Soylent – The Future Of Food?
In developed countries, having a mobile phone is a normal thing today. Unlike ten to twenty years ago, when it was but a weird gadget that only a few had. But that future is here, the Star Trek communicators (from the original series) are here and beyond. So are we on a brink of another revolution? Maybe, and Soylent from campaign.soylent.me is here as one of the first pioneers to test the water in the food section. Literally.
Bottoms Up?
Soylent is a food concept that has one main intent: replace most, but not all of your food. It sounds very futuristic/surreal/take your pick, but it is not a new concept. Armies all around the world are constantly trying to maximize effectiveness of rations they are giving their soldiers, but their solutions are often very expensive. A single source diet might not sound very tasty, but let’s try to see all the sides of this mixture.
This is a powder mixture intended to be mixed with water, and it was invented by Robert Rhinehart, whose professional expertise lies in the domain of computer science and engineering, not nutrition or medicine. It can be initial setback, because why you should trust someone who is not professional in the field? For starters, he himself was the first guinea pig and test subject. He even went on a 30 day soylent-only diet and there were no (major) side-effects, and he used his knowledge of the minor ones to get the recipe right. He is constantly evolving the recipe that has all FDA approved components. Biohacking in full bloom.
The Proof Is In The Pudding
Nutrition scientists opinions on the subject are majorly sceptic. Considering the lack of taste and texture variet, the idea of replacing your diet with one liquid sounded rattling. However, several scientists said it could be a valuable addition if it doesn’t replace your whole diet. Hm, so one step at the time?
Rhinehart believes that the proof that soylent works is the fact that he and some other people have lived on the soylent diet for months, some partially. If the product moves forward (it is still in crowdfunding phase) he wants complete transparency between his company and the consumers. His only goal is to produce cheap yet healthy diet based on evidence based research. Although there is no nutrition expert in their team, Rhinehart says that that will be their next hire.
Expanding The Idea
Idea and heart are in the right place, but lets take it further from ramen eating students, too busy businessmen and hippies. Everyone finds themselves at one point in their life when they are too occupied with other things to eat properly. Having an easy to make, healthy yet nutritious meal could be a life saver. If you take it out of urban areas and apply it to areas where famine is still an issue of life and death, this could literally be a lifesaver. Maybe it sounds, looks and tastes weird, but this concept is surely worth of taking it further.
The fact that the idea was developed outside any food, health or pharmacy company has one giant advantage. Soylent isn’t made for profit first. Making it as cheap and as high-quality as it can possibly be is a big plus. So far, the campaign has over 10,00 backers and has made more than $1,000,000. On the Soylent discussion board, people often share their experiences or formulas, so it is not only crowd funded, but also crowd driven. Open source biohacking in its best form.
Although Soylent raises a few brows, it is worth a second glance. For now it is available only in US, so a taste test wasn’t a part of this article. Maybe it is not the belle at the ball, but it is certainly one of the most intriguing conmcepts. And who knows, maybe this is the future part of (y)our diet?
