The makers of Soylent have made a pretty straightforward case for their magical nutrient soup qua meal replacement: “We must have an eye toward sustainable food sources as the world’s population growth increasingly taxes our resources.”Pretty nifty! But what if mankind’s food savior makes you sick?On Wednesday, the Soylent published a blog post offering refunds to customers who’ve bought their new “Soylent Bar.”“It has recently come to our attention that a small number of our customers have experienced gastrointestinal issues after consuming Soylent Bars,” the company said. “As a precautionary measure, we are halting all Soylent Bar purchases and shipments and are advising our customers to discard any remaining bars in their possession.”The Soylent Bar, which was released a month ago and is listed as “currently unavailable” on the Soylent website, is sort of like a Clif bar on steroids. It contains “12.5% of your daily nutritional requirements” and costs $22.80 a month for 12 bars.But something in the Soylent Bar’s composition of soy protein, algal flour, and other plant-based ingredients is making people vomit. A lot.From a Reddit thread, first reported on by Gizmodo: “Early in September, I experienced intense vomiting about 3-4 hours after eating a Food Bar. The vomiting lasted several hours. I think it was probably the worst vomiting episode I ever experienced. I did not experience diarrhea.”After reports of the vomiting first surfaced, Soylent told Gizmodo that people at the company “have personally consumed many of the remaining bars without adverse effects.”VICE News has sent an email asking if people at Soylent started throwing up in the time since then. We’ll let you know if we hear back.
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