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
(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!