When I was single I'd make family portion, eat 1/3, freeze the others. Bread freezes perfectly too. Other than that I shared your frustration of stores - buy a thing for £1, get three of them for £1.30. So choice of hugely overpay or risk waste. Milk prices are especially offensive under half gallon.

I used to live in a country with giant, mean roaches, so I got in the habit of refrigerating everything. Surprised it's not more common to do so w/ bread.

If you sterilize the shells and dip them in mineral oil or cheese wax, they can be kept at room temperature for much longer.

Look into freezing. Way more things than you'd think handle freezing well. Cheese, bread (toast or even just warm it briefly before consuming for maximum tastiness), and milk for example. Not eggs unfortunately (yeah, I tried).

And some things are in between, eg bananas without skins can be frozen and eaten frozen, if you like the taste and texture, but you can't defrost them and get back a banana like you had before you froze it, it'll just be nasty goop.

So, if in doubt, just try freezing it and see what happens.

Also, turning the temperature on your fridge down may extend the life of some things (but will also waste more energy, so experiment to see if it's a good tradeoff)

http://www.thatrecipe.com/blog/2014/03/06/daniel-tiger-banan...

Bread keeps for months if you freeze it immediately after buying it (slice it first if it doesn't come pre-sliced). Then, just pop it into the toaster whenever you want to eat some, and it comes right back to life, not stale-tasting at all. I don't eat food at home that often, but I haven't had to throw away any bread from mold or staleness since I started freezing it.

But also, most cheese mold is a surface only phenomenon. Remove what you can see and continue eating (doesn't apply to soft cheeses)

https://www.amazon.com/Formaticum-Cheese-Storage-Bags-Count/...

There are various other storage techniques for making food last longer which you might try.

Maybe it's because drinking some Soylent isn't an 'activity' like eating a prepared meal is, but rather just something I do while doing something else, so I don't notice it as much (which I think is part of why it's designed to be neutral tasting).

But even putting your feelings aside, the issue with the same meal over and over is that it does not provide your body with what it needs. Soylent solves that: have Soylent and you don't have to worry about varying your meals, or about how much salt, sugar or fat you are eating.

And going back to the feelings side, Soylent feels different. It's supposed to be like that, and that somehow makes it feel much more okay. There are also variants that add flavors (making me worry about sugars again, but not as much as with normal food), for example I usually order a week's worth of food which comes in 5 different flavors (so you have two duplicates). I take about a year to consume them though, it's not like I run on Soylent full-time.

I eat exactly the same breakfast and lunch 5-7 days a week. It's easy, relatively cheap, and the routine keeps me from screwing up my calorie counts.

Dinner has some more variety, but I'd be up for pizza every day if it weren't for the cost and health issues.

Not a totally fair comparison here, since our neighborhood pizza places routinely show up on "best pizza in the US" lists...

Besides, most people's freezers aren't big enough to store an entire grocery shopping's worth of goods.

And for what it's worth, I thaw my meat in the fridge. Just throw it in there and it's taken care of in a safe, hygienic environment. Not really "a process in and of itself."

I never said that.

We buy 1.5 gallons at Costco for the two of us and never had it go bad.

...

Ah, a little googling, and it turns out it's a byproduct of the procedure to remove the lactose, Ultra Pasteurization (UP) or Ultra High Temperature (UHT) pasteurization. [1]

1: http://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/34884/why-does-...

https://breakingbelgium.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/bachelor...

Soylent 1.6 (powder) is "$1.93 per 500 kcal" where 2000kcal is what most people eat a day. If a meal to you is one third of 2000kcal, it costs 1.93 * ((2000/500) / 3) == $2.57 per "meal."

Soylent 2.0 (drink, bought because it's "more convenient") is "$2.69 per 400 kcal." If a meal to you is one third of 2000kcal, it costs 2.69 * ((2000/400) / 3) == $4.48 per "meal."

So compare either of those to either your dinner or snack expenditures. To me it seems that 1.6 can save you money on dinner, while 2.0 is intended to help you save money on "snack time".

Too much flavor could make it annoying to have regularly day after day. They're specifically aiming for a neutral flavor.

>Maybe even a little rebranding?

Yes, they know they sound like "Soylent Green". It's the point and gets you to recognize the name.

Less sarcastically -- I've come to find that learning how to not just cope with, but enjoy the food acquisition process, end-to-end -- from procurement, to cooking and prep, and yes, even washing dishes and maintaining a decent kitchen; but most of all, preparing delicious meals for friends, now and then (and all of this, on a shoestring budget, if necessary) -- to be one of the most valuable life skills one can acquire.

So if you're currently finding it "frustrating" -- that's a good thing, because it means that your body is correctly signaling you to the fact that there's not just an opportunity to learn, but to make great efficiency gains but just a modest investment in just... figuring out how food works.

Taking milk as an example -- you're absolutely right that the chains are wrongly optimized in a lot of their offerings; the quart- (or gallon-!) sized milk offerings being a great example. At the end of the day, "milk", as such, is just not a great item to have in one's list of staples -- yogurt and kefir provide very much the same nutritive value (and overall "milk-experience", in my view) with much better shelf life, and much better value per unit cost, overall. Or if you must have "milk", as such, just a small bottle of raw (or appropriately pasteurized) milk from a high quality dairy (this is crucial), which you'll find you'll need to drink only about 1/3 the amount of compared to the usual chain-offered "big dairy" milk, will do just fine.

But the thing about Soylent -- the really "real sickness" about it, in my view -- is that rather than address this frustration by getting to its root cause (lack of awareness of how food works, on a basic level; and how awesome things can be when you get your food supply right, or at least working for you, rather than against you) -- it simply masks it. And on top of that, rather insidiously promotes dependence (on a brand) -- rather than independence and self-sufficiency -- as a way of addressing the problem.

Some people would rather trade the highs/lows of grocery shopping and cooking for simple, healthy meals, but mostly bland meals. I don't think Soylent is the answer for everyone, it's a niche the same way Whole Foods is a niche. But they do have a real value prop that is easily overlooked if you only look at the food part of it, instead of all of the other processes around it.

Food is life. If you've replaced food with some manufactured shake, it just seems fundamentally wrong. Meals aren't obligations, they are when people get together. They're a time to reflect and experience life. WTF are you doing that eating dinner is too much of a burden?

I can see using something like Soylent as a backup for fueling up while traveling or leaving it at your desk or in the car for a pinch situation. Full on food replacement conjures up images of lonely, single people giving up on life.

Your “lonely people giving up on life” is a huge reach. It’s just food. People are capable of socializing outside of meals.

Setting that aside for a moment, though, you also don’t have to replace every meal, as is mentioned elsewhere in the comments. How about just breakfast? Despite it being greatly beneficial to start the day with food, many people feel like they don’t have the time. Something quick, filling, and taking no preparation is ideal.

"Powerfood" additives, being basically an orthogonal component -- aside, it's basically a powdered (or perhaps pasteurized concentrate, a la Minute Made) remake of the classic, fresh-everything version of your regular breakfast smoothie.

You don't see any issues with that?

The hackles come up when it's promoted or discussed as a broader meal replacement.

Which just so happens to be Soylent's business plan.

But yes. Their broader business plan and certainly what gets the press seems to be Soylent as broader meal replacement. If this were just another "nutritional drink on the go" absolutely no one would care.

Right -- as with the entire junk food industry in general, basically.

As in: yes, there's certainly a big "value prop" in getting you past that next perceived craving (or legitimate nutritional need), as expediently as possible. But whether that provides a good "value" in the long run (either nutritionally or financially) is highly questionable.

But whether any of these actually are viable "replacements" (considering long-term health and other side effects) is again very much open to question.

I guess the quality of the food you have in the US is very different to what we have in Europe (or we just have lots of preservatives). Fresh milk usually lasts a week (I usually get the smallest 250ml pack), where as I can have 1 litre of UHT milk last a month without any noticeable difference. Cheese... well it lasts until it's eaten, it just goes a bit hard. I've had a packet of grated parmesan in the fridge for nearly a month, and a wedge of pecorino uncovered for two months, and both are still good.

Someone who is buying real cheese in the US is not really in the wheelhouse for soylent, we are probably talking about a big block of mass-produced yellow cheddar here. Most likely it is being stored improperly in a ziploc bag or similar and the retained moisture is causing premature mold growth.

According to Wikipedia cheddar is the most popular cheese in the UK but not, it turns out, in the US. In the US the most popular cheese is apparently … mozzarella.

Not sure what any of this goes to prove (that Yanks eat a _lot_ of pizza?) but I guess I'm trying to say that I associate cheddar with British cheese-making in the same way I'd associate brie with French, edam and gouda with Dutch, feta with Greek, manchego with Spanish, and so on.

I eventually switched to lactose-free milk, which lasts longer and theoretically lets me consume it more freely, but... I've thrown some of that away, too, since I just don't drink enough of it to be worth buying.

It may be worth noting that I can buy a gallon of milk for $1.79. Throwing away the spoiled remains isn't expensive for me, it just feels wasteful.

The local bakery sells half loaves of bread which does a pretty good job of it. If that's a problem, I have friends who have bought bread makers which allow for the making of smaller portions.

As to milk, if you don't mind the taste of ultra-pasteurized milk, Fairlife[1] is pretty good and lasts a lot longer in the fridge. Their chocolate milk is really chocolatey.

1) technically fa!rlife

The meal replacement industry seems to be large enough to support this product and others, but it's still a niche, overall. It's fighting against a prevailing trend towards spending more time on food and not less, and understanding more about where our food comes from and how it's produced.

You say this like it's a feature not a bug.

> Grocery shopping for one is frustrating

Like other valuable skills, you can get better at it.

I think it sounds more like they are saying that it's a preference. Preferences are generally neither features nor bugs (though they can be useful in some situations and frustrating in others).

I find it interesting that there are so many of you that take offense to what other people choose to do with their own time and energy, as well as what they eat. Have you noticed a lot of people dislike people who try to force their lifestyles and/or dietary choices on other people? Do you see any similarities between those people and your own comments, perhaps?

i can't imagine wanting to waste time on food, i've felt this way for as long as I can remember

I'm not talking about, or to people who use Soylent instead of a granola bar.

I would hope that the reason you compared not wanting to cook with, again, a socially crippling disorder was that you were somehow offended by the idea of other people having different priorities than you.

I can understand someone having an emotional outburst because they're offended by other people not being like them, along with a lapse in judgment and ending up writing that comment, but I can't understand how someone would get there from a rational point of view. I assumed, charitably, that you were somehow offended.

And again, how much clearer can I be in that I'm not talking about that? You're welcome to ignore that fact, and go on these intensely boring rhetorical diversions, but it achieves nothing.

i can't imagine wanting to waste time on food, i've felt this way for as long as I can remember

I can't tell you how few people I hear trumpeting it as a meal replacement now and then, vs. those who seem to have an extreme difficulty either with food, or food prep.

Going out to eat may be tastier, but it's generally more expensive. When it's not more expensive (than Soylent) it's often to some degree a mixture of the following:

1. Not vegan

2. Not tasty anyway (i.e. fast food)

3. More time consuming (the place that you like is far enough away)

I'm certain you can find other potential reasons.

Each of these may affect different people for different reasons and to different amounts (e.g. some may not care about vegan).

Ultimately, it's up to each person to decide on their own personal preferences, and the weigh their own perceived costs. For some, that may result in Soylent being a preferred option for some meals (these preferences are dynamic). For others, it's never a preferred option. That just seems like part of being human, to be honest; no sense for either side to get upset at the other.

As far as I'm concerned it is a feature. So many hours are completely wasted in meal prep that I could spend doing literally anything else. Like reading a book or not cooking.

>Like other valuable skills, you can get better at it.

I don't see how I can feasibly remove every other grocery shopper from the store when I go shopping. Or people who stop in the middle of the isle preventing traffic flow in both directions, kids acting up [0], the choice between annoying small-talk with the cashier or the annoyance of the faulty self-checkout machines [1]. People rushing around corners, nearly hitting people. The annoyance when the singular item you're searching for is out of stock that day. The store now has mounted televisions spamming ads for products on every other isle - now I get to shop with headphones on, yay!

I have control over nothing. There is nothing to get better at. Like driving (another annoying but necessary thing), it is something that so many people do without consideration or thought of others that the entire experience is ruined. I don't mind driving. I hate driving with other people on the road who cut across traffic, fail to signal, randomly brake for no reason, and otherwise drive like they are the only person on the road. Grocery shopping suffers the same fate: it sucks because everyone else seems to suck at it. And unlike driving on an empty road at two in the morning, there aren't many places I can go shopping for groceries at two in the morning.

It takes me less than ten minutes to purchase a week's worth of groceries. I've purchased the same exact things week in and week out for the past three years. I practically have my weekly trip down to a science. It seems to be that nobody else has figured out how to shop for groceries.

If you have a fix for removing other people from the equation that isn't illegal, I'd love to hear it.

[0] Kids act up, that's fine. I grew up with younger siblings. The difference is my mom would at least make an attempt to get them to stop throwing a tantrum in the middle of an aisle. It seems some parents have given up on the parenting part altogether.

[1] "Please bag your item." when the item has already been bagged. Continue until the clerk watching the self-checkouts comes over and kicks the machine out of the error loop. No way to enter "x20" of an item, I regularly purchase two dozen individually-packaged cans of chili. So I get to scan one of them 24 times and hope I don't lose track as there is no way to count how many I've already scanned.

Also, you're probably unlikely to find much measured to 100 or 200 grams in any US supermarket. It's all ounces (both fluid and otherwise!) here. ;)

Just want to counter so the parent poster knows that yes, it is very common to find single sticks of butter or half-dozen egg cartons in many grocery stores. I can't think of any that don't have these things.

With a taste and mouth-feel to match. Bon appetit!