Soylent

Thanks to one of my friends here at Stanford, I had the opportunity I never would have ever taken myself in a thousand years to try Soylent. Soylent is, for those who are fortunate to have never heard of it, a nutritional drink that describes itself as "open source" and boasts that all the nutrients that you need over the course of the day can be ingested in a much more convenient and cheaper form than your traditional foodstuff. Its fans claim that it takes the stress and hassle out of preparing a meal, thus freeing up more valuable time to do More Important Things.

Basically, it's a powder that you mix with water and drink so that you can get nutrients. It was created by someone in the tech industry (surprise surprise) because they wanted to use their time more efficiently, and thought that if they could make something that tastes bland enough that nobody would get bored of (which I don't buy, because you can get bored of boring things too) that you mix once at the beginning of the week and then spend maybe 5 minutes or less making (and drinking probably), you don't have to waste all that time on going out, getting food, and eating.

Unfortunately, a good friend here at Stanford drank the (powdered) Kool-Aid and has replaced about half of his meals (he still eats out socially, he says, he just has soylent on the meals he would normally spend alone) with Soylent and liked the brand name stuff so much he ordered a bunch of it to try for an event at Rains Houses. We tried two different types: the DIY version (that was made to be a 700 calorie meal) and the official Soylent version.

I was raised to believe that you can't really knock something until you've really tried it. And I tried it. And it sucked.

Seriously, it was terrible, both on the conceptual level as well as the taste level. Have you ever eaten chalk before? Or bitten into a persimmon that wasn't ripe enough? Or had Jamba Juice not mix the boosts in well enough? You know how you get that super gritty, really chalky kind of texture that makes you want to chew it because it's so thick, only to realize your mistake after the first chomp because now it's EVERYWHERE in your mouth and you can FEEL all the little grains all over? And then, after you've swallowed, the slight bitter taste from the chalky stuff lingers all over your mouth?

Very very unpleasant.

It also tasted a little like creamed corn. A little on the sweet side, actually, both the DIY version and the official one. I was actually a little surprised, because taste wise, it was better than expected. I expected it to taste like nothing. The official version was also waaay better than the DIY version, mostly because the DIY one was so incredibly viscous that it just clumped together as you drank it. It felt like you were drinking like... something with mass that wasn't actually a liquid. Perhaps that's better, because people were saying that it tasted even grainier to them, but for me it was almost... velvety, but in a very very bad way. The way that makes you kind of want to gag as you choke it down.

Some of the guys there talked about how maybe, what if, in the future, Soylent was the main form of nutrient acquisition? What if it was like a utility that was piped to each house like water, providing nutrients at low cost to poor, impovrished areas. Of course there would still be food... if you wanted to actually pay more to eat the real stuff.

Terrible, terrible ideas. That's not a future I want to be a part of. And as long as there are people in this world who love food, love the interplay of flavors and the textures as you bite into something delicious, or something with a hint of sour followed by a seductively sweet note, that future, I'm certain, will never ever happen. Food is so much more than just something we eat for nutrients. It's time to spend iwth others, to converse, to slow down, and most importantly perhaps, to enjoy. Sure, I suppose I can understand if you're a terrible cook and you hate cooking and just want something easy. For any activity, there are people who love it, and people who hate it, people who are great at it and people who are terrible at it. But there are equally tasty and cheap alternatives for those who can't cook. Trader Joe's premade food is an amazing amazing thing. And it's delicious.

One of the guys argued that it's really hard to get all the nutrients your body needs with traditional cooking. I immediately called bullshit. He countered by saying that he had a vitamin B12 deficiency when he ate his mother's cooking. However, there was a caveat in that he was vegetarian, which already presents problems with getting the proper nutrients especially because B12 comes from meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy. But seriously, it's not that hard to get a decent meal going, and if you know where to shop and have access to it (which, many people don't) it's actually fairly simple to make a meal that has enough of everything in it. You can even make things that don't actually take up that much time (though of course, putting in more time never hurts). But really? Not. That. Hard. Salad, protein, more veggies, some carb, boom. Done. Maybe have fruit too, or eat fruit some other time in the day. But reaaaallllyyyy not hard.

Oh Soylent, you silly drink.