Yesterday, after Gizmodo reported on Soylent’s Food Bar product making dozens of people ill — with some even landing in the ER — Soylent announced it would stop selling the bars and told its customers to throw out what they had left.
Image: Soylent
But Soylent customers aren’t necessarily your average consumers. Those who are loyal to the company are continuing to eat the bars, despite the risks of nausea, vomiting and /r/soylent, decided to disregard the initial reports of the bars making people ill, and even Soylent’s instructions to throw away the bars.
“I haven’t had one since the news of the recall, but I’m not necessarily deterred by the news,” Soylent bar enthusiast DuJuan Daniels told Gizmodo. “I’ve had zero issues with them and they’re a tasty snack. I think I’ll wait a week or so to see if any more news comes out explicitly stating that they’re harmful – otherwise I’ll go back to eating them.”
Another Food Bar stan tells Gizmodo that he’s keeping his because they have a different expiration date than the bars that were allegedly making people ill.
On the Soylent subreddit, fans are still searching for a reason why something seems to be very wrong with their favourite snack. Rawrkanos_Michael puts forth the theory that the ingredients being mixed improperly is what’s causing the illness. He reasons that the bars contain “supposedly 3 different sources of soy protein isolate, 2 of which aren’t used in the powder/drinks and thus maybe one new source is getting used overmuch and causing problems”. Improperly mixing the ingredients, then, “causes ‘hot spots’ with much more concentrated something-or-another”.
Others are applauding Soylent for offering refunds on the bars, saying, “That’s above and beyond customer service.” Responding to reports that your company’s product is making consumers sick seems like standard customer service to me.
But some people are angry. One of Gizmodo’s sources — the man who had to go to the ER for severe dehydration after consuming the bars — wants Soylent to compensate him for his $US400 ($528) ER bill. “I’ll likely try and go the small claims route,” he told Gizmodo. “I wonder if there’s a enough people to bother with a class action…”
Soylent bar lover Shane Mehling told Gizmodo that he has one left. When asked whether he was going to eat it, he said, “I guess it’s like the Seinfeld episode with the sponges. Looking for that worthy day. I could have brought it for lunch, but on this dreary Thursday? Fuck no.”