There’s a crowd funded startup company that’s close to releasing a meal replacement food. It’s for more than just replacing a meal, or a product for adding extra calories to your daily intake. Those things are already on the shelves. This is really an eating replacement product. No cooking, less expensive, just mix with water, and drink it. That’s it. Conceivably forever.
To me, it’s like the bottled blood replacement for vampires called true blood on the show, “True Blood.” The vampires never have to hassle with biting humans again.
The product is called Soylent. It claims to have all the nutrients you’ll need in a powder you mix with water. The company is even planning on providing you a nalgene bottle to shake it up in and drink from. And you can it take on the go. No dishes, just rinse out your bottle.
There’s a writer who tried it for two weeks. His longish diary and comments are on Tim Ferriss’ blog. If you don’t want to slog through a mono drink diary, I did it and basically he had a good overall experience drinking only Soylent for two weeks.
If you’re super busy it makes sense. When there’s nothing else around to eat because of famine or natural disaster I get it.
But what’s the “why” in the extended, long term use of Soylent? What situation are you in that’s making you think an eating replacement plan is something you’d do and enjoy long term? Once you reach some future goal, will you then step off the treadmill move to a slower, simpler life where you eat and drink regular food? Probably.
I’m for being efficient, streamlined, and optimized but quaility of life trumps those goals for most people.
As a short term or occasional solution, I get it. But when it’s presented as a long term eating replacement activity, it’s kinda like saying sexting with your smart phone is all you need when it comes to sex.