In other Soylent news, the powdered foodstuff has a new "version release":
Soylent founder Rob Rhinehart has continued to update Soylent's formula, tweaking the contents and altering the micro- and macronutrient blend in response to user feedback and also actual science and lab-work. The latest change, to "version 1.4," is the most significant since the product's launch: in addition to ditching the often leaky bottles of oil, the amount of soluble fiber has been greatly reduced, from 10g per pouch to 3.9g; the total amount of fiber has been reduced from 30g to 16g per pouch.
Other changes include reduced portion size (the pouches indicate 4 rather than 3 servings), a smoother texture, a more neutral and less dough-like flavor, and less "butt stuff." Why? "Some people's gut bacteria are not accustomed to the soluble fiber."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2015, @07:40AM
Asian turds aren't as nutritious, for some reason.
(Score: 2) by threedigits on Wednesday April 08 2015, @08:31AM
It really gives a new meaning to "Soylent News"!
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday April 09 2015, @08:06AM
Better meta than beta.
Account abandoned.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2015, @08:53AM
and less "butt stuff."
This makes me happy. But what about the alleged "anal feeding" practiced by the CIA? Will it still work?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday April 08 2015, @09:38AM
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/rectal-feeding-the-obsolete-medical-practice-the-cia-used-as-torture [vice.com]
Soylent has got to be in the same family of "foods" as Ensure, so yes.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday April 08 2015, @09:37AM
I don't think this "one-size-fits-all" approach is efficient; at least it shouldn't be the end of development. Different people have different nutritional needs. People doing a lot of sports might need some more proteins, people in warmer regions probably more salt (because they lose more due to sweating), etc. Also it would be good to have different brands to support different nutrition styles. E.g. I'm currently doing a ketogenic diet [wikipedia.org] and would appreciate to have shakes available to meet my needs for minerals, vitamins, the right amino acids and the right sorts of fats, without any carbohydrates.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday April 08 2015, @09:51AM
"Soylent has undergone 4 reformulations since release and dedicates space to DIY recipes created by the online community."
The "dedicated space" seems to be broken: https://diy.soylent.me/recipes [soylent.me]
http://discourse.soylent.me/ [soylent.me]
http://www.reddit.com/r/soylent [reddit.com]
Again, broken, but there are comments: http://www.reddit.com/domain/diy.soylent.me/ [reddit.com]
http://www.reddit.com/r/soylent/wiki/diy [reddit.com]
Soylent probably has some advantages over homemade Soylent (other than convenience) but I wouldn't know what they are.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday April 08 2015, @10:36AM
Thanks for the links. It's a bit unfortunate that the recipe-links to diy.soylent.me don't work anymore, but at least it gave me some search terms.
BTW: Not entirely soylent-like, but to get simple ketogenic food, following mixtures worked for me (and might be mixed in a blender as well):
- cottage cheese (40% fat), can probably be mixed with flax-seed to help digestion, plus some herbs for taste
- spinach with blue mould cheese (could be turned into a shake easily when adding some cream)
- If I actually want something with more substance, self-made flax-seed crispbread: Mix crushed flax seed with hot water, add some pure cacao powder for taste. Bake in thin layers. Eat like bread, with butter and liverwurst/cheese/whatever (This enabled me to enjoy breakfast with my family)
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday April 08 2015, @10:01AM
You need carbs to live. Here's some stuff about the carbs in Soylent:
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday April 08 2015, @10:17AM
Why? According to the article about ketogenic diet (and according to my own experience for some month), I don't. I get some because they are nearly unavoidable in order to get minerals and vitamins (even green vegetables like spinach and broccoli have some, and milk/cheese is also not free of them), but other than that the idea is to let the liver create ketone bodies [wikipedia.org] from fat. These can be used by the body similar to carbohydrate.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday April 08 2015, @10:34AM
I guess you're right. Their website is still broken but I see a lot of ketogenic soylent recipes here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140807234228/http://diy.soylent.me/wiki/ketogenic-soylent [archive.org]
https://web.archive.org/web/20140524051147/http://diy.soylent.me/recipes?sort=favoritesCount&tags=Ketogenic [archive.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday April 08 2015, @10:39AM
Thanks again :-)
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday April 08 2015, @11:21AM
Somehow I seem to miss a point there. Following the link quidnycs-ketofood-for-induction-phase-ketosis [archive.org] shows me the nutrition of the recipe, but not the ingredients. Nor did i find the ingredients anywhere else yet.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday April 08 2015, @11:32AM
I noticed that on that same recipe. Some of them have traditional ingredients listed on the "Notes" tab, like this one:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140524032636/http://diy.soylent.me/recipes/soylent-milkshake-v-11 [archive.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday April 08 2015, @12:24PM
Unfortunately, apparently none of the keto-recipes has a list of actual ingredients. Maybe I can publish my own set and get some feedback there if they fix this page.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday April 08 2015, @12:27PM
The archive is months old, so if the site begins working again there should be more content.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday April 08 2015, @12:53PM
I just sent them a mail, let's see if they will fix this and how long it takes...
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 5, Funny) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 08 2015, @02:50PM
Exactly; they should have several different versions of it. To make it easy to differentiate them on store shelves and for consumers to remember them, they should use different colors, calling them "Soylent Red", "Soylent Orange", "Soylent Yellow", and "Soylent Green". Soylent Green would be the most expensive and tastiest of the bunch, though it would have some secret ingredient.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday April 08 2015, @05:23PM
Could you call it vegetarian / vegan, if it doesn't have any animal-products, as such?
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 4, Touché) by Mr Big in the Pants on Wednesday April 08 2015, @07:26PM
Humans are animals. Just because we commit gen(e)ocide on millions of other species so successfully does not make us less so...
I was going to say more but the multiple levels of disappointment your post invoked left me unable to say more.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday April 08 2015, @08:33PM
Are you sure you are not taking this too serious? Sticks and stones...
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Thursday April 09 2015, @05:27AM
I am not taking it seriously, the comment was moronic.
Just pointing out the truth of the matter. We are animals and we do tend to think we are "above it all" even though we really aren't as a brief glance at almost any internet forum, dating site, bar or sports event will show quite clearly...
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Thursday April 09 2015, @09:56AM
The irony here is that this is, in a way, also a typical animalistic behaviour ;-) No cat would sympathize with mice, (I don't actually think they consider themselves consciously above mice, but the effect is similar.) By expecting better behaviour from humans one could say that you are the one trying to put humans above animals.
It's also interesting to note how this indicates that "Elbonians first!" way of thinking should be considered less human and more animal as well.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Thursday April 09 2015, @11:50PM
I totally agree. Extreme irony and hypocrisy are a large part of the human condition. :)
But I also believe that we CAN rise above it with effort - even if only for a short amount of time.
But it is not a given and requires a lot of effort.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday April 08 2015, @05:28PM
More serious: Actually, I was thinking about a more geeky solution: A couple of powder-boxes with different mixtures, a raspberry with a dosing-feeder and some sensors to e.g. measure your blood-suger and a web-interface to enter your weight, size, target-weight etc., and the dosing feeder mixes the right powders for your personal diet. Each of the powders can be purchased separately.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 1) by rufty on Wednesday April 08 2015, @10:13AM
Has any further work investigated the contamination of or endogenous conversion to BCBs? Are flames to blame?
(Score: 2) by khchung on Wednesday April 08 2015, @11:54AM
I have been waiting for them to accept orders from outside of the US. What's holding them up???
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2015, @12:58PM
Probably logistics. I placed an order in early september, didn't get it until late february (original ship date was to be late novemeber) and in the meantime their back-end system switched my shipping address to somewhere in a completely different state. They just got a bunch of VC money in the last month so maybe they will have the resources to set up for international orders now.
(Score: 2) by romlok on Wednesday April 08 2015, @03:40PM
You could try one of the European alternatives. I found a blog with a few posts toward the end of last year, detailing various alternatives:
http://synectar.sk/en/soylent-alternatives-around-the-world-part-1/ [synectar.sk]
http://synectar.sk/en/soylent-alternatives-around-the-world-part-2/ [synectar.sk]
http://synectar.sk/en/soylent-alternatives-around-world-part-3/ [synectar.sk]
I swear I'm going to try some one of these days.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2015, @12:10PM
What's the shelf life? Can I use it for camping? Prepers food?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2015, @12:55PM
RTFA. It says the 1.4 formulation is labelled for 2 years.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday April 09 2015, @04:25PM
I'll be surprised if the fish oil component keeps that long; fish oil is very subject to rapid rancidity, and rancid fat likes to suck all the Vitamin E out of your body. (In dogs, the result is irreversible retinal degeneration and blindness.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday April 08 2015, @02:45PM
I'm sure someone is interested in how Soylent tastes; put plainly, it tastes like oatmeal water. Imagine watery plain flavored instant oatmeal, and you won't be too far off, although you can adjust the amount of water to taste. As a culinary ingredient, you can treat it as oatmeal: mix in fruits, honey, milk for a sweet dish or bacon, eggs for a savory dish. It's not the most interesting food in the world, but it isn't abhorrent by any standard, and it's damn cheap for keeping yourself in this plane.
I can't say whether you can live off only soylent since I only eat/drink it occasionally, but anecdotal personal reports seem to suggest you can.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1) by ghost on Wednesday April 08 2015, @03:18PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by romlok on Wednesday April 08 2015, @03:45PM
Apparently yes, yes you can [soylent.me].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2015, @03:36PM
Yeah but soylent is expensive as living hell.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday April 09 2015, @03:54PM
It depends on where you live, but getting a nutritionally complete meal for $3 USD and almost zero prep time isn't something to scoff at.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by robpow on Wednesday April 08 2015, @03:49PM
This guy ate only Soylent for a month:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/17/5893221/soylent-survivor-one-month-living-on-lab-made-liquid-nourishment [theverge.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2015, @05:41PM
> I'm sure someone is interested in how Soylent tastes; put plainly, it tastes like oatmeal water.
I've only ever had the 1.3 version, but I disagree. To me it tastes like a vanilla protein shake. Mildly sweet, vanilla with a little bit of viscosity.
I dump in a ton of cinnamon and its practically a dessert.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday April 08 2015, @09:46PM
1.4 supposedly reduces taste, as indicated by the summary.
1.4 also is less "silty".
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday April 09 2015, @03:51PM
Yes, I was talking about 1.4, which I should have mentioned in my post.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Covalent on Wednesday April 08 2015, @11:43PM
So it's the slop from The Matrix, essentially?
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.