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Soylent Halts Sale of Bars; Investigation Into Illnesses Continues (arstechnica.com)
Beth Mole, reporting for ArsTechnica:Following online reports of customers becoming ill after eating Soylent's new snack bars, the company announced this afternoon that it has decided to halt all sales and shipments of the bars as a precautionary measure
. The company is urging customers to discard remaining bars and will begin e-mailing customers individually regarding refunds. In a blog announcing the decision, the company said it is still investigating the cause of bouts of illnesses of customers linked to the bars, including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. "After hearing from our customers, we immediately began investigating the cause of the issue and whether it was linked to a problem with the Bars," the company said. "So far we have not yet identified one and this issue does not appear to affect our other drinks and powder. Though our investigation into this matter continues, we have decided to err on the side of caution and take this preventative step."
Clever company name can only backfire in cases like this.
Every food company does this now. In fact, most companies that make things you ingest follow the example of Tylenol when dealing with product issues. Nobody wants that bad juju when their business is selling things you put inside your body.
Right up there with Lay's WOW chips and Haribo sugar free gummy bears (read the reviews, they're hilarious and disgusting)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
NGREDIENTS: Soy Protein Isolate, Corn Syrup, Rolled Oat, Canola Oil, Glycerine, Whole Algal Flour, Isomaltooligosaccharide, Isomaltulose, Maltodextrin, Water, Dicalcium Phosphate Anhydrous, Soy Lecithin, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Salt, Tapioca Starch, Sunflower Oil, Dipo- tassium Phosphate, Modified Food Starch, Po- tassium Chloride, Choline Bitartrate, Mixed Tocopherol, Sucralose, Mono & Diglycerides, Magnesium Oxide, Ascorbic Acid, dl-alpha-To- copheryl Acetate, Tricalcium Phosphate Anhy- drous, Ferrous Sulfate, Vitamin A Palmitate, Nia- cinamide, Zinc Oxide, Copper Gluconate, D-Calcium Pantothenate, Manganese Sulfate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Potassium Iodide, Riboflavin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Vitamin D2, Chromium Chloride, Folic Acid, Biotin, Sodium Selenite, Sodium Molybdate, Phytonadione, Vitamin B12. Contains: Soy
hmmm... exactly how much glycerin are they using?
Ingredients ...
are obtained
from genetically
engineered
sources
OH GOD NOES! RUN FOR THE HILLS! SCIENCE!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If I want flavored food, i'll choose to eat something actually good - like cooked by a human who cares about the taste - rather than some prepackaged thing that is optimized for long term storage.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I just had a Soylent Note 7 bar. It was delicious! ... burrrrp ~#^ [NO CARRIER]
Table-ized A.I.
I have some customers in San Jose, and live in Berkeley. Given the horrid traffic and the lack of good trains with little hope that BART's Silicon Valley extension will be done within a decade, I get up at 5AM when it's necessary to work at these customer sites, hit the road by 5:30, and head home around 1 PM.
Obviously, that doesn't leave time for a leisurely breakfast. So, a cold bottle of Soylent 2.0 just out of the 'fridge is about my best option while driving. Warm Soylent doesn't actually seem that much worse, and I've used that during long drives when the alternative would have been fast food.
Yes, I get paid enough to compensate for all of this.
Soylent 2.0 tastes OK, but not so good that you'd eat it just for the taste. It takes care of physical needs and doesn't do anything nasty to my gastrointestinal system. I do not attempt to use it as a total food replacement.
Consuming Soylent, though, leads one to think about how food flavors and other characteristics of food are evolved or engineered to manipulate us, and how this is a dependence or addiction and perhaps the largest cause of health issues in our lives.
Bruce Perens.
I see why you posted this AC.
6'7" (200cm) and 260 lbs (118kg/18.5 stone). I could stand to lose 20 pounds or so. I'm an insulin dependent diabetic and have been for over 25 years. I care about what I eat a lot. Proteins and fats work better than carbs. I do not have time for food preparation most of the time. I travel a lot. I've long ago weaned myself off of 'taste' as a requirement for food - if nothing else, the diabetes enforces that with requirements that I would prefer not to eat. I just have to feed the body. Soylent is a least evil option considering my constraints, allowing precise calorie control to match my insulin dosing without crappy artificial flavors, like just about every other similar product out there. I'd just eat it if I had my way. Keeping things under control is hard with normal food.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
no no no No NO...
"Rosa Labs -- our people are our greatest asset"
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff