from the not-all-proteins-are-created-equal dept.
Oh boy, Soylent. The post-food people are back at it again with the stomach problems. This time, it’s not the Bars that are getting investigated, but their Powder 1.6 product, which is turning up similar symptoms.
The company has stopped all distribution and sales of the powder for now. It announced in a blog post yesterday that all of their products tested negative for contamination and pathogens. But they’re hoping to find out what’s making some people sick as soon as possible:
“During our review, we noticed that a handful of consumers (less than 0.1%) who consumed Powder 1.6 over the past several months reported stomach-related symptoms that are consistent with what our Bar customers described. Interestingly, we didn’t see similar complaints during the 1.5 formulation. This possible connection allows us to narrow the field considerably given there are only a few ingredients that are specific to only our bars and Powder 1.6.”
Full Article:
https://motherboard.vice.com/read/soylent-recalls-powder-after-more-complaints-of-digestive-distress
https://web.archive.org/web/20161028214707/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/soylent-recalls-powder-after-more-complaints-of-digestive-distress
Related Stories
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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 29 2016, @11:04AM
I'm stockpiling ThinkThin protein bars, and I've found I can maintain my unhealthy potbelly if I eat entire boxes at a sitting. Thinking Thin, staying Fat!
ThinkThin bars give a powerful thirst, which I quench with Crystal Light. It's not low-calorie if I drink an entire box in one gulp!
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Saturday October 29 2016, @11:36AM
Just get some fresh food and eat it. If you ingest more than you excrete (bowls, bladder and lungs), you will get fat. If you ingest less than you excrete you will lose weight.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Saturday October 29 2016, @11:51AM
Given that I only ever hear about Soylent when they are having a health scare, recall or similar, I question whether - even if someone WANTS to live on that kind of stuff - they are the product to be using?
Honestly, how many recalls does it take to check your formula, clean up your packaging and test that your "food" is actually food-safe?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday October 29 2016, @12:43PM
Obviously, the problem with Soylent is that the quality of results vary considerably from person to person.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 29 2016, @01:16PM
For nearly all of their customers it isn't about "living on that kind of stuff" its about switching meals that would normally be junk food, like taco bell or even crap from the vending machine. Regular healthy meals still continue to be regular healthy food. Soylent is ultra-convenience food that isn't empty calories.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 29 2016, @04:01PM
Woah stop that voice of reason right there! We must look down upon all things new!!!
(Score: 2) by ledow on Saturday October 29 2016, @05:47PM
What's that got to do with food safety, product recalls and mould?
I don't care WHY people want to eat it, but why do they continue to buy THAT PRODUCT after at least three distinct (maybe more) recalls and health-scares with it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 29 2016, @07:14PM
That's an entirely different issue. But sure, lets think about that.
Do you know how much shit is allowed in regular food? [foxnews.com]
They've been shipping powder for 2+ years, this is the first time there's been a problem with powder and it is apparently a fraction of a percent of consumers. Its probably an allergic reaction. Food allergies, that never happens with other kinds of food...
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday October 31 2016, @03:20PM
So a company that hides any customer complaints is safer than a company that reacts to a couple minor complaints with a full-blown recall? This isn't a safety recall forced by the FDA, this is a voluntary recall because Soylent wants to be overly cautious because they know people already don't trust their food because it's been chopped into bits.
(Score: 1) by tekk on Saturday October 29 2016, @05:42PM
So Soylent people tend to be split into two camps. For one camp, they just don't enjoy food, weird as that sounds. Eating is 100% a way to get nutrients, and with Soylent you just get it and your nutrients are pretty much covered; you still want some solid foods for fiber, but aside from that you're golden. The other camp is what the other commenter has described. You keep it around for when you don't feel like cooking, because it's better for you and cheaper than eating out.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 29 2016, @05:50PM
> you still want some solid foods for fiber,
Soylent has fiber. [soylent.com] [28g per 2000 calories]
Even the liquid version too. [soylent.com] [15g per 2000 calories]
More than the typical american diet contains. [today.com] [14g per day]
The typical american diet is pretty much a shit show. Even a 100% soylent diet is better than that.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday October 31 2016, @02:34PM
I'm still eating both the 1.6 powder and the bars, despite these recalls, because frankly I haven't seen any reason not to yet.
What have they actually found in this case? Nothing. There's no bacteria, no toxins, no mold, and not a single person with any definite illness. Just a couple customers who got an upset stomach after a radical change to their diet. Where most companies would say it's no big deal and totally expected and nothing is wrong, Soylent has instead stopped all new shipments, refunded all current shipments, issued a full recall, and launched an investigation. That doesn't mean it's unsafe, it just means they aren't taking any chances.
They've only had one actual problem that I'm aware of, which was mold in a few of the premixed bottles. I don't care much because I don't see the point in having them ship me bottles of water when I've got a pipe carrying the stuff right to my kitchen. But still, look through bags of cheese at the grocery store for long enough and I'm sure you'll find some mold there too. And it's not a huge problem. Certainly not as bad as the E.Coli they keep finding in bags of lettuce!
(Score: 2) by VanderDecken on Saturday October 29 2016, @03:52PM
Perhaps they should have left out the human brains
The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
(Score: 2) by KiloByte on Sunday October 30 2016, @02:30AM
Well, Slashdot has improved greatly since it got out of DICE's clutches, so we might manage. It still lacks basics like Unicode support and has bugs like story links randomly going to "https://slashdot.org" instead of the real thing until you reload, but editing is back to a semi-reasonable quality.
Unless it's not that kind of Soylent you're talking about...
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.