<story><title>Soylent 2.0</title><url>http://blog.soylent.com/post/125754565787/soylent-20-use-less-do-more</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>feld</author><text>My first thought whenever I see soylent is that we have studies proving that we can&amp;#x27;t replace breast milk with baby formula. Some of that is due to immune system being passed on to the infant, but we haven&amp;#x27;t yet mastered the nutritional content of real food to the point where we can confidently say it&amp;#x27;s safe to eat Soylent or another similar product regularly.&lt;p&gt;It takes me back to the whole issue with processed dog foods -- kibble, while even the most expensive brands claim to be &amp;quot;nutritionally complete&amp;quot;, miss the fact that dogs cannot process&amp;#x2F;absorb the many nutrients within (and why their waste is... more than a nuisance). Eg, calcium added to dog food is nearly worthless, while calcium from eating raw bones is readily absorbed by their bodies. Same with many other vitamins and minerals.&lt;p&gt;We have a lot of work ahead of us in this sector. It&amp;#x27;s good that someone is trying, though.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jcfrei</author><text>What worries me is that soylent is 20% based on soy. Some studies indicate that eating a heavily soy based diet leads to increased estrogen levels. Which can have negative side effects regardless of your gender. [0]: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pmc&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;PMC3074428&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pmc&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;PMC3074428&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; [1]: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sciencedirect.com&amp;#x2F;science&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;pii&amp;#x2F;S0303720711007374&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sciencedirect.com&amp;#x2F;science&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;pii&amp;#x2F;S0303720711...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Soylent 2.0</title><url>http://blog.soylent.com/post/125754565787/soylent-20-use-less-do-more</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>feld</author><text>My first thought whenever I see soylent is that we have studies proving that we can&amp;#x27;t replace breast milk with baby formula. Some of that is due to immune system being passed on to the infant, but we haven&amp;#x27;t yet mastered the nutritional content of real food to the point where we can confidently say it&amp;#x27;s safe to eat Soylent or another similar product regularly.&lt;p&gt;It takes me back to the whole issue with processed dog foods -- kibble, while even the most expensive brands claim to be &amp;quot;nutritionally complete&amp;quot;, miss the fact that dogs cannot process&amp;#x2F;absorb the many nutrients within (and why their waste is... more than a nuisance). Eg, calcium added to dog food is nearly worthless, while calcium from eating raw bones is readily absorbed by their bodies. Same with many other vitamins and minerals.&lt;p&gt;We have a lot of work ahead of us in this sector. It&amp;#x27;s good that someone is trying, though.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Amezarak</author><text>&amp;gt; but we haven&amp;#x27;t yet mastered the nutritional content of real food to the point where we can confidently say it&amp;#x27;s safe to eat Soylent or another similar product regularly.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not aware of any ill effects from consuming meal-replacement shakes like Ensure regularly, and they&amp;#x27;ve been around for quite some time. In some instances people have been sustained on them for fairly long periods.&lt;p&gt;Would I want to consume them exclusively for a long period of time? No, like you, I would start becoming concerned about nutrition. But drinking them &lt;i&gt;regularly&lt;/i&gt; for long periods of time or even exclusively for short periods of time seems like it would be fine. People eat lots of less nutritious foods just as regularly.&lt;p&gt;The real question for me is what is Soylent supposed to offer over older equivalents.</text></comment>