"Soylent’s spokesperson told me that they don’t expect most people to adopt a 100 percent Soylent diet, even though you technically can: each day’s packet contains roughly 100 percent (give or take a few percentage points) of your daily FDA-recommended allowance of fat, potassium, carbohydrates, fiber, and a selection of 23 vitamins and minerals."
Over the past year Soylent has been gaining in popularity especially in the nerd community in places like Silicon Valley. The main attraction appears to be convenience; it takes less time to prepare and consume than regular food. Basically you blend the Soylent powder with water and dinner is served (NYTimes):
"Boom times in Silicon Valley call for hard work, and hard work — at least in technology land — means that coders, engineers and venture capitalists are turning to liquid meals with names like Schmoylent, Soylent, Schmilk and People Chow. The protein-packed products that come in powder form are inexpensive and quick and easy to make — just shake with water, or in the case of Schmilk, milk. While athletes and dieters have been drinking their dinner for years, Silicon Valley’s workers are now increasingly chugging their meals, too, so they can more quickly get back to their computer work."
However not every nerd is enamored with Soylent. Dylan Matthews from Vox.com paints himself as the target demographic for Soylent. He doesn't like food, and he doesn't like cooking or eating; however he wants to stay alive. Appropriately, the title of his post is "When I heard about Soylent, I thought my prayers had been answered. I was wrong".
What was he wrong about? Mr. Matthews highlights the following deficiencies with Soylent from his perspective:
1. It's too difficult to make. This one is somewhat surprising. One of the key selling points of Soylent is ease of preparation, and how hard can it be to mix powder with water? The problem is that the oil/fat separates from the water after a short period of time, and so it has to be constantly mixed (Figure 1). In addition, the removal of all clumps requires exhaustive blending. However these criticisms have more to do with taste and appearance than actual work.
2. It's too inflexible. The main inflexibility from Mr. Matthews' point of view is that the instructions recommend storing the mixed Soylent drink for no more than 48 hours, and he had trouble consuming all of the Soylent from one package within this period of time i.e. he had to throw some out. I do not view this as a huge problem. As he mentions, you can probably store the Soylent liquid for longer than 48 hours, or you can make half a batch.
3. You can't escape food. There is a social aspect to eating. Chris Zeigler of The Verge points out:
"Food is not merely sustenance, it’s a tightly woven part of our everyday lives. How many times have you commiserated with a colleague over lunch? Planned a date over dinner? Met with friends for drinks?" Of course, if you are a workaholic nerd in Silicon Valley, then perhaps this issue is less of a concern.
Overall I did not find Dylan Matthews critique to be particularly compelling (although it was funny). Personally, I am more worried about the health consequences of a strict Soylent diet. Perhaps one is missing some non-essential but healthful auxilliary nutrients (e.g. fiber variety). Food diversity and balance are critical to recommended healthy diets like the Mediterranean Diet. However, I can also see the attraction of Soylent for those who work long hours and don't want to spend the time (and money) preparing and eating food when they merely want sustenance to stay alive. Watch your health though, and it is probably not a good idea to subsist on Soylent alone.
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