An FAQ for common objections to Soylent.
Reference: Nutritional details PDF
Table of Contents
- How is this different from other meal-replacement shakes?
- How does it taste?
- Soylent contains too much fat
- Soylent contains not enough protein
TL;DR — Other meal replacement shakes are not as nutritionally complete as Soylent and is not intended to replace food completely.
"Soylent is not the first drink with calories in it, nor was Google the first search engine. The goal of soylent is to make something ideal [for the whole day, or week], not just a quick shot that will get rid of hunger for a few hours." - Rob Rhinehart (founder of Soylent)
There is a resource intensive answer to this question on the Reddit Soylent FAQ.
I highly recommend digging into that link, but to save you time, most meal-replacement shakes (e.g. Ensure):
- have none or not enough:
- fibre
- potassium
- fat (saturated and unsaturated)
- calories per bottle (need to drink multiple bottles for a Soylent equivalent)
- have too much:
- corn syrup/fructose/added sugars
- vitamins (in excess is not necessarily a good thing)
- contains dairy products (Soylent is technically vegan)
- uses corn starch
- does not satiate your hunger as well as Soylent
- does not taste very neutral (many have very strong flavours)
- does not attempt to completely replace physical food, only as a supplement
There are also fundamental philosophical differences when comparing Soylent to most of the other available meal-replacement shakes. According to the founder Rob Rhinehart:
The goal of soylent is to make something ideal, not just a quick shot that will get rid of hunger for a few hours. I need something that allows me to run and lift and think, not just survive, and something considerably cheaper than normal food.
Many of the existing products on the market seek to facilitate special diets, while Soylent is aimed at maximizing productivity and focus.
TL;DR — Sweet tasting, similar to cake batter, but still very neutral so you don't feel overwhelmed.
Soylent has a very neutral taste when compared to other products in its category. The purpose of this is to make it easy to ingest, but also to allow customization. There is a community of people with recipes for baking Soylent cookies and using Soylent in other types of physical foods.
Soylent was designed so that you can add in your own flavours. This means that it needs to taste rather neutral. No one complains that water is no good because it tastes too neutral; Soylent aims to fill a similar category.
With that being said, Soylent on its own tastes great to many people. Some have mentioned that it tastes like cake batter, but not necessarily as sweet.
Another reason why Soylent tastes rather neutral is because it was designed such that you could drink five bottles of Soylent a day and not feel overwhelmed by or become sick of its taste.
TL;DR — Fat is not inherently bad, even for weight loss (some high fat diets show good weight loss results). Some fats are healthier than others, Soylent optimizes for the healthiest fat distribution possible.
From this reddit comment:
"Fats (lipids) do not make you gain fat (adipose tissue) unless it pushes your calorie intake over your daily limit.
On a side note, high fat low carb diets are extremely effective at weight loss, as it regulates insulin response which in turn helps most people eat less. It also helps rid the body of excess water weight, as over consumption of carbs leads to large amounts of glycogen reserves (and glycogen is glucose bonded with water)."
Fat is not inherently bad for you. There are also different kinds of fat, such as saturated fats and unsaturated fats.
Over-consumption of saturated fats is correlated with a higher risk of heart disease, but a causal relationship is currently being challenged. Nevertheless, saturated fat is necessary for calcium absorption in the human body, and given that each bottle of Soylent contains only 10% of the daily recommended intake, its saturated fat content is technically too low.
The vast majority of the fat content in Soylent is from unsaturated fats like Omega-3, Omega-6, and monounsaturated fats. These are derived from plant oils and should not be associated with "bad" fats from burgers and other "junk" foods.
In summary, the fat content in Soylent can actually help you lose weight since they are fats made from plant oil and will aid in health, satiety, and the slow-release of energy.
For more information on Soylent's fat content, see their official FAQ page on the topic here.
TL;DR — A bottle of Soylent is designed to replace one-fifth of your daily intake. At 20g of protein per bottle, it is comparable to a protein shake.
A typical protein shake contains between 20g-25g of protein. Soylent contains 20g of isolated protein in just one bottle. Since one bottle of Soylent is supposed to replace 20% of your daily intake, this is actually much higher than most foods and other meal-replacement methods.
For more information on Soylent's protein content, see their official FAQ page on the topic here.