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from the puns-about-square-meals-and-stuff dept.
Here's Soylent's New Product. It's Food.
Mr. [Rob] Rhinehart first pitched Soylent to the world with a post titled "How I Stopped Eating Food." Now his successor Mr. [Bryan] Crowley says that Soylent's customers — and everyone else — should definitely keep eating food.
Asked if new customers should consider living solely off Soylent, Mr. Crowley said, "We don't recommend it, no. Absolutely. 100 percent. We don't recommend, not because we don't think it's healthy or we don't think it's there. It's a very difficult thing to do and our research tells us that it happens for a very limited amount of time." (Mr. Rhinehart himself moved the company toward gentler "meal replacement" messaging before stepping down in December 2017, when he announced Mr. Crowley as his own replacement.)
Now Soylent has edged closer to something its customers might recognize as food.
There are other reasons to tell a less provocative story. In 2017, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency informed Soylent that its product didn't meet agency requirements for "meal replacement," which halted the company's expansion in that country. In 2016, the first attempt at solid Soylent — the Food Bar — was quickly pulled from circulation after customers reported vomiting and diarrhea.
The company is working hard to ensure its products are not merely safe to eat, but also tasty and enjoyable. "That's the big word that we talked a lot about," Mr. Crowley said. "Before it was all about function. Original Soylent was function, function, function. Now you hear words like enjoyment in our mission."
Stargate SG-1 s04e01.
Previously: Soylent Halts Sale of Bars; Investigation into Illnesses Continues
Soylent Meal Replacement Sales Blocked in Canada
Related: The Other Soylent Finally Ships
Ambronite: Organic Soylent Alternative
In Busy Silicon Valley, Protein Powder Is in Demand
Soylent 2.0 is Coming: Food Replacement Premixed in Bottles
Spore Scare Stops Shipments of Soylent Superfood
Soylent Stops Selling Powder While it Investigates Customer Sickness Complaints
Soylent Has Arrived At Walmart
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DrkShadow on Tuesday April 23 2019, @12:29AM (33 children)
I don't have a sense of taste. Whether the allergies that have plagued me since I was 12 years old (hey, Rhinocort (court? kort?) allergy nosesprays really do work when you use them daily -- I was disgusted with the stench of the outdoor garden a couple years ago for the first time) or the just simple lack of development of taste neurons in my brain.. I don't taste. I did soylent for a while. Probably up until the addition of Algal flour. (Ya know what Subway started using somewhere from 2011 to 2013? Algal flour, probably! Same results.) After that I stopped. Not because I wanted to, but because I couldn't stand to use the toilet five time in the following three hours.
Damn.
Soylent, what I want is bachelor chow! Think Futurama. Stop trying to cheapen it, stop trying to make it ... whatever. Give me a damn nutritionally sufficient replacement where I don't have to think about it, and where I don't have to spend two hours a day in the water closet.
I stopped because algal flour. Since then, I haven't been able to pick it up. The oat flour of v1.4 was delightful -- I actually wish I could go back to v1.4. Alas, it's not available.
I'm not convinced it had all that I needed -- I got on to a regimen of Soylent for Lunch (and breakfast? I didn't eat breakfast--) and steak for dinner. It worked well enough. My body tends to _need_ beef (burger, steak), and no vegetable substitute that I've found is sufficient. (Cod fish is, but cue the cries about how Cod fish is being fished out and will be extinct before long if we keep eating it. Salmon is not sufficient.)
Give me a _viable_ meal replacement, I beg you! Give me bachelor chow!!!
(Score: 5, Funny) by DrkShadow on Tuesday April 23 2019, @12:31AM (3 children)
P.S. I'm a mineralarian at heart -- give me the raw ingredients. Perhaps my body can combine them appropriately. A bowl of carbon, a dash of sulfer for flavor, bubble hydrogen through it, with a stack of oxygen on top (hopefully I swallow them together). I'm a mineralian, you plant killers.
How dare you eat that head of lettuce that a plant spent all season growing. In like ten minutes, no less -- you have no shame.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:08AM (2 children)
Atom killer! How dare you eat all those sulfur atoms that large stars used the alpha process to create. You have no shame.
Quarks are the only thing that real fundamentalarians eat.
(Score: 2, Funny) by RandomFactor on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:23AM (1 child)
Guarkicidal maniac! How dare you eat all those charming little quarks used to create (not so) fundamental particles. You have no shame.
Strings are the only thing that real stringularians eat.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @02:35AM
All hail to his great noodly appendage!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:03AM (2 children)
Easy, just buy high end dog food and combine with some edible raw veggies. $40-60 / month for your main meals, another $20-40 at most for veggies and fruit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @02:30AM
Only if it makes its own gravy.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday April 24 2019, @01:27AM
The high end dog food tastes like crap. There isn't any salt and it has an unpalatable amount of gristle in it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:07AM (2 children)
A nice ribeye, baked potato. Some Asparagus. What's not to love?
Fuck this powdered food substitute shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:21AM
And some gorganzola to top the steak. There's nothing better!
Must ... have... gorganzola.
Maybe a nice salad with Roquefort dressing and some real bacon, pancetta would work in a pinch.
(Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Tuesday April 23 2019, @11:31AM
> Asparagus. What's not to love?
You must either be a non-excreter or a non-smeller [udel.edu].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:24AM
You could try a steady diet of fresh fruits/vegetables and lean cuts of meat. That ought to work in most cases. Just sayin'.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday April 23 2019, @03:13AM (1 child)
I agree there is a viable market for a prepackaged shelf stable zero-prep food. My nutritionally complete high-protein cat food is about $0.50 per pound; why can't we make a people food equivalent to that?
I can easily match the price with corn meal, but it's far from nutritionally complete. Also it's about a pound of corn per day to meat calorie requirements, and that is a fuckton of corn to eat. Adding butter gives more calories in less quantity, but then it's not shelf stable and still missing a bunch of vitamins.
+1 for people chow.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:14AM
I don't think Monsanto wants you to eat cheaply and healthfully. That would eat into their profits.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @05:48AM (12 children)
Thing is, all this blather is unnecessary.
You want bachelor chow? Cook up oats for breakfast. Cooks in the microwave, takes 2 minutes, done.
You can add all sorts of crap to it if you want, from fruits to sugar to whatever. Personally, I dribble a little bacon grease on it. Like a tablespoon's worth, and stir.
Absolutely delicious, definitely "bachelor's chow", 2 minutes is hardly a burden. After all, you can put your socks on, or belt while it cooks.
You know what the best, quick, fast, easy, healthy food is? Stuff you make at home, from scratch.
You know what the unhealthiest stuff is? Prepackaged stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @05:58AM (11 children)
They want something fast, easy, complete (like Soylent), and consistent (same thing every time).
If you don't have any fruit for your oatmeal, you'll get scurvy.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @07:06AM (9 children)
They want something fast, easy, complete (like Soylent), and consistent (same thing every time).
Oats are very consistent. They're oats. Adding things to oats doesn't make them inconsistent, not if you add the same things every time.
If you don't have any fruit for your oatmeal, you'll get scurvy.
This statement may be predicated upon the prior, but the prior does not indicate "Only eat one thing ever".
You will not get scurvy if you eat oats without fruit, but if you only eat oats. The 'only' should be stressed here. And my point was, Soylent is absurd, oats are easy to make, and *so are other foods*.
What is it with people?! Seriously.
I spend 30 minutes on a weekend, and end up making spaghetti sauce that tastes awesome, and is frozen into 10 small tupperware containers. Lasts months in the freezer.
10 meals, 30 minutes, that's 3 minutes a meal. Wtf is the problem here?
Wow, I made my own meal replacement :P
Since when did boiling a pot of noodles and adding premade sauce, or boiling oats for 2 minutes in the microwave become an immense burden. It's insanity.
I get home from work, I want a pork chop + carrots. I pull out the pan, place it on the oven, turn it on. I pull out a tiny pot, put in water, turn on its burner. Time spent?
15 seconds.
I then place pork chop in, peel 2 carrots, cut in half, drop in water. 30 seconds, including clean up.
*I then walk away*
I come back 10 minutes later, after "doing stuff" -- like throwing clothes in washer, or taking a dump, or whatever the hell I need to do when I first get home.
I flip the pork chops on the way through the room, on the way to do something else.
I come back 5 minutes later, and it's time to eat.
I literally spend all of 3 minutes cooking that meal.
Cleanup? Please... the pot with carrots can be used tomorrow for carrots. It boiled carrots, ffs, and will boil again... thus killing germs and things. The pan just needs to be rinsed with hot water, and if more is needed?
*Leave it in the sink until tomorrow*. Pans don't need to be perfectly clean, you certainly don't want to use soap on them, and anything left over is just flavour for the next meal.
It often takes me 15 seconds to clean up after a meal.
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM!!! Really! Honestly and truly, what problem is soylent solving?!
A lack of an oven or microwave?
Here's a hint for people wanting to make food taste great, easy:
- mustard powder is great on anything made of pork, and pretty much any other meat too!
- pepper brings things alive
But for the love of god, JUST MAKE YOUR OWN FOOD!
(Score: 2) by DrkShadow on Tuesday April 23 2019, @08:02AM (5 children)
Yummy, frozen spaghetti sauce for dinner again! Only took me three minutes, on average! And that's why I'm looking for something different. :-)
-> you're not looking at the whole time spent, from shopping through doing dishes. In the "making spaghetti" example, I buy sauce at the store. 10 minutes to boil the water. 15 minutes more to boil the noodles. Sauce at the same time, meat too, and there's at least 35 minutes, not including prep or shopping, that went into cooking the meal. Another half hour more to eat and 10-15 minutes cleanup, there went an hour and a half of my evening. For speghetti where someone else made the sauce.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 23 2019, @08:21AM
You gotta up your game and here's how:
Use a smaller pot. Use an electric kettle a couple of times to boil water and pour it right into the pot, and bring that back to a rapid boil. Snap spaghetti in half or use the half-length kind. Always cook al dente. No 15 minutes, try 7. Eat a strand to ensure it is mostly cooked. Drain (hopefully the pot lid can be used as a strainer). Return to the stove. Add some oil, spices, and heat the spaghetti to fry it a bit. Shouldn't take much longer than 5 minutes. Dump up to a half jar of sauce in and continue cooking for a couple of minutes, or if you want to be a savage, stop immediately. You're done. Only one pot to clean. Obviously, if you want to add onions, mushrooms, ground beef, etc. then you'll need a pan and hurt your time.
There is also this stuff [barilla.com] but I can't vouch for it.
Spaghetti with sauce is no soylent bachelor chow. Not healthy. But it tastes better.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 23 2019, @08:58AM
Here's another tip. Use a 2 quart stainless steel pot to make your single serve meal. When it's ready, slap this [ikea.com] or something like it on the bottom. Then eat right out of the pot anywhere you want to, even from your lap. No extra dish to clean.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @12:26PM (1 child)
Yummy, frozen spaghetti sauce for dinner again! Only took me three minutes, on average! And that's why I'm looking for something different. :-)
Home made spaghetti sauce, frozen and thawed, is many, many times tastier than fresh-made out of the store sauce. Start with canned, crushed tomatoes, and make your sauce from there.
And the point isn't "must be spaghetti sauce", you're focusing on the wrong part. It is simply, "make your own food". People buy frozen pre-made dinners at the store, instead of making it themselves!
you're not looking at the whole time spent, from shopping through doing dishes.
Yes, I am. But you ignored my times, I guess? imagining they are unrealistic? They're not.
First, you're including "standing around and doing nothing" as part of the cooking process. You don't need to watch a pot boil. Really. You don't. Same for stuff cooking in a pan, and sauce cooking in a pot.
Take the pots out, get stuff in the pots/pans, turn it to the right temp, walk away. Come back in a bit, adjust. As with anything, skills increase over time.
Don't just stand there for 35 minutes watching water boil. Why? Go do other things... don't you have other tasks to do?
And how on earth can it be 15 minutes to cleanup?!
Didn't you read? You don't need to wash the pan you boil noodles in every time... just rinse it out. Frying pans should never have soap applied. They're meant to *stay* greasy. Just hot water, and done.
Another example -- I invited family over for a Turkey meal.. Thanksgiving. A very traditional meal in Canada.
People go on, and on, and on about "oh it takes hours". Wtf?
1) Buy smallest young turkey available
2) Put in fridge
3) Take out night before, put in huge crock pot
4) Put potatoes, carrots, onions around turkey
Walk away!
Next morning -- turkey is done.
Took me all of 30 minutes to prep, cook, AND clean up after that meal. And I had 6 guests!
Cook *smarter*. Eat *smarter*.
Buying crap other people make isn't either of those.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:45PM
https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-brine-a-turkey-225751 [thekitchn.com]
http://dish.allrecipes.com/how-to-brine-turkey/ [allrecipes.com]
Gotta brine and roast those turkeys.
Throwing smoked turkey into a pot of beans is also good.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by r_a_trip on Tuesday April 23 2019, @02:04PM
What is so gargantuanly important about your evenings that you don't have time to eat like a normal human being?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 23 2019, @08:06AM (2 children)
I agree, but if people want the option to completely replace a meal or two (or three) a day nutritionally, they should have that option. DrkShadow is not your typical consumer, but enough people have had enough reasons to buy and keep Soylent and other meal replacements on the market. I don't know how successful Soylent really is, but it has made its way into supermarkets.
Most people feed their cats and dogs the same kibble every day. That's how Futurama's Bachelor Chow memed into this conversation. You have powdered stuff like Soylent, Ambronite, and Huel that provide every %DV of protein, nutrients, etc. that a person needs (and maybe a bit of lead and cadmium too, yum). But if you are drinking and not chewing, that is probably not good for your oral health. We're going to assume that the intended users are criminally lazy and need this product ready made, poured out of a giant container, and consumed immediately with little or no prep (maybe add milk or water like in the cartoon).
Maybe eating cat or dog food is the answer. Soylent certainly doesn't come as cheap as rice, beans, pasta, etc. Maybe a higher end dry pet food can compete with it. Taste buds are fried? Eat the pet food, I dare you.
Back to reality. I have used mustard with pork but I don't use mustard powder for any purpose very often. Maybe I should change that. Black pepper is very underrated, probably due to being on every restaurant table. How many people died so we could have ubiquitous black pepper? I think everybody should be using granulated garlic on damn near everything, without even bothering to use real garlic. But I find onion powder to be much less useful and prefer to use real onions. I like to sauté onions with some black pepper and granulated garlic.
Grab an Instant Pot, you can do a lot with it, including setting and forgetting it in some cases. Make yogurt a gallon at a time, pressure cook pulled pork, or pressure cook dried beans in it.
Get a plastic bucket or mason jar and make kimchi. Prep time is not so bad unless you want to make 5 gallons.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @12:29PM
I personally use cayenne pepper, but I do like black as well.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @03:32PM
Also, btw.
If you look at mustard, it has all sorts of other things in it. And there's of course hot variants of mustard, and so on...
But raw mustard powder? That's the cat's meow on, say, cooking pork. It's great for a lot of other stuff too, heck, even the ketchup I buy at that store? It has mustard in it too! So do many mayonnaises...
Mustard. Where it's at.
Plus if the end of the world happens, you can make a mustard poultice, to help with those radiation burns and zombie bites. You just can't lose!
(NOTE: I present no claims that this particular old-time medicinal use of mustard works, but it *was* very popular, so maybe it does something?)
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:03PM
Well, if you're really desperate to only eat oatmeal every day you can get fortified oatmeal that has the necessary vitamins added.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by SunTzuWarmaster on Tuesday April 23 2019, @11:59AM (6 children)
I experimented for about 2 years trying to create a 'bachelor chow' - reasonably tasty, keeps for 7+ days, requires minimal cooking, nutritionally complete, cheap.
I settled on jasmine rice and lentils. Combined, they make a complete protein and provide the vast majority of vitamins/minerals required. There are documented studies of people living on rice/lentils for years. The final solution was:
Breakfast - skip
Lunch - skip
During the day - 4 scoops myProtein protein powder (gotta get strong somehow).
night - rice/lentils, pat of butter, with seasoning-of-the-day (frequently cumin, but italian seasoning blend or taco powder work reasonably).
---
About $1 of protein shake, $1 of rice/lentils, no cooking, no dishes, nutritionally complete.
Wash your bowl - http://mnmlist.com/wash-your-bowl/ [mnmlist.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @05:16PM (2 children)
Switch to brown rice. (better: black rice or wild rice, but that isn't cheap)
Keeping the cumin, add lots of turmeric and a tiny bit of either cinnamon or ginger. (better: also add cardamom and coriander)
Add finely chopped celery. Consider adding chopped parsley or sliced almonds.
Switch the butter to ghee (clarified butter), lard, chicken fat, or coconut oil. Coconut oil prices vary greatly, from affordable to insane, and your store might only offer one extreme. Check other stores.
Add iodized salt.
It keeps well. You can freeze it. It is easy to warm in a microwave; you can shake a half-full container to mix hot and cold parts. If you try the wild rice, note that you have to let that cook by itself first because it takes longer.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:10PM (1 child)
Good call on the iodized salt. That would have been obvious decades ago but now people like to use sea salt, rock salt, volcanic salt, et al. without iodine and probably with microplastic contamination.
Where's the vitamin C coming from? We gonna die?
Here's a meal that combines brown rice, black beans, walnuts, onions, sauce:
https://minimalistbaker.com/easy-grillable-veggie-burgers/ [minimalistbaker.com]
I made a version of this with just red lentils, white rice, onions, bbq sauce, and panko. I cooked it in a pan instead of grilling it. I would probably follow the recipe's directions more closely if I made it a second time.
Google says BBQ sauce has almost no vitamin C and ketchup has some, so I assume it varies by product. I'm not sure what the best cheap source is, maybe powdered ascorbic acid sold to homebrewers? And you get some from the onions.
The expensive bit would be any walnuts, almonds, etc. Might want to grow them or source them locally if possible. Maybe they aren't too expensive if you buy in bulk and use a small amount each time, I haven't done the math on it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:24PM
Thinking about it some more. You might just want to eat a banana every day in addition to the rice/lentil mix, and pop a multivitamin with B12. Let's see someone die from that.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:18PM (2 children)
See my post below. Burger patty form could be a nice variation if you get bored of it. George Foreman grill / panini press might be the optimal extra step.
"Nutritionally complete" seems suspect to me. Survival stories aside, it ain't adding up to a nice set of 100% DVs like Soylent does.
You've skipped breakfast and lunch, but why not skip lunch and dinner?
'Big breakfast healthier than a big dinner' [medicalnewstoday.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by SunTzuWarmaster on Tuesday April 23 2019, @07:56PM (1 child)
https://greatist.com/health/complete-vegetarian-proteins [greatist.com]
You are right - eventually the diet outlined above will eventually get scurvy. I forgot to add a splash of juice to water in the evening. Additionally, you can throw in a multivitamin tablet every once in a while if you are concerned. B12 is found "in low doses" in lentils... but keep in mind that lentils are composing roughly 40% of your daily caloric content, so you shouldn't worry too much.
Also notably - life is uncertain enough that you go to parties, have a beer or two, take a girl out to eat, have some chicken fingers at a friends' graduation party, etc. The longest 'strict' stretch I did on solely on the above "bachelor chow" was 30 days.
I don't necessarily disagree with the AC above - switching to wild rice, adding celery (and onions), swapping in some black beans, adding iodized salt, making and adding ghee, etc. That said - now it is starting to look like work. I started with simple goals - nutritious, cheap, fast. The above "lentils+rice+butter+seasoning" can prepare 7 days of meals for $7 inside of 20 minutes. Additionally, it does not encourage overeating.
I kinda eat-when-I-come-home, so this is a ~5pm meal. I understand the benefits of "one big breakfast", but I prefer sleep to food. Additionally, I understand the 'dangers' of eating before bedtime, but it isn't like you are gonna get fat on lentils/rice. Among other things, on day 25 you just don't stuff yourself ;).
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 23 2019, @09:40PM
I think if you're making 7+ days of meals in advance, a little extra prep time ain't that bad. If you have freezer space, you could try making 14+ days of the stuff in advance. Obviously, it doesn't matter if you deviate from your chow once in a while. It's just meant for when you are alone and need something to eat.
Brown rice is somewhat more nutritious than white rice, and cheap (see generic bags at Walmart, Safeway, etc.). Sorry @ wild rice.
If you aren't making patties, canned stewed tomatoes would add some vitamin C and potassium. Eating a banana on the side would also add both, and bananas seem to be a better value than any other fruit out there at less than $0.50/lb. They become more nutritious as the peel completely blackens, apparently.
I've made a lot more black beans lately because an Instant Pot can turn dried beans into cooked in about an hour with almost zero prep time. Set and leave. But there's no need to have both black beans and lentils, and lentils may be the better choice.
I don't care about ghee. Just slap in any cheap oil where needed. Seasonings can be bought in bulk at a warehouse store or maybe a local Indian or Chinese food store. Stuff I would add: turmeric, cumin, granulated garlic, pepper, cardamom, smoked paprika, the iodized salt, and MSG [accentflavor.com] if you have it. You can mix these into your own spice mix in advance, and just sprinkle everything you need in one simple motion.
I would add onions at least, but you could forgo them. Meh to celery.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]