Soylent.. The food of the future?

Soylent was something I heard of in a class of mine last semester and I thought it would be interesting to share it with the class. Soylent is a meal replacement that aims to provide its users with the adequate nutrition to avoid eating food altogether. This means no more meat or dairy, or even vegetables.

 

Soylent doesn’t spoil and all the miraculous mixture needs is water. Although the liquid isn’t the tastiest thing in the world, and it is unlikely people will trade in their steaks and fries for a shake (obviously not). There are other potential benefits to Soylent in which it may help people in less economically developed countries who are suffering from malnutrition.

 

According to Edesia, 20 million children in the world are severely malnourished while another 35 million are moderately malnourished. This again is only in regards to children; there are still millions of adults who lack the proper nutrition to survive.

 

The Soylent website claims that people will be able to live off less than $10 a day for food and less than $4 per meal.

 

CEO Rob Reinhart wants the mixture to become more synthetic in the future so it will not be affected by fluctuating crop seasons.

 

Although solving World Hunger is a few years out according to Reinhart, he claims one hurdle he must overcome is that just because people are poor, doesn’t mean they aren’t picky eaters. The formula will need to be tampered with to make sure that even though its nutritious, people will look forward to consuming it.

 

It seems like the future is rapidly approaching, with these odd inventions and people trying to revolutionize the way in which we live. However I would like to ask you, would you trade in your hamburger for a shake of tasteless goop to aid in saving the world?

 

https://faq.soylent.me/hc/en-us

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_(drink)

 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/13/health/soylent-hunger/

3 thoughts on “Soylent.. The food of the future?

  1. Rachel Lynn Campbell

    I completly understand how this can help those who are in need of nutrition and don’t necessarily have the means to get any other types of food, but even the website doen’s give a great discription of what exactly it is and that is concerning. I can’t see this ever becoming the next big thing in any first world country where like it was said in another comment, we eat not only to live, but because we enjoy it.

  2. oma5060

    Wow… ive never herd of this thing before… it was really interesting to hear about this… you have sparked my interest and i will definitely be looking into this more.

  3. Wei Dai

    This is my first time to hear such a thing. However, I’m not well understand the “soylent” from your post. I have to say that the reason for people to eat is not only about trying to survive. More often it’s because we enjoy it. I know you will say that these “soylents” are mainly aiming at saving those who cannot even feed them selves to survive. However, you still want people to consume it, to pay for it. That will be a huge problem because more people who cannot feed them selves are not just poor: they don’t have money!!! they cannot buy themselves anything!!! Hence, this so called “future” will lost its biggest beaning to exist. Furthermore, people who has won’t buy it as well because just like what I said before: “the reason for people to eat is not only about trying to survive. More often it’s because we enjoy it.” Eventually, this soylent will become nothing.

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