Everything will be damage in large quantities.
And some common things probably do long term damage (e.g. any amount of charring on meat) but we never question them.
What kinds of poison can you build an immunity to by eating small amounts of it?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3410065/The-man-immu...
Actually there are a few, though it's definitely not the rule - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridatism
"It is important to note that mithridatism is not effective against all types of poison, and, depending on the toxin, the practice can lead to the lethal accumulation of a poison in the body."
"There are only a few, if any, practical uses of mithridatism. "
I think that will be my takeaway.
In case you didn't know, it looks like Iocane Powder is an imaginary substance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_toxins
My point was that he created the formula through trial and error (I distinctly remember he said he'd put whatever amount he read online was correct and then if he felt sick he'd adjust the amount down; but "getting sick" is a rather extreme indicator). That is, at least prior to investment money (which I hope was at least partially spent on testing the stuff for safety), his safety claims were based off "I didn't get sick in the short term" without any real data on the medium to long term effects.
I mentioned small amounts of poison only as an anecdote that his trial and error testing could potentially have been harming him without him knowing it. That is, it's simply an anecdote to demonstrate that the "safety tests" he had done up until that blog post were themselves anecdotal at best.
I haven't been following soylent since and assume (and hope) that since he took on funding that he then followed up with proper scientific procedures. But people ate his stuff based on that initial blog post, so...
For something that affects us so deeply, it seems like we still know remarkably little about how food affects our bodies/minds. Any research that the Soylent folks do or read is helpful, but I wouldn't expect them to do a 5 year study and be able to suddenly say without a doubt that they have a the perfect formula.
