>The techniques and the wording seem snake oilish.

You know, every time this guy's story has popped up on here I've defended him. I like that he's trying to do something big, I like that he wants to solve a very real world problem, and I like that in his blog posts and updates he phrased all of his results as personal findings needing further study.

However, this:

>>"Soylent is perfectly balanced and optimized for your body and lifestyle, meaning it automatically puts you at an optimal weight, makes you feel full, and improves your focus and cognition"

and

>>puts you in excellent health,

...This I do not like. At all. It's a massive, massive leap to go from "this is something under test," to "this is something that 100% works and will cure [insert list of ailments here]."

It's completely and wholly intellectually dishonest. It's put a sour taste in my mouth over the whole thing. It's gone from personal experiment to fund raiser and company structure in what? Five months? All of the early adopter "testimonials" sound like little more than confirmational bias rearing its head. "Oh, you bought a magnetic bracelet on the internet and you do actually have more energy now that you're wearing it!? Whoa! Amazing that it worked out exactly how you wanted it to!" These testimonials carry the exact same weight.

I feel like there's green in their eyes. Rigor be damned if riches can be had. Also, his ego is now on the line. I'm sure his brain is still being objective about the results.

IF is works, and IF it's safe, and IF the claims can be backed up with ACTUAL DATA, then by god, more power to the guy... but in the mean time, at the very least, can a guy get a trial with some other vanilla flavored sludge acting as a placebo?

Hell, I'll settle for an footnote on the page that says "None of our claims are backed by any form of relevant data."

IT´s definitely very snake oilish - in fact - reading his blog posts - the snake oilish tone has been around for a while "I feel my scars disappearing". That said - I do think its an interesting experiment - and if it gets even a few people of the classic - pizza burgers tacos and beer diet that a lot of America and increasingly many parts of the world currently live on - I see no wrong in it. That was his original goal in the first place - to get him off a cheap unhealthy diet - to a cheap healthier diet. The fact that he´s now trying to market it as the ultimate solution is what´s wrong here.

While this product clearly doesn't meet the risk-reward profile for you (or me), do you not enjoy the idea that a few thousand people are about start an interesting experiment?

One though I had was, if Ben and Jerry are adored for making a product that is delightful but contributes to the obesity epidemic, why can we not also praise people trying to do the opposite?

All of those seem like valid reasons for you to not back the project.

also - I´m not sure about the US - but in many other parts of the world you can eat well for 65$ a week anyways (i mean real food - including maybe a meal or 2 out).

The big flaw with this line of reasoning is that 90% of people are already eating diets that we know, 100% for certain, are worse than soylent. Yes, it could be missing something. You are almost certainly already missing or short on several things. For the vast majority of people, this is going to be a significant improvement.