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Soylent Coffee: Nootropics, Fat, Carbs, Protein -- But Will It Give You The Toots? (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Ars Technica: Soylent has ventured in a new direction with its latest beverage: breakfast. Called Coffiest, the new offering has the same ingredient makeup, nutritional mix, and 47/33/20 percent fat/carb/protein calorie distribution as the 2.0 premixed version, but it also adds coffee flavoring, 150mg of caffeine per serving, and 75mg of the nootropic L-Theanine. According to Soylent founder Rob Rhinehart, a bottle of Coffiest supplies the drinker with about 400 kilocalories and about 20 percent of the daily recommended values for "all essential vitamins and minerals." "A lot of people are skipping breakfast," Rhinehart told Ars in a phone interview. "We wanted to provide a convenient and also really tasty option for them to enjoy in the morning." Additionally, the company will also be releasing a nutrition bar, called the Soylent Bar. This one will deliver 250 kilocalories per bar, and has a macronutrient breakdown of 38/43/19 percent fat/carb/protein. "Coffee flavor is extremely complex," Rhinehart told Ars. "The direction I gave was a little bit of a more darker, richer roast it's a little darker coffee. A little bit of cocoa powder, just a barely perceptible amount, but it rounds out the flavor nicely." "It was a huge challenge to develop a coffee flavor that would survive processing," he continued. "You can't take any risks with health or safety, so we have to eliminate any sources of contamination from the product and that involves heat. So we had some great food scientists and flavor scientists work out a flavor system that combines natural coffee extracts with an artificial flavor system. And it turned out pretty great." As for the toots, neither Coffiest nor the Soylent Bar will cause consumers to erupt with "horse-killing farts," a complaint made by many of Soylent's customers as well as Ars Technica writer Lee Hutchinson. For those interested in Soylent's latest concoction, Coffiest is available for purchase today at the Soylent site for about $40 for a pack of 12 servings (or $37.05 with a recurring subscription). The Soylent Bar will launch later for about $2 per bar. You can view Coffiest's nutrition facts here.
The obvious SF reference: is it green?
I guess he came up with Coffiest, a hilarious product in a hilariously dark novel...
I won't buy Soylent's products because of the tiny, tiny chance that the company is run by psychopaths who thought "I've got a cool idea - let's make food products out of rendered fat from cadavers ... and just for the icing on the cake, we'll call it 'Soylent' - because it would be a hip joke and no one would ever believe we'd *really* do it."
This sounds interesting, but what about the growing number of people are allergic to Soy? They sure could not consume this.
It's my migraine trigger and that sucks!
Wasn't his original thing on soylent that he didn't care about taste and had no interest in food? Why is "getting the flavor right" now suddenly important. Surely the whole point of his venture is perverted by making something taste like coffee rather than fish oil and whatever the hell else goes into it.
No thanks. I'm an old programmer. Three cups of coffee and a cigarette are all the breakfast I need !
"horse-killing farts" is a rather loose standard. I'm thinking "cubicle clearing fart" would be more useful.
Farts? As reported by Arse Technica writer Lee Hutchinson...
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
But we are inside The Matrix, we deserve well cooked beef piece...!
I dont mind meal replacements. there are several used institutionally and in hospitals that never get this much publicity but have been around for years. My biggest concern however is our growing dependence upon multinational and branded consumer food companies to provide replacements for basic food staples. most americans already rely implicitly on betty crocker and stouffers to fill in the blanks of their culinary Repertoire. For the past 20 years most thanksgivings in america have been an olympic feast of multibillion dollar corporate sponsored brands of pre-cooked, processed foods that emerge at the supermarket shelf unaccountably and ubiquitously.
Will the soylent generation know how to steam rice, or properly cook poultry? could they prepare porridge or vegetables, or even remember how to cook dry beans? Does soylent foster an even greater social divide in the 21st century by short-circuiting the social past-time of cooking and eating together? how will this generation cope when there is no soylent?
Good people go to bed earlier.
With using some memory tech at 50 picojoule per written bit, how much is that in Libraries of Congress?
Seriously, why the heck would you ever bother with this?
Nutrition is partly about Macro nutrients and A LOT about micro nutrients. This shit has virtually no micro nutrients. You can survive on bread and water only as well but it's not healthy.
The elephant in the room is the source of protein, soy. Soy LOWERS your testosterone levels. It directly impacts testosterone in men why the fuck would a man want to consume this shit?
Here's a fast healthy breakfast; whole grain bread, sunny-side up egg, slice of tomato on top. Done.
The egg has a certain integrity as is, meaning it will not mix with oil. If you scramble it or make it into an omelette it will absorb the cooking oil.
Whole grain bread is healthier, the less processed the better. (Processed whole grain is often powdered which defeats the point.)
Tomato, it has...but the point is micro nutrients.Veg, fruit, fresh meat etc have micronutrients.
Every food product you see about promoting health says what? "As part of a healthy lifestyle and balanced diet" because the product you see in the ad is not what makes you healthy it's a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle that does it. Not fucking Soylent.
Now commit to exercising today and never think about eating powdered liquid again. -wanna lose wait? EAT LESS CALORIES THAN YOU EXPEND.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
No need to be nasty about it.
Love sees no species.
As a once in a blue moon thing to eat/drink, these Soylent products are alright. However, I drink a cup of coffee every day. I shudder to think what the estrogenic effects of consuming vast amounts of soy protein daily are. Not to mention the other terrible ingredients listed in there. Maltodextrin is a simple sugar. Why not use a sugar like turbinado?
You'd be better off getting a casein/whey protein shake and mixing it with fruit, some nut butter (hehe), and some fibrous substance like psyllium as a meal replacement drink. Sure it's not vegan or lactose tolerant, but who really cares what vegans feel.
I'll pass on this.
I mean really, we aren't that far off from it when we start eating this kind of heavily processed food. Why not just mix this stuff into solids and throw it in a bag and eat it out of a bowl?
It is not that hard to cook simple meals. Heck, cook up a big pot of something on one day, and eat leftovers if you are short on time. At least you know what is in it, and it is going to be much, much cheaper. I just cooked up a big pot of Himalayan bahl dat (lentils) and some spiced rice last night and I would be surprised if it took me 15 minutes of effort. I now have a healthy breakfast (this is actually what the Himalayans eat) for the week that costs me about 3 dollars. Throw a piece of chicken on the grill. How long does that take?
I am really surprised this kind of over processed food is even slightly popular in this day and age.
As Paul Erdos said: "A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems".
I wonder what would come out after drinking Coffiest...
and then cigarettes that make me drink more Coffiest which in turn makes me drink more Popsi and the Cycle of Consumption completes (doesn't anyone get the reference? am I just too old?)
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Gotta love them using the name Coffiest. It's a name from a Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth science fiction book that lampooned marketing and consumers, "The Space Merchants". Here's a quote... "...here's what makes this campaign great in my estimation - each sample of Coffiest contains three milligrams of a simple alkaloid. Nothing harmful. But definitely habit-forming. After ten weeks the customer is hooked for life. It would cost him at least five thousand dollars for a cure, so it's simpler for him to go right on drinking Coffiest - three cups with every meal and a pot beside his bed at night, just as it says on the jar."
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
Soylent, bringing specious scientific claims to nerds, because over-priced nutritional supplements aren't just for ignorant mouth-breathers anymore!
Buy your own protein powder and caffeine. Add some l-theanine if you want, whatever.
The last group of people who had food powder marketed to them so they could be more efficient for their overlords was housewives in the 1950s, and you don't have to be a feminist to see how fucking terrible their lives were.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Just the thing to wash down my Soylent Green.
Thanks, jackass.
Just another day in Paradise
I understand that this has proteins and is somewhat balanced but really, adult humans shouldn't be drinking ANY digestible carbs. Carbs should come from solid food, preferably in complex form.
Digestible carbs from liquids are handled differently in the body than they are in solid form, they are more readily available for breakdown and digestion. The occasional fruit juice or milk isn't going to kill you, but make a habit of drinking carbs every day (such as this breakfast drink) and you could be harming your kidneys.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
This sounds like a gut-bomb.
Make a product and sell it for 10 times the cost of the ingredients. Sell to people who don't know how to spend money carefully.
I prefer food. I'm not a meat-and-potatoes man, mind you, but I'd definitely take a rare steak, baked potato and cup of freshly-ground Columbian Supremo over this. Or tea if there were compelling data that theanine was really all that useful. A salmon steak and a cup of tea is actually a typical lunch for me.
The words "proprietary blend" smack of branding. The advantage is bound to be the placebo effect, for which they hope to charge me a premium. If there is empirical evidence you can point to on Google Scholar or PubMed that a particular mix of nutrients is special. then I'll blend it myself and save the branding premium.
If you're going to try to hack your brain, be a hacker, not a consumer.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Did I miss something there ? Have they changed what a calorie is ? Last I checked the recommended daily intake of calories was 1800 or so. 400 kilocalories would be well over 200 day's worth.
Their “coffee” is only using half the recommended L-theanine to caffeine ratio for increasing focus without causing jitters. At such a low L-theanine dose it seems like it’s just thrown so they can hit the “nootropics” marketing checkbox, and makes me question their other claims of meeting daily values for “all essential vitamins and minerals”.
I wonder where he used to shop as in civilized countries there should be no rotting flesh at all? Sounds like one of the fanatically uninformed vegans, those that claim that meat rots in the intestines...
Are you five years old? Use real words if you want to be taken seriously.
Food "calories" are always kilocalories as the term is used in physics. A calorie was originally defined as the amount of thermal energy required to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsuis; a kilocalorie will raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by the same degree. (The calorie is no longer a primary unit and is now officially defined as 4.184 joules.) Once upon a time food calories were spelled with a capital C (which was also at one time the convention in physics for kilocalories) but that fell by the wayside over the years. American usage normally just calls them calories, but in Europe you see references to kilocalories or kcal.