FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

Soylent Is ‘Getting to the Bottom’ of Its Diarrhea Problem

Soylent Bars have been recalled, and it's unclear if or when they'll return.
Image: Soylent

Looks like your post-food future is up in the air, nutritionally optimized humans of the new millennium.

Soylent Bars, the new, solid meal-replacement named after the Silicon Valley darling drink/powder (itself named for a dystopian sci-fi movie), are being voluntarily recalled just over a month after their release by parent company Rosa Labs, following customer complaints on Reddit and the company's message boards linking the Bars to indigestion.

Advertisement

That's quite a turn, as the company said as of October 6, it remained "very confident in the safety of the bars." A statement said that the relative number of complaints was extremely small, and "all packaged and prepared food products have some risk of intolerance," so basically, keep on chowing your food-not-food products and feeling great, fam.

This "certain subpopulation of individuals" is still small, Soylent claims, but it's issued a recall on Soylent Bars effective yesterday, and will be providing full refunds to customers who purchased them. If you're a Bars customer and reading this in the can, check your inbox for a refund!

In an announcement on their blog, Soylent representatives write:

"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."

Those gastrointestinal issues are uncontrollable diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and a "slightly raw tongue." It's like the sped-up disclaimer at the end of a Viagra commercial.

We asked a Soylent spokesperson if the company planned to re-launch the bars: "Right now our sole focus is getting to the bottom of this," the spokesperson told Motherboard in an email.

If that's a pooping pun, my god, they've earned our respect.

Get six of our favorite Motherboard stories every day by signing up for our newsletter.