The 30% cap on calories from fat is pretty ridiculous in my view. Even if you don't buy into the idea that fat is healthful, there is plenty of science that indicates it is, and so at least CIFA should not regulate fat content in this way.
Sidenote: I don't drink Soylent and have no idea if it fails the fat content. I'm in the "Soylent is not healthful" camp, if it matters.
I don't drink Soylent either or think it's that great of a product, but the 30% fat cap is totally ridiculous. It's basically outlawing the ketogenic diet.
Even if this got them over regulatory problems, they're still in the business of selling meal replacements. What are they going to market their products, as? Dessert? Meal supplement? Their whole business is about selling you all you need to eat.
In general, it's been pretty well accepted in Canada that fats should take a higher priority and we should reduce our overall carbohydrate consumption in a healthy diet. [0]
The alternative to this being athletes. We had to carbo-load the night before a game/race/etc -- but not on the regular.
I think those caps are meant to nudge people in the direction of getting their nutrients from non-processed food sources. It's somewhat more reliable to maintain a healthy intake of nutrients by eating food versus supplementation. [1]
I do not understand how the sources you provided result in the conclusion that 'fats should take higher priority' in a healthy diet. Much of the recent literature suggests that too much fat in the diet can result in a higher concentration of Intramyocellular Lipids (fat in the cells), this has been shown to increase insulin resistance (resulting in +ce instances of type 2 diabetes) [0].
In addition, the blue zone study (largest epidemiological study ever conducted on human health) concluded that diets rich in whole grains, starchy root vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts and seeds proved to result in the lowest instances of diet related diseases (heart attach, stroke, diabetes, alzheimers) and was found to increase longevity.
"From this There is abundant evidence that increased levels of plasma lipids, predominantly free fatty acids (FFAs) and triglycerides, are causally involved in IR" (insulin resistance)
It was more an example of the fact that it's been in Canadian health groups' consideration for at least the past 7 years, as one of the posters above asserted that Canadian food groups still favoured carbohydrates and didn't have updated information on fats consumption.
To wit: there is a dramatic difference between the types of fats that should increase in our diets, versus the types of fats that should decrease.
It certainly isn't about reducing the proportion of whole grains, nuts, and seeds to the proportion of other sources of carbohydrates. If anything, when talking about fats, nuts and seeds are included in that argument. I spend more on my breads these days precisely because of this -- as part of my diet I require the increased iron and fats contents of whole-grain breads that include nuts and seeds. I've also taken to eating less of that bread, and spend more time snacking on nuts -- especially at work.
I can't however speak from the perspective of somebody with insulin issues or diabetes. I'm closer to anemic in my dietary needs.
Not to split hairs, but the cap is 35% unless you want to replace all meals.
I know we're all avant guard around here, but until fairly recently it wasn't accepted knowledge that fat wasn't as bad for you as first thought. It's understandable that regulations would take time to adjust.
the problem is that "animal" was not the most common food anyway, overshadowed by plants, not that it doesn't contain enough fat.
EDIT: I'm also not sure about this western culture bias you're talking about, I am italian and we eat innards, blood and marrow.
I am fairly sure every culture in europe does.
Not every culture in Europe, I'm afraid. English people have a pretty strong aversion towards "offal" (innards). I live in the UK (I'm originally from Greece) and it's impossible to find any trachea or lungs, let alone small intestines for some traditional dishes I really miss (g. kokoretsi, gardoumba).
You can find hearts, livers, kidneys and stomachs, but except for chicken livers, pretty much only in halal (i.e. middle easterner) butchers, as far as I can tell.
Edit: Most English also tend to find blood saussages disturbing. There's black pudding, a blood sausage they make oop north, in Yorkshire, but people under the north-south divide won't go near it with a ten-foot pole.
And you should just see the expressions of disgust towards haggis (a Scottish dish made with innards and quaker oats).
Black pudding is a central component of the "full English breakfast" that seems to be readily available all over London. Someone's gotta be eating it, and probably not just tourists like me.
There's a huge class component in eating offal, though. It might be that you're associating mainly with middle class people who find eating offal to be beneath them, or looking for it in middle class areas. Small intestines (chitterlings or "chitlins" in the US) is a good example - I'm a middle class white person in the northeastern US and I've never had them and no one I know has ever admitted eating them to me, but they're popular among poor people of all races in the rural south and among black Americans in northern cities.
I do enjoy kiska, though, along with a number of my friends - a Polish blood sausage flavored with marjoram. A lot of people here have Polish ancestors who came here for work in the steel mills, and it's a very working class sort of food.
Black pudding is part of the full English in Yorkshire, but not more southerly than that, as far as I know. It's not surprising to find it in London- you can find anything edible in London, including a restaurant that specialises in cooking animals whole and letting nothing go to waste. I forget the name, it's one of those trendy expensive ones so I've never been.
Where I live in the South, the full English is french toast, baked beans, hash browns, fried mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, eggs, bacon, sausage and spam (sorry, couldn't resist). I sincerely believe that a majority of English people would not touch their breakfast if it had black pudding in it.
Also, I'd think the middle classes would be more likely to eat offal, just to show they're superior to the plebs. But I might be wrong.
there are a lot variations (hungarians seem to consume a lot of chicken liver which I have _never_ seen in a supermarket in Italy, while beef liver is very common in Italy and seldom sold in Budapest), I just felt the blanket statement towards "the west" was wrong.
When? Only in the last 10,000 years of agriculture, I guarantee you hunter gatherers did not get the bulk of their calories from plants.
Also, it's heavily dependent on what culture you're talking about. Some cultures relied heavily on animals, others on plants.
well, sure, but we were talking before '1970, rather than "before agriculture", and cultures in which the sugar lobby might have affected consumptions, not inuit.
I think he meant American bias when he said “western culture”. “Meat”, where I was raised, definitely didn’t include those (very tasty!) parts of the animal.
I have heard stories from my parents and grandparents that my great-grandparents from Germany would save all types of animal fat (Goose, Pork, Beef etc) and use it for cooking and soap making. It was a precious commodity and was not thrown away. Also I think butter was pretty available. It wasn't until WW2 I think that it became scarce and vegetable oils and margarine came on the scene.
Fat calories would be one reason. 47% in soylent vs 35% max allowed. Their announcement mentions that it failed more than one requirement, so there must be something else in addition to this.
These regulations are outdated. The push against fat calories and towards carbohydrates was largely motivated by the sugar industry, see: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oLtQLDptI1g
In addition to this, fat calories are more “filling” than carbohydrate calories. Something useful for a meal replacement (assuming unsaturated/“healthy” fats)
I hope Soylent sticks to their guns with the best knowledge available, and I hope interested/concerned Canadians push for reform here.
I used to live in Canada, now back in UK. Canadians won’t push for reforms. They’ll accept it. Incredibly docile population. Also they have more pressing issues, online purchases from outside Canada are charged duty if the purchase is over CDN $20. In the US the duties apply only after USD $800. See: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/duty-free-limit-america-1.34... There are countless other ‘controls’ of this sort in place across a range of issues.
> Canadians won’t push for reforms. They’ll accept it.
If you think duties on personal purchases from outside the country are a 'pressing issue' your priorities are way out of whack there bud.
I'm confused that you criticise Canada for having 'controls' on the population (bit melodromatic) but chose to move back to the UK with its ubiquitous CCTV.
I'm just going to leave that docile comment where it lies (in more ways than one) because it's an obvious provocation. Sorry you didn't enjoy your time here.
"When a meal replacement is represented as a replacement for all daily meals, the maximum amount of energy from fat is reduced to 30 percent, of which no more than 10 percent may be from saturated fat. For complete composition requirements, refer to B.24.200 of the FDR."
So it's actually 47% vs 30%, plus probably the additional composition requirements.
Soylent marketing clearly states that it's not intended as a replacement for all daily meals.
Though it seems slightly open to interpretation whether "all" here means "replaces every meal" or "could replace any type of meal breakfast/lunch/dinner" etc. I'm guessing the former.
I can sympathize with keeping the public safe, but there must be some legal way to promote non-traditional nutrition regimes, in this case as simple as increasing fat consumption.
There are many diets suiting many different lifestyles in Canada, from the traditional Inuit meat & fat heavy diet to many 'fad' diets extolled in magazines. It seems strange to me why it's legal to advocate a diet in media but illegal to label a product as such.
Advocating a diet (or any other opinion) is protected under Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Actually selling a product with potentially misleading labels is not.
From the article: "There is nothing wrong with the Soylent product you are consuming, this issue emerged from regulatory compliance, not product quality."
Is that not what regulatory compliance is about? I wonder what Soylent thinks regulatory compliance is for.
I'm a vegetarian, not vegan, but I was pretty angry when they disappeared from our shelves. There was also some scuttlebutt that Field Roast was reported to the CFIA by a competitor.
As a left leaning Canadian. But don't tell me what to eat. On the other hand, please keep poisonous or otherwise dangerous foods off of our grocery store shelves. It's a fine line to walk.
I kind of get where the government is coming from with the regulation. The problem isn't you, the conscious food eater; the problem is the parent who buys their kids prepackaged lunch "snacks", who is none the wiser to what's in them. It's a stop-gap measure against "Bear Paw"ing (http://www.darefoods.com/ca_en/product/bear-paws-chocolate-c...) the hell out of children's lunches.
The Apple Sage are the only ones I don't like, but I'm definitely in the minority. The Chipolte ones are an acquired taste, but amazing on a hotdog bun with some mozza while camping.
I started to love "meat alternatives" the moment I stopped expecting them to taste like meat.
I'm a thorough meat eater, but I also eat loads of Morningstar Farms Original Chik Patties because they fall in a pretty optimal place for me in the price/nutrition/convenience/taste coordinate system. They don't taste like chicken though.
I'm Canadian and drink Soylent regularly, maybe like 2-4 times per month. Soylent is again doing a poor job on PR in that FAQ. The most important questions are which requirements are the failing and why. That's all, but again they're obscure and far from the public.
Same was when lots of their consumers wanted a non-edulcorated version (it was very sweet some versions ago) and then there was no communication on their side.
I still buy it, because it's convenient, but they could improve their communication.
> Isn't this product supposed to be the end-all and be-all of meal replacements?
I don't know why so many people think this is the case and then hate on the product.
Taking too much of any one thing is bad for you. People were doing only-soylent as an experiment. But for the most part 90% of the time I've read people only using it for a single meal each day, or on days they dont have time to cook, and eating regular food otherwise. Which sounds entirely reasonable to me, especially given how often people substituted those moments with junk food.
I don't know why so many people think this is the case and then hate on the product.
Because that's how it's positioned in the market?
Like, literally what they claim it's for, and supposedly the reason they went into business?
Heck, Rhinehart once claimed "I have not set foot in a grocery store in years. Nevermore will I bumble through endless confusing aisles like a pack-donkey searching for feed while the smell of rotting flesh fills my nostrils and fluorescent lights sear my eyeballs and sappy love songs torture my ears."
I find it funny that on their powder's product page[1], they champion themselves for "Transparent Labeling", and right under that put the "bad" stuff in barely legible grey.
I don't see this as a dark pattern or a malicious decision. Most of the stuff we buy don't explicitly say "It's not organic", "It's not allergen-free". I know they are minimizing this and putting the focus on the other column, but it looks more transparent than other companies in my opinion.
How is posting it clearly on their website minimizing the truth? As a reasonable person, don't you think that if they were trying to minimize the truth, they would just not include it like everyone else?
I’m not commenting on the posting on the website, I’m parsing the parent post’s assertion, wherein (s)he said they didn’t think using grey to minimize facts presented was a dark pattern. I question that logic. Obfuscation is a dark pattern IMO, even if gently applied (like in this case) because using any method to downplay facts is a deterrent to knowing the truth.
This is simply disingenuous. That's perfectly legible. Especially compared to the common practice of not posting it at all. I don't see how anyone can be upset at this.
Not to mention describing those traits as "bad". The second column casts the creators in a good light by suggesting that they value empiricism and science over snake-oil and magic.
I don't know about CFIA, but CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) can and does punish violations of the spirit of the law. That is, if a company finds a loophole that allows them to avoid taxes without violating the letter of the law, CRA is legally allowed to prosecute them anyway for violating the spirit of the law. It is not unlikely that such common sense discretions are given to CFIA as well.
This is almost certainly about false claims/marketing based on usage of regulated industry terms. Simply removing the offending labeling would bring them into compliance.
Fermentable fibers aren't just important, they're one of the key determinants of how healthy your diet is. Mood, memory & cognitive function, immune function, inflammation and leanness are all strongly influenced by your microbiome. Not only does a high fiber diet promote an optimal microbiome, the byproducts of fiber fermentation are actually the mechanism for most of the benefits.
Soylent also fails due to a lack of health-promoting phytonutrients. Between this and the lack of fiber, it is really a poor choice. You really need to get one solid, plant based meal a day for proper health. A better on-the-go alternative to soylent is a mixture of nuts and high phytonutrient dried fruit like blueberries/cherries (without added sugar). Tempeh also works well on the go and it is extremely healthy.
Do you have any sources for how important fiber is? I usually eat keto, and when I tried adding fiber to my diet I got stomach cramps, felt like I was hungry all the time (which never happens), and grew extremely irritable. Over the next few days I had two or three massive, green bowel movements, which was also unusual since I generally only go twice a week. Previous times I've tried taking some psyllium husk and even that seemed to lead to hunger pangs and bowel movements.
I'm always interested in improving my health, so I'll definitely try it again, perhaps more scientifically this time. That said, I don't want to struggle through the annoying symptoms if it turns out that fiber doesn't do anything.
I'm not surprised you suffered gastro-intestinal upset when you added fiber to a keto diet. Your gut biome was adapted to a low fiber, high fat diet. Rapid changes in dietary composition will frequently cause this issue. One solution to this problem is to consume your fiber along with a probiotic supplement, or preferably a live culture fermented food such as unpasteurized sauerkraut/kimchi/greek yogurt. Beans (particularly lentils) are the most nutritious fiber source, but if you want to stick with the keto diet, you should use inulin instead of psyllium husk, as there is more research demonstrating its efficacy. You may still encounter some GI upset even with a probiotic, but it should decrease as your gut biota adapts over the course of a week or two.
For references, there are plenty. Specifically want to look for material related to short chain fatty acids, particularly butyrate, and their role in modulating the immune system, and as histone deacetylase inhibitors. Here are a few reviews to get you started:
Additionally, I should note that blue zone diets are all high in fermentable carbohydrates, and increased concentrations of short chain fatty acids have been observed in the stool of centenarian populations:
I got a Soylent subscription and it's pretty good to have it around for those times when you really don't want to spend any time preparing food and want something moderately nutritious and fairly inexpensive, with near-infinite shelf life.
A bit off-topic, but food related: visited the US a month ago and noticed that almost _everything_ contains corn syrup. What's the deal with that? How come most things (even a plain pot of honey) gets it mixed with the rest of the ingredients? Is it because of cost saving for the manufacturers, or are there some health benefits from consuming corn syrup?
Please ignore if this comment is too offtopic for this thread.
The US produces a lot of corn, so it is cheap. And corn syrup is a sugar-substitute, so including it in everything makes things taste more addictive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food)
One important fact to add is that corn is the #1 subsidized commodity in the US, so it’s artifically inflated to being over produced. The subsidies are like 2:1 to the next most subsidized commodity.
I thought most of the corn is used for Ethanol fuel and corn for anything else would be expensive. Why sell it to someone for corn syrup when you can sell it to someone to make engine fuel?
Only about 40% is used for ethanol and that's a very recent (as in this past decade) change.
The argument you make though explains why we aren't using algae to produce biofuel. Far more valuable for other purposes as called out in this Forbes post[0]. Here's a choice quote:
> An acre of algae can produce almost 5,000 gallons of biodiesel. It does not compete with food crops for arable land or potable water and could produce over 60 billion gallons/yr that would replace all petroleum-based diesel in the U.S.
Cost savings. Corn subsidies have dropped the real cost of corn so much that it’s cheaper to use it for almost anything. HFCS (and corn syrup in general) is more harmful health wise than normal sugars and one of the leading causes of obesity in the US.
One of thousands of sources on the health impacts:
I wouldn't say HFCS is more harmful than regular sugar, it is chemically about the same (at least the kind of HFCS used in most foods and sugary beverages). Both are equally bad. When we talk about the leading causes of obesity in the US, we shouldn't differentiate HFCS from sugar, because that just gives food manufacturers an easy out: they can add labels saying "No High Fructose Corn Syrup!" and use sugar instead, rendering the product equally toxic but making it look healthier. They're already doing this, which is why most people understand that HFCS is a problem but are ok with regular sugar.
> I wouldn't say HFCS is more harmful than regular sugar, it is chemically about the same
A quick Google search will disprove that commonly held myth. Sugar is bad, but HFCS is worse. Scientists didn't bother researching it for years, but once they did, they learned that despite obvious similarities chemically, the body processes it differently.
Ususally about 300g + 100g, then sometimes some granola (oats, almonds, sometimes honey), for body.
Soylent is:
* 37g carb
* 21g fats
* 20g protein
What I'm eating is much healthier by my estimation:
* 16g carb
* 49g fats
* 35g protein
(Before granola, which you can use to moderate the carbs if you want.)
It is not hard to mix two things together, sometimes three. If you really want to custom flavor it, buy a jam (I suggest Mymoune rose petal jam, from Lebanon, but there are millions of flavors when you pick your own jam!)
What is so good about soylent? Why not just mix skyr and heavy cream if that's the kind of meal you want?
Why eat a strange synthetic meal from a company that has trouble with rats and mold when you could eat a couple simple whole foods? What problem is Soylent solving, exactly?
And aren't you worried about the unfavorable omega 3:6 ratio in this stuff? Just going off the ingredients they list, I can't find any literature they give on the ratio. (If you're not up to speed, the latest: http://openheart.bmj.com/content/openhrt/3/2/e000385.full.pd... )
(Diet Note: I'm 5'10 and 146 lbs male, 12-13% body fat. In my diet I aim for ~60-70% calories from fat, but don't always hit it.)
> Why not just mix skyr and heavy cream if that's the kind of meal you want?
Requires refrigeration, not shelf stable, contains lactose, which not everyone can tolerate, contains cholesterol, less convenient than bottles, not vegan, for those who it matters to, and more expensive than the equivalent amount of Soylent to top it all off. And that's without even trying particularly hard to think of reasons.
And, for the record, I don't even drink Soylent anymore.
That's the best counterargument you have? "Scary" chemical names? I mean, ... really?
I quite assure you that if I listed all of the compounds of "Pasteurized Whole Milk, Pasteurized Cream, Live Active Cultures, Cream" using standard chemistry nomenclature, the list would look far more intimidating to the average layperson.
Isn't it? You're the one bandying about phrases like "...strange synthetic meal..." and touting the ingredient lists of one meal over another.
As for bad omega 3:6 ratio, that's easily solved by eating something else that contains omega-3. Nobody says that Soylent is the only thing a person is permitted to eat.
> Nobody says that Soylent is the only thing a person is permitted to eat.
It has been marketed as a sole source of nutrition, and every conversation about Soylent on HN has people claiming it can be used as a sole source of nutrition.
To be fair to Soylent, many of the ingredients listed are simply vitamin and mineral sources. They have scary-sounding names, but are not scary things.
I'm not convinced your alternative is actually more healthful, nor do I believe it contains the vitamins or minerals you'd need for it to act as a reasonable meal replacement. From a macro perspective at least, I don't see anything particularly wrong with Soylent's product.
> I didn't know anyone was afraid of dietary cholesterol in 2017.
You didn't know, or you don't think they should be? The jury is still out on dietary cholesterol, and there are plenty of people, some on this very forum, who consider it a health hazard.
I'm aware of recent research suggesting it isn't all that bad, but there's no telling if that's going to be reversed as well in a couple of years.
The truth here is actually a bit more nuanced. Dietary cholesterol isn't universally bad/ok. Some people have defective cholesterol metabolism, and dietary cholesterol can cause them issues. Most people have a cholesterol metabolism that achieves homeostasis even in the presence of dietary cholesterol. As a result, you can create a study where dietary cholesterol looks bad/good just by tweaking your study population.
For reference, dietary cholesterol is most often a problem for people of certain African, south Asian, Mesoamerican and Mediterranean populations that historically consumed limited animal products, or low fat animal products such as warm-water fish. People of central/northern European/Asian descent are typically fine.
Why did you write that comment instead of doing 20 pushups and burpees? Granola isn't that great for you either, why not just eat raw oats? Best to mix it with water so that you can hopefully ween off your dairy addiction.
-- Just seems like empty one-upmanship on the internet.
I suspect that long-term acolytes of Soylent are victims of marketing, rather than having made rational nutritional choices. Their product does seem to be targeted toward a particular psychological niche.
Soylent replaces pb&js, dominos and eating out. Continuing to attempt to overcome my inability to care enough to sink more time into nutrition is the irrational choice. A moving to a product with both a superior nutrition and effort profile seems pretty rational to me.
Few of my co-workers went partially or fully on it, and they all look less healthy. But that's just a small random sample. Idk, who am I to tell them what to eat and that they actually need way more finer to dodge potential colon cancer/other nasty stuff.
There's more to good nutrition than just the ratios of carbs/fats/protein - you also have to think about getting the right amounts of each micronutrient. Once you do, it becomes a lot harder to get a good balance than just mixing 2 or 3 ingredients.
This is because Soylent is making up for deficiencies in its ingredients. They need to add Vitamin D, calcium, and vitamin a palmitate, for instance, because there is no Vitamin A or D or calcium in the canola oil and sunflower oil. These nutrients are already abundantly present in Skyr and cream.
I wonder if the bioavailability is even good in Soylent. I know some of these nutrients are much more bioavailable in animal sources than plant sources (though I can't recall which), so the vegan-friendly label on Soylent is a mark against it, if health is your goal.
Just looking through the nutrition info in the links you gave, there's zero iron and vitamin C in Skyr and cream. Yes you can get those nutrients from other sources, but it's a lot harder than just mixing two ingredients into a drink.
If you're truly interested in objectively comparing your breakfast's nutritional profile, you can punch in your recipe on http://completefoods.co/. And if you disagree with the nutritional profile, you can customize that too. Please share it!
Maybe when it comes back to Canada they can do something about their ridiculous Canadian pricing system where the same product for a Canadian shipment is charged more in USD than a US shipment. 'Free Shipping' though (-__-)
I always hated Soylent. Their bold and false marketing (things like "We solved nutrition.", "Complete nutrition no matter which flavor you choose."). If it was me, I would ban them everywhere, not just Canada, because of that false advertising.
It is one thing, making a drink and selling it, and another marketing it like that. It was very painful from the start listening how 2 guys with no background SOLVED NUTRITION.
And their choice of ingredients is bad in my opinion. Main ones are soy and sunflower oil. Really, find me at least one balanced nutritionist who would recommend sunflower oil in large quantities (hint : omega 3:6:9). Soy has it`s problems too. Then they mix some vitamins and minerals in, but you skip on all of the micronutrients and anything else from real food that is not in Soylent. Also very low fiber. Then your digestion will have problems too eating liquid only for long term. Etc, etc.
If you need occasional meal replacement, there are dozens of well-established companies which make one, with much better quality and price in both liquid or powder form.
> If you need occasional meal replacement, there are dozens of well-established companies which make one, with much better quality and price in both liquid or powder form.
Can you name one? In all of these threads, the Soylent boosters assert that there aren't any competitors that come near being a genuine meal replacement that aren't much more expensive. I haven't seen any Soylent detractors name a specific product that's better yet.
They aren't out to fix all the health problems associated with what people do and don't eat, or about any lack of food. The "solve nutrition" stuff is more about solving the "what shall I eat today" question. It's about providing a product to lazy people. They throw some science in because they know that sells to their target market, which isn't everyone. Like most other fad foods the real product is the marketing hype. This news will help. It positions them as another cutting edge company being trampled upon by notoriously evil Canadian food regulators interested only in protecting their vast maple sugar monopolies.
> They aren't out to fix all the health problems associated with what people do and don't eat
That's not how the crowd funding went - it was a product suitable for everyone, that would put you in perfect health.
The Canadians are saying Soylent can't be sold as a sole source of nutrition - how is this useful to Soylent? Every soylent thread has people saying the differentiating factor for Soylent is that it can be used as a sole source of nutrition.
You can still use services like http://shipito.com to forward it to you in Canada. I'm using this to get Soylent to Europe and it works really well (it adds ~$3 per bottle for air freight, but we don't have any good replacement here yet).
The post is vague enough about the specific regulations it's supposed to have broken. This doesn't make the Canadian government's regulations look overly stringent, it instead makes Soylent look like they're trying to not scare off their customers, at best.
To me, not addressing the specific regs they are afoul of is a huge lie of omission. Especially considering they are trying to cast those regulations as "outdated". If they are outdated, then put it out there. I'm sure the geeks who no doubt make up the lion's share of their customer base will be able to vet the regulations vs. reality.
Well here's an example - I'm having jaw surgery tomorrow and will be on a liquid diet for a week. I stocked my fridge up with Soylent so that I'd have something decent-tasting and relatively nutritious to drink while I'm feeling like garbage.
I also will make shakes, but sometimes soylent is just easier.
Why not buy a commercially made meal replacement product that has been on the market for decades and is endorsed by nursing and medical professions and is used in hospitals?
Its not like no one had ever done meal-replacement foods before Soylent came along. Its not new, its not cheaper, its not as well regulated, its not as flavorful.
Seriously, why would you buy Soylent (which has had numerous beta 'failures') over a something like Ensure/
Everyone is all about trusting science and medical professionals right up until it comes to dietitians... Then suddenly random bloggers and cherry picked studies come flying out of the wood work, much like the anti-vaccine crowd.
And I say this with the belief that Americans eat too many carbs, and a higher fat/lower carb diet would be better for people. I just don’t understand this disconnect.
> Everyone is all about trusting science and medical professionals
To counter this, I'v been reading a lot lately about how science has a publish-or-perish problem / unreproducible results problem / influence by industry problem.
And the medical profession / pharmaceutical industry is complicit in the opium epidemic. Many of the medical drugs, doctors use, outside of infectious disease control, don't actually work in the sense that you take them for a period of time and are cured.
It is the fault of government department dietitians, and their political overlords, that we are in this obesity / diabetes / heart disease mess.
Given the traditional dietary advice of "eat less fat, start your day will a bowl full of sugar and milk" is wrong, is it any wonder people are making so much noise?
> And the medical profession / pharmaceutical industry is complicit in the opium epidemic.
You're painting with a very broad brush here. Many pharmaceutical companies product no opiates at all. Furthermore, most doctors won't prescribe them at all, especially after the DEA crackdown. Even if you get seriously hurt, you might have a tough time finding a pain management specialist, unless you live in one of a handful of geographic locations.
> don't actually work in the sense that you take them for a period of time and are cured.
That's kind of a ridiculous standard. For example, take HIV, antiretroviral medications don't cure AIDS, but if you take them, you'll die of old age or heart disease instead of AIDS, and you live an extra 20-30 years. That's pretty incredible. Or look at medication for seizures, they don't cure the heretofore unknown cause of seizures, but do prevent them nonetheless. Would you rather take meds and have no seizures or avoid a medication that doesn't actually cure you and die because you fell down the stairs during a seizure?
> Given the traditional dietary advice of "eat less fat, start your day will a bowl full of sugar and milk" is wrong
It's also not traditional dietary advice; at least living in the US my whole life, I've only seen it as “advice” in advertisements from people selling the sugary products in question.
Yes, that's a fair point. I admit I misrepresented the facts.
Here's what the Dietitians Association of Australia[1] recommends:
- A bowl of whole grain cereal with milk, a dollop of yoghurt and sliced fresh fruit. Try adding a sprinkle of nuts for extra crunch!
- A delicious smoothie made from milk, fresh fruit and yoghurt
- A toasted slice of sourdough with some cheese, baked beans or avocado
- Untoasted muesli or rolled oats
- Poached eggs on whole grain toast with tomato, mushrooms or spinach
That seams reasonable to me, except maybe that every one of the recommendations includes grains. Although I don't see why breakfast can't be 100 grams of slow cooked / steamed meat with a bowl of steamed vegetables / a salad.
Nutrition science has an ugly history of wrongness and capture by industry. I am also extremely wary of psychology, which puttered along doing bad work for decades before the current replication crisis. We could all have a foodfight about Economics for fifty years.
There is a bunch of foundational stuff in science that is great, but like any human endeavour, there is also plenty of garbage and nonsense.
Ensure is extremely sweet. Living off Ensure, you'd either have to get the zero carb version, or you'll have 2x the sugars of Soylent. It's also just disgusting to drink more than 3 of something so sugary before needing something else. The original Soylent flavor I can have for weeks before feeling like I need a change.
If a cheaper competitor emerges that doesn't taste like a milk shake, I'd switch to that. But so far no one has offered a reasonable alternative.
> I'm having problems understanding why would anyone want to consume something like that.
Nothing of what Soylent Green does is new, companies like Fresenius, Nestle, Abbot and whatnot have been manufacturing balanced liquid nutrition for medical needs for decades.
I'm far more surprised these established players in the enteral nutrition market haven't started their own push for something like this, trying to sell their medical products as convenience lifestyle products. I guess they wouldn't want to cannibalize their own profits from the medical sales by offering a more affordable non-medical lifestyle alternative.
As somebody who works with this kind of stuff, parenteral and enteral nutrition, I think there's a real market here. But I'd vastly prefer offerings from established companies, rather than some random guys buying bulk ingredients on Amazon and mixing them up in moldy warehouses.
Do you have any examples of products that are meant to be a meal replacement, and that contain all necessary nutrients?
> random guys buying bulk ingredients on Amazon and mixing them up in moldy warehouses
Is this based on something, because I highly doubt they are sourcing ingredients from amazon, this is needlessly inflammatory. And moldy warehouses, do you really have so little to say about Soylent you have to make things up?
Soylent has had multiple, well publicized problems with mold and at least one instance of journalists finding rats running around the factory floor.
https://www.google.com/search?q=soylent+moldy
There was one journalist that found rats in the kitchen, during the beta phase of soylent. Presumably when they hit production they used standard manufacturing techniques.
The mold is unfortunate, but only with Soylent 2.0, the pre-made bottles. As soon as they found out they issued a recall, like any responsible company.
> Do you have any examples of products that are meant to be a meal replacement, and that contain all necessary nutrients?
The tube feeds [0] are pretty much exactly that. Those Fresenius ones are not flavored but other manufacturers, like HiPP/Abbot, even have flavored tube feed, as some tube patients like having the flavor come up when they have to burp.
A step closer are the "nutritional supplements", which is a weird name for it in German we call it "Trinknahrung" which literally translates to "liquid nutrition".
These are usually flavored and come in a variety of forms, like powder or even puddings.
I've "eaten" the stuff sometimes for diet or after tooth operations, it's pretty okayish when cold, like a milkshake. The biggest issue is that you have to be really careful about how fast you drink it until your digestive system adapted to the high-calorie contents, as drinking too much too fast will also make it come out too fast, so to speak.
Pharmacies, Amazon, even eBay.
Afaik Fresubin 2Kcal DRINK is the highest calorie Trinknahrung from Fresenius. Amazon.com doesn't offer that many, what's there is quite expensive [0]. Never realized this stuff is so rare outside Germany, until now.
In contrast, Amazon.de has a wide selection of different high caloric Trinknahrung, the Fresenius stuff even has Prime delivery [1].
It looks like you are not meant to live off of Fresubin. Just 2 bottles, or 800 calories is certainly not enough.
> 2 x 200ml bottles per day will provide 40g protein, 800kcal and meets the average adult recommended daily requirements for vitamins and trace-elements# (DOH 1991).
You would need to drink 5 bottles to meet average calorie requirements. I don't know if there are health risks to consuming 2.5x above the daily requirements, but it was clearly not designed to be a total meal replacement.
> It looks like you are not meant to live off of Fresubin. Just 2 bottles, or 800 calories is certainly not enough.
The DRINK bottles are designed as a supplement to the tube feed, but it's all pretty much the same stuff with the main difference being that DRINK is flavored for oral consumption.
> I don't know if there are health risks to consuming 2.5x above the daily requirements, but it was clearly not designed to be a total meal replacement.
There ain't and it is.
How do you think people with jaw/throat issues keep on eating? Larynx cancer is very common, just like many other cancer types directly affecting the mechanical ability to chew/swallow.
I've patients living only on that stuff for over 10 years, still living.
Tbh I'm kinda surprised how skeptical you seem of something which has seen decades-long successful medical application [0] and has its roots in NASA research for astronaut nutrition, which rates among the most solid food-science we have.
Fresubin 2Kcal DRINK isn't the only variety, Fresenius has literally dozens of other varieties for the sole purpose of adapting the diet to the patient from low caloric, to fibre, to diabetic, pretty much all the manufacturers do because peoples nutritional needs are individual.
And that's just enteral, going parenteral you can get all your food/water/nutrients from 1-2 infusions per day. Tho the port [1] used for such applications is still a pretty big infection risk.
I thought it was a bit sketchy you linked to an article about an article, instead of the directly linking to the article itself.
> A few of the packets were infested with mold, but that didn't bother me; I was a beta tester after all, and the packaging hadn't been finalized yet. It'd gotten punctured en route somehow, and moisture had got in—which did highlight its vulnerability to mold, an important point given that Rob touts its non-spoiling benefits as a solution to sending nutritious food to far-flung places.
So, while they were developing their product, in beta stage a few packets got moldy? That's what beta is for! Finding these issues, then resolving them.
Kinda funny reading the original article clears all this up, unlike the propaganda piece you posted.
One, real convenience: a bottle in the fridge versus choosing, ordering, waiting, tipping. Two, takeaway WHAT? The common carry-out foods are not models of balanced nutrition. Often people who talk about Soylent say it saves them from a frequent round of pizza, hot wings, pre-made sandwiches, burger'n'fries.
Are you the type of being that thinks food is too complicated and time-consuming to deal with, and would rather crush a couple of caffeine pills into a bland nutrient slurry, to be poured into your intake port a few times a day? If not, then this is probably not for you.
I have various sensory disorders, so being able to drink a glass of chocolate milk when I couldn’t otherwise eat normal food has been a godsend for not randomly missing meals as often. It’s not a substitute for social food, but if/when you eat alone, it’s certainly a viable choice.
(I can’t drink most diet and protein shakes because they’re so aggressively sweetened that they set off the sensory issues.)
FWIW if you were trying it when they were putting algal products in (1.6? 1.7?) I had similar issues, but they weren't there before the algal stuff, and went away when the algal products were removed.
I've always thought of it as a minimally perishable thing you could toss in your go-bag, to pull out when no time for a real meal -- saves you money when the alternative would otherwise be expensive restaurant food
They are popular amongst people that don’t know of other options. Meal replacements have been around since forever. Every grocery store out there carries Slimfast, for example. Abbott and Labrada Labs, amongst many others, also make them.
IMO Soylent tastes gross, too. Kind of like soggy cereal.
Slimfast (and many of the alternatives) are diet tools, I drink Soylent for the opposite reason, so I get calories.
As someone that doesn't really take pleasure in eating on my own, cooking, cleaning, and even eating is a chore that I'll skip if I'm busy or stressed.
Soylent lets me easily grab something that won't have too strong of a taste and isn't as bad for me as skipping a meal, or eating half a bag of goldfish.
There are “mass gainers” (basically diet drinks with more carbs and protein) that accomplish the same thing and are more cost efficient if you’re looking for alternatives. Lean Body is one.
I did a detailed comparison of Soylent and its clones to Ensure here[0].
There are striking differences in the macronutrient ratios and in the prices. Soylent (Huel, etc) are much closer to the USDA recommended macro ratios, and have much less sugar. Only Ensure Original is less expensive than Soylent, all the other Ensure products (there are several) are much more expensive per calorie.
> Soylent (Huel, etc) are much closer to the USDA recommended macro ratios
No, by your numbers, Ensure (pretty much all of the various versions) are closer than any others the center of the USDA ranges.
> Only Ensure Original is less expensive than Soylent
Your own analysis shows all of the Ensure products except High Protein as less expensive than Soylent 2.0, and only Ensure Plus (not Original) is cheaper than Soylent 1.8.
Pretty much. If Soylent were marketed as a sometimes meal replacement for when you’re too busy to eat a proper meal as an alternative to grabbing fast food or a bag of potato chips it would be utterly unobjectionable. Instead it plays like a parody of all things SV.
Frankly, I've always wondered why in the hell they'd name it after Soylent Green. Sometimes it seems like we've arrived at maximum saturation of irony in North America.
Huel (another powdered food) is running into this. They just started shipping to the US, but are delayed with Canada because they say the regulations there are "much more stringent." Canada outright banned rBGH.
Pure nanny state behavior, this is people in power wanting to control what their subjects are allowed to do because they think they know best. Smaller government can't come soon enough.
Regulation of food products to some degree is critical to help prevent contamination and illness. In this case, Canada's regulations appear to be simply outdated and, perhaps, overly draconian.
I understand the need for regulations, especially in food and drugs, but when it comes to things like regulating the amount of fat/sugar/fiber I can't think of any reason other than an attitude of 'mommy knows best'.
I'm usually the first to blast excess regulation, but note that this is only a labeling issue — the CFIA is not telling you what you cannot eat, but what a product can be described as. I can understand the appeal of a government mandating that a product for sale in that country, that is labeled as a 'meal replacement', have some reasonable distribution of macronutrients. The goal is to reasonably ensure that someone would not consume meal replacements that grossly lack nutrition a person actually needs to live.
The issue as I see it is that the definition of what would be considered reasonable today is not in line with the CFIA's. I don't see the intent of the regulations as unsound.
This is specific regulation related to food/meal replacements which are historically closer to medicine than food. I am not saying they are great, but all Solent needs to do is change their marketing not their product.
Also, I suspect these regulations have more backing than what you are assuming. They may not be correct, but they are good enough for people survive indefinitely on which is a solid track record.
PS: Used soylent for months 1.x and 2.0, swapped to Meal squares.
This seems to be a issue with health/food regulating government agencies all around the world. Here in Sweden the National Food Administration is constantly criticized for outdated dietary advice and are often accused to be influenced by food industry giants.
Also, I can go into any grocery store and buy all kinds of snacks, candy and soda which really are 100% garbage "food", so I'm not sure why anyone would think that regulating the percentage of fat would matter in term of health.
Spit it out - which one did Soylent fail?