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Silicon Valley seems to want to replace everything we use with a new, “improved” version.
Now, one startup wants to replace food entirely.
Huh?
You read that right. The inventor, Rob Reinhart, hated spending money on food (and clothes, and laundry, and electricity, and fun), so he reverse-engineered this product, which he claims to have lived on for two years now.
So what is it?
It’s called Soylent, and no, it’s not made of people.
It’s a powder and an oil, mixed together to make a smoothie-textured substance that contains 500 calories for every sixteen ounces. You can drink it 3 times a day, like meals, or you can just drink it whenever you’re hungry.
If the thought of mixing a powder and an oil together makes you want to gag, not to worry! Soylent is releasing “Soylent 2.0,” a pre-mixed version that comes in a bottle.
It costs about $9 a day, which is actually pretty affordable. But what about how it tastes?
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Well, SHAPE magazine calls it “high-calorie liquid gruel,” and other reviews from the site include “thin pancake batter” and “slightly better than the stuff you get before a colonoscopy.”
As far as eating it goes, a lot of people do report feeling more energizes, but there’s also a high risk for bloating for the first week of eating (drinking?) it.
There’s very little clinical study done on it, so medical reactions are mixed. Some nutritionists say that Soylent lacks necessary chemicals from plants, and others say it’s basically the same as a substitute like Slimfast.
Soylent has tried to market their product as hip and accessible, part of an active, work-driven, nutritious lifestyle.
Whatever it is, we’re talking about it, and that’s probably all Soylent needs to get off the ground.
As for me? I think I like whole, fresh food a little too much.
Would you try this hip meal substitute, or does it sound too gross?
Photo Copyright © 2015 soylent/Instagram
