my dog.
You’d think a software engineer would think to apply the concept of multitasking to other things apart from computers. Bring some flax seed to a boil, cover, and let simmer for the time it takes to check your email and read the headlines. Add some fruit, yogurt, and natural sweeteners. Voila… breakfast is served! If that’s too much, pop a bagel in the toaster and smear with butter and jam.
When three to five minutes seems like too much time to introduce a bit of flavor and nutrition, a reevaluation of your priorities might be overdue. I can understand eating on the run if you’re terribly overwhelmed, but powdered food reeks like an invariable symptom of prolonged communism!
“This powdered nutritional concoction is purported to contain all of the
nutrients that are needed to sustain human life, and is the solution to
the world’s food-related woes.”
Some such thing has already been discovered, and it works much better. It’s called “Pemmican”. It contains all the nutrients you need, is very nutrient and energy dense, will keep a grown man going, working hard in both the tropics and the poles, and properly made will keep pretty much indefinitely. And it’s got a bad ass, manly heritage.
Bovril was a good shot at it too!
real pemmican features bear meat… we’d rapidly run out of bears 🙂
You dont need to replace all of your food with soylent. Its a great
idea; eat your regular three healthy meals a day(or however many you
usually eat) carry about a liter bottle of soylent so you can drink it
instead of being tempted for fast food, and if its incovinient to pack
lunch. It may not be nutritionally complete, but atm its not bad for
you, like fast food is. Just treat it like a supplement rather than food
I need fucking man food – steak, potatoes, eggs, cheeseburgers, along with fruit and veggies. This shit he’s created is for people who have no food and are starving. Even they’ll say it tastes like shit.
This stuff would be great for camping. I don’t really get the “OMG ITS NOT TESTED” pussy shit in this article.
Don’t we have teeth so that we can chew food?
I suspect that after several millenia of only eating soylent (highly unlikely) our bodies will become to evolve and feature less and less teeth, maybe removing them altogether.
You can’t SERIOUSLY be this deluded. It’s “post-food” because it’s a drink. The tag line, just like the name, is facetious. He’s explained what’s in it, you can view the doctors’ opinions (which is almost universally that it’s brilliant), and it’s liquidated food.
The idea that he’s not a nutritionist is utterly laughable. Yes, let’s let the people who have argued for 100 years over whether coffee is incredible or awful, rather than scientists who actually research and study.
You literally did no research and have no idea what you’re talking about. And you made an entire page on it! Well played!
I’ve read soy increases estrogen production
” A weak body is a weak mind.”
You’re an idiot and an ass. Stephen Hawking comes to mind. ALS certainly didn’t make him weak-minded
This is a poor analysis; one should take clue from the ad-hominem title.
I love that people are so mad at this guy that has no effect on their lives that the only thing they can do is insult him.
🙂
This article reads more like a hit piece, low on substance and high on opinion, a self stated biased one.
a lame bunch of bitching and whining from some old fucks. That is all that is on this page.
AND he named the stuff after a fictitious food in an old scifi movie
(Soylent Green) that had human surival dependant on secret goverment run cannibalism. “Soylent Green is people!!!” He’s not sharing what’s in this stuff? No thanks! LOL
Sure are a lot of cunts in here. I just found this website and it is truly pathetic, a bunch of insecure cavemen jerking eachother off to keep their egos nice and engorged.
i would still bang him
Trying to dismiss what Rob is doing by an ad hominem attack of ‘beta’? Seriously, sad.
The truth is, Rob is the alpha male of the new world.
If you can’t do advanced programming, comprehend complex statistical systems and do advanced math. This means you are owned by someone who can. Meaning you are a beta. Rob is an alpha.
Rob is getting international attention for a revolutionary idea he is developing all himself. Your a lowly blogger on a borderline piece of shit website that got lucky enough to get high enough on google ranks of people searching ‘soylent’ to even get me to read your pathetic attempt at making yourself feel better in the light of a true genius like Rob.
Admit your jealous, your behind the curve, your stupid. You won’t have as good of life quality as Rob, you won’t be able to provide for your family as well as Rob. You are a beta. Rob is now a prime example of an alpha male in this culture. Maybe if your nice enough you can work for him, as he is probably going to become a major player in the nutrition business you seem to be interested in.
Haters gonna hate!
the person who wrote this article is an idiot lol, fair play to Rob for trying some thing different. your fear of the unknown is what holds you back. you have my pitty 🙂
this entire article is whining about this dude not doing his research because… the author hasn’t done his research!
what dumb site is this anyway?
Interesting thing about many software engineers: they have a higher capacity for doing research than almost any other people. The reason is that software engineers have to keep up with constantly changing hardware, as well as constantly changing programming paradigms. Software engineers that are not incredibly good at research tend to do a very poor job.
I happen to be a software engineer. I also happen to know a great deal on a very large number of subjects, because I do tons of research. I went to the hospital two days ago with my pregnant wife and got some bad advice from a nurse, who contradicted something I said. I don’t know where she got her information, but it is based on ideas that from the 80’s that have been shown to be wrong. My information on the subject comes from an army medic with a great deal of experience with the problem in question and from tons of my own research (including articles from reputable, peer reviewed, scientific journals).
So far as Rob’s soylent goes, there is only one real potential concern. This concern is that there are probably some essential or at least very useful nutrients that we are not yet aware of. Rob’s soylent is highly likely to reveal them, as many people switch to a diet of his product. In other words, this may be incredibly useful for advancing nutrition science. Also, the risk is very low, because any nutrient we are not aware of cannot be so essential that lack of it would cause significant damage in any short amount of time. Rob will have time to adjust his formula before any permanent damage is done.
Now I would like to address some other claims. The FDA certainly does not put all food products through anything remotely like rigorous testing. A vast majority of common food products are listed by the FDA as “generally recognized as safe” without any testing at all. Many of these foods are traditional foods which have been used by humans for millenia (coffee for instance, which has repeatedly been shown to have harmful side effects). The rest of these foods are foods created from other “generally recognized as safe” foods, including things like vitamin extracts. All of Rob’s ingredients are in this category, including the purified vitamin powders, because they are chemically identical to vitamins extracted from food sources (and some of his powders probably come from real food sources).
Second, anyone in their right mind with a knowledge of modern sciences is actually not bothered by GMO foods. The reason is that the only risk in GMO foods is that the genetic modifications could cause harmful chemicals to be produced in food products, which a consumer could then eat. The FDA has strict guidelines requiring that all GMO foods are carefully tested for the presence of harmful chemicals. Further, anyone with a knowledge of genetic science will know that genetic modification is a natural process that has occurred continuously for all of known time since the beginning of life. Even selective breeding techniques that have been used by humans on food plants and animals for millenia qualify as genetic modification. In fact, it has been argued recently that selective breeding techniques used on plants for the last century or two, primarily to increase crop yields, have altered commonly used food plants like wheat and corn (actually, corn has been proven to fit this) to the point where they are missing a large number of trace nutrients they used to have and now contain many harmful chemicals that they have not had in the past. Welcome to real GMO. The stuff that we do in labs is way less harmful than the more natural GMO processes used for thousands of years. Anyone in their right mind, with a proper knowledge of modern science is less bothered by lab GMO than by selecting the best plants and animals for reproduction to improve the commercial value of food. (Rob actually has a post on this subject that, while not 100% accurate, is very good.)
I also regularly hear the claim that soylent is bad because humans need a variety of foods. This is not much more than a myth based on exactly what soylent is trying to solve. The reason humans need a variety of foods is that no one natural food product contains all of the necessary nutrients to sustain healthy life. There is no other magical reason humans need a variety of foods. Soylent was designed, in part, to fix this problem. Now there is a food that contains all of the known nutrients needed to sustain human life. Soylent obsoletes the need to have a varied diet. Now, before you try to argue, note than a vast majority of humans do not get all of the necessary nutrients to be healthy despite a varied diet, because most humans do not have the resources or knowledge of nutrition to have the proper variety of foods in their diet to supply all necessary nutrients. Again, soylent solves this problem. Now, we do not need to be nutritionists to ensure we are getting all of the nutrition we need. Soylent is a food product that handles that for us.
The argument that soylent only supplies the bare minimum is also fallacious. Soylent provides the recommended daily intakes from the FDA and Institute of Medicine. These are far more than the bare minimum. The American diet is evidence that people can survive off far less than these amounts. The FDA and IOM recommendations are for optimum health, not the bare minimum. In fact, many vitamins and minerals also have “tolerable upper intake limits,” because in large amounts, they become toxic. A few (sodium, for instance) even have very narrow margins, where if you are consuming more than a little bit over the recommended amount, it will cause your health to deteriorate. If Rob’s soylent recipe provides exactly the recommended values from the FDA and IOM, then he is not only providing optimum nutrition, he is also staying as far away as possible from the toxic effects of overdose. This is not a bad thing; it means that Rob is doing his best to be responsible for the health implications of his product.
I don’t want to be rude, but your “opinion” seems to contain a lot of claims that are in direct contradiction with proven fact. I have complete respect if you do not like the idea of soylent and feel like you should avoid it. Unfortunately, the one argument you don’t discuss, that we don’t actually know that much about nutrition (not just Rob, but even food scientists and nutritionists), is the one argument you don’t seem to mention. Since you seem to know far less about nutrition than Rob or myself for that matter, I would recommend sticking to opinion and facts that you can back up with actual research and scientific studies. It will make your writing a lot more credible.
Lord Rybec
“If he had a woman to cook for him”…he wouldn’t be complaining? Sexist much? I don’t even know where to begin with that one. Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with doing an honest cost-benefit analysis to the amount of time you spend dealing with food. Even if it’s just an egg or whatever.
Good point, women are shitty cooks today. One less thing you are worth keeping around for.
This article is dumb as shit.
>”Would anyone in their right mind with a proper knowledge of modern
science advocate genetically modified organisms? Hell no”
The reality is literally the exact opposite of this. Anyone with a proper knowledge of science would advocate genetically modified organisms. Countless studies have proven that there are absolutely no health hazards associated with GMO’s.
there are economic hazards associated with terminator breeds, as well as a number of… well… what are essentially con games to rip off non-corporate farming families, but most GMO foods are simply… better.
One of the ironic exceptions, however, are GMO grains… GMO has increased the carbohydrates (food value) and decreased the less-valuable parts (fiber) which has placed most GMO grains firmly into the ‘unhealthy’ category. With low-processing methods these can still be (somewhat) healthy, but modern industrial processesing literally turns these new high-starch grains into poisons.
As far as high-yield GMO’s, however, No one can argue that 170 to1 yield ratios on most produce beats the crap out of medieval foodstocks, which were often as low as 2 to 1 (wheat), 3 to 1 (barley) or 5 to 1 (rye). an acre of ground could barely feed a single family with those kinds of yields… today? 1 acre could feed an entire neighborhood.
This article is wrong. Even though it’s an article stating your opinion, it’s still wrong. Your opinion article is wrong, that’s how unfathomably shitty it is.
This article is wrong. Even though it’s an article stating your opinion, it’s still wrong. Your opinion article is wrong, that’s how unfathomably shitty it is.
This article is wrong. Even though it’s an article stating your opinion, it’s still wrong. Your opinion article is wrong, that’s how unfathomably shitty it is.
This article is wrong. Even though it’s an article stating your opinion, it’s still wrong. Your opinion article is wrong, that’s how unfathomably shitty it is.
This article is wrong. Even though it’s an article stating your opinion, it’s still wrong. Your opinion article is wrong, that’s how unfathomably shitty it is.
This article is wrong. Even though it’s an article stating your opinion, it’s still wrong. Your opinion article is wrong, that’s how unfathomably shitty it is.
I’ve been living on my own Soylent recipe for months now while getting regular checkups. I have no deficiencies. I work out 4-5 days a week, and I spend all of my extra time doing the things that I love. It takes me 1 hour to make a weeks worth of food. I still go out to eat with friends once of twice a week. I’ve been looking for this kind of solution for a long time, and Soylent has given me that. I am a very good cook, but that doesn’t mean I want to cook 21+ meals a week, clean up after 21+ meals a week, and go out shopping for ingredients that go bad if not used on time.
When I plan on staying in and cooking, I stop by the farmers market and pickup ingredients for that day, and cook up a nice meal. Soylent is a great idea and will only get better and cheaper with time.
I’d like to just keep my post as positive as possible…and not go into detail of how ridiculous the title and content of your post is.
Stupid article.
“Simplifying food as “nutrients required by the body to function” (which sounds totally bulimic, I know” WTF??? that makes no sense.
The guy who wrote this article is the true idiot.
“If he had a woman cooking food for him” really?
1) Soylent is not meant to replace all food. It is meant to be nutritionally complete alternative.
2) The vast majority of nutrient and vitamin supplements come from a variety of sources, most of which are derived from excess processed food products. For example, vitamin C is often derived from the pulp of oranges when processing orange juice, or from pineapple scraps when making canned pineapple.
What the writer seems unable to comprehend is that a lot of this is likely derived from what would normally be considered as food waste, not actual edible food. No shit you can’t get something from nothing. The concept of spontaneous generation died off a long time ago. Thanks for the science lesson, professor.
What they are quibbling over is largely semantics, but it’s also glaring that they don’t seem to realize that a lot of nutritional supplements come from food waste, not by refining normal food. What Rhinehart means is that you can have a nutritionally rich food source without relying on the traditional paradigm of food. Here’s a pro tip: Food is defined as anything one ingests for nutrition.
3) “When most people eat a balanced diet…” Yeah, except if the author wasn’t so myopic and one-sided they’d know that a significant portion of the world, even the developed world, is still nutritionally deficient despite the vast amount and ease-of-access to food.
The CDC released a statement in 2012 that a significant portion of the USA are moderately to seriously lacking in iron, and shows that roughly 1/3 of Hispanics and African Americans are lacking in vitamin D.
The problem is that most people DON’T eat a healthy and balanced diet. Creating and maintaining a balanced diet also require a lot planning, a decent amount of knowledge about the makeups of all your various foodstuffs, and can be expensive for some people, especially cash-strapped families, like the 35% of households in the USA that earn under $35k a year. And if the author wasn’t so blatantly trying to grind an axe, they’d realize and admit that.
4) Leaving out iron was only done in the immediate testing phase. He noticed it quickly, too, and supplemented it. The sulfur deficiency was also part of the testing phase. The oversight was due to him not getting sufficiently complete nutritional information from the FDA and he corrected it. Mistakes happen. He doesn’t have the funds to do extensive lab testing and studies, so he’s doing studies on himself. And, again, this isn’t meant to entirely replace all normal food, but to be an additional food source that is nutritionally complete.
5) He’s not a nutritionist? Too bad the moron that wrote the article doesn’t know that the legally protected term is dietician and that anyone, literally anyone, can call themselves a nutritionist without any credentials whatsoever. It’s like going to a thoothiologist instead of a dentist.
BTW, this is a prime example of the appeal to authority fallacy. Because he’s not a dietician he can’t understand nor ever be able to make something that requires knowledge of nutrition. That’s like saying that someone who isn’t a degree-certified programmer can’t ever be able to properly code software. It’s completely disingenuous and incorrect.
6) Again the author is too fucking dumb to realize that most people, whether they cook for themselves at home or get their women, as the author initially suggested in such a derisively sexist tone, do NOT actually eat balanced diets. (what if you’re a gay male? who will cook for you then?)
7) The author’s understanding of FDA is incorrect and the FDA, in the vast majority of cases, does NOT do testing on drugs nor on foodstuffs. It is up to the company to do those trials. Even then, if you are below a certain sales and volume threshold, you do not have to get FDA approval nor do you need to submit for FDA ingredient lists and nutritional guidelines.
8) This is NOT genetically modified. How much of a complete ignoramus is this author?
9) Rob’s “reactionary” comment was to dumb fuckups like the author, and so many of the smug morons in these comments, that keep saying, “eat real food, durr durr durr.”
10) He doesn’t think it “will save the world.” He thinks it could be a great nutritional source for much of the developing world. And he’s right. It very well could be a great nutrient-rich source for the developing world. That’s not going to “save the world,” but it could have a very significant beneficial impact.
11) After accusing Rob of being a quack, the author then goes on to proffer a bunch of bullshit quackery of their own. Intermittent fasting is NOT god for you. Fasting, period, is NOT good for you. Eating one meal a day is a wonderful to develop a nutrient deficiency. Sure, it will cut down on calories to help lose weight, but Soylent isn’t about losing weight.
12) “A weak body is a weak mind.” Go tell that Stephen Hawking. Also, 180 is perfectly normal weight for someone who 6’3″. It is not, “too thin” nor is it debilitating. It is within perfect parameters for his height.
13) Preservatives don’t cause cancer. I absolutely LOVE how the author thinks they’re being skeptical and science-based, but in reality they’re just being a dismissive idiot peddling a shitload of psuedoscience.
14) This writer knows nothing about GMOs. Yes, many people who actually know what GMO foods are and how they work eat them. The only ones that don’t or think that GMO foods are going to seriously harm or kill you are the morons, like this author, that are up to their ears in their own ignorant bullshit.
15) Baby formula is actually really good for infants, and is many times superior to breast milk in that often contains more nutrients and has a better diversity of nutrients. Soylent isn’t the “bare minimum” of nutrients, either. It is formulated to be sufficient by FDA standards, and the FDA standards are meant to be above the normal level. If you can get 100%, that’s great, but 80% is good, too. This is because, except in extreme amounts, the body can easily deal with excess.
16) Soylent is not a supplement because it is meant to be a complete food source. Again, I don’t know why the fuck the author can’t comprehend this, but it becomes pretty clear very quickly that this author isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.
17) WTF is up with his hangup on calling people betas? What, is the author some big, bad, awesome ALPHA male? AKA: an insecure moron that, via the powers of self-delusion, thinks he’s selectively above others? Grow the fuck up and stop being a gigantic child.
This entire article is a really sad joke, whether the author know it or not. It’s rife with inaccuracies and blatant lies. Only a moron would think this is at all insightful or engaging. But, hey, maybe that’s what makes the author so goddamn ALPHA!
Can I hire you to be my own professional comment writer? It’s like you’re in my brain.
I agree! Dumb article. He says that Rob’s an engineer not a nutritionist. Humanity has lived on food relativity fine???? Ha! I see we never studied science or kept up with current data. I bet you don’t even believe in global warming…even when the science proves it. Look at the obesity rate and how it has went UP! Diabetes, glaucoma, blood pressure. You get the idea (least, someone that can think logically). The people that are living longer are eating correctly. Science has demonstrated the correct portions that our body needs. When I’m on GNC protein shakes, my blood chemistry and weight are perfect! So yes, the humans that have “relatively ate fine”….well…by all means, keep eating your red meat, and now in this age, all the processed food. As someone in the science field…Survival of the fittest!
I’m not giving any credit to Soylent. I have not tried it yet. Just doing my research first. Came across this article that is completely bogus on the product and will not way in on my discussion to try it or not to try it. Just wanted to correct the author and hopefully help someone else who might be doing their research into the product, as Im doing.
I read the May New Yorker article about Rob Rhinehart and his creation. Being an engineer myself, I tend to think Rob is the type who also contemplates substitutes for sexual relations that are less time consuming; not energy-draining; and do not involve potential baggage. He lives with a few other guys. The company is all software-focused guys. He lives the minimalist life regarding clothing, shelter and now food. One can only hope Rob is only selling a product to make money and does not believe this nonsense he is marketing.
Food is often art, and meals are a way to commune with others for sustenance of the body and soul. Health? I am with the author above.
As a 105-pound, 5’5″ male who took in 600 calories today (it’s currently 21:00), fuck this article.
I would kill for a 16-oz glass with 670 calorie content and a third of my daily needs. Even if it wasn’t and will never be perfect. It is 100% healthier than my day today had been.
I’m off to see if I own enough food to make something that tastes remotely appetizing.
Pill Scout is jelly. Keep hatin’ from the sidelines. You’ll never be in the game.
actually your article is ridiculous, i feel sorry about you
Rob is alpha. This article reeks of beta. There’s nothing to be so upset about. It’s up to you whether you want to use it as a food substitute or not, he’s not forcing it on anyone, and it’s working for him so far.
An article by a man of low to average intelligence criticizing a man of moderate to high intelligence.
“If he had a woman cooking food for him, or if he could even cook for himself, he wouldn’t be complaining that he doesn’t eat well and doesn’t have time to cook, then this whole Soylent thing wouldn’t exist.”
>”If he had a woman cooking food for him…”
Holy misogyny batman! I’m surprised that for the last 2 years nobody batted an eye at this. I only came here because of a linked article…
Wow! I just found this article today and I have to say I’m impressed. You totally understood what a sham this was from the start. Good on you ROK.
Wait, what’s that? Angel investors gave Rob twenty million dollars in just a single round of funding? Woah! I guess you were dead shit wrong. I’m sure you don’t feel bad about it though. We all make terrible, terrible mistakes.
For the record, I have met Rob Rhinehart in person. He is quite alpha, and handsome. Not a beta nerd in any way.
This “beta” now owns a company worth $100 million. Who’s laughing now.
Soylent drinker here. What I call my “perfect morning” goal is doing 20 minutes of meditation and then 45 minutes of interval gymnastic training (currently rings, planche push-ups, hollow body rocks, headstands). I then go to work as an EMT, where I often loft 350lbs.+ patients onto gurneys. I’ve found that soylent is a solution to my daily intake, as I can literally drink 800 calories for breakfast in 5 minutes, then store the rest of my daily intake in a thermos. (My work often doesn’t afford lunch breaks.) Another great thing is being able to adjust my caloric intake with little thought. I no longer crave fast food because I’m always satiated. In short, my experience with soylent after 4 months has been completely positive.
I wanted to post this comment because it seems a lot of reservations about Soylent are coupled with a sort of prejudgement about who uses it and what their lifestyle must be like: in one word, “lazy.” I hope this attempt is successful at disabusing some commenters if this misperception.
I don’t agree with your thinking. I’m just more open-minded. This reminds me when video games and rock and roll were being ridiculed because they were new, and people thought they were for hippies.. I think a lot of people are afraid of CHANGE… I welcome it. It’s just an alternative even if Rhinehart said it can replace food. People will still choose whatever they prefer. But I salute his resolve in trying to create something radical about the way we eat. We live in the future and more crazy stuff will happen in the coming decades because of exponential technology. I support AIs and transhumanism is a possibility I think. But I guess that’s your opinion.