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Soylent

7 Comments

A New Yorker reporter gives it a try.

I haven’t read the whole thing yet.

[A while later]

OK, I did read it. I was amused to learn that he was hawking it at my own local Whole Foods. One concern I have is his use of seed oils. Canola has too much omega 6 for my health. I’d use olive instead, though it costs more. If you don’t use virgin, though, it doesn’t have to cost that much.

7 thoughts on “Soylent”

  1. Rand,

    I’m one of the 25,000 initial backers mentioned in Widdecombe’s article. Just today (5/10/14) I received notice that the order fulfillment process was predictably having start-up pains – and that my non-vegan 2 month initial order would be delayed for up two two more weeks (and, btw have a free t-shirt on us – optimistically sized at XL as a max option :)).

    Nothing I read in the article surprised me, but the extent of the diy effort is something I hadn’t bothered to keep up with due to my lack of confidence in my chemistry skills. I suspect this part of the Soylent universe will grow into more of a how-to-modify your factory blend effort as time goes on, assuming I’m not the only one hesitant to eat my own chemistry.

    If you wish, I’d be pleased to give you a reader experience update in a few weeks.

  3. U.S. military and space programs have asked to run trials on Soylent. Rhinehart’s real goal, however, is more ambitious: the company has been testing an omega-3 oil that comes from algae instead of from fish oil. Eventually, Rhinehart hopes, he will figure out how to source all of Soylent’s ingredients that way—carbohydrates, protein, lipids. “Then we won’t need farms” to make Soylent, he said. Better yet, he added, would be to design a Soylent-producing “superorganism”: a single strain of alga that pumps out Soylent all day. Then we won’t need factories.

    That would be handy off-planet.

    1. Cattle figured out how to grow cow soylent in open fields. Prior to that they were always having to prepare complicated five-course meals, which was a serious problem because cows are notoriously lazy and lack opposable thumbs.

    2. Yes, once again a non-space advocate advances the technology actually needed for successful space settlement without the incentive of space prizes or NASA funding, merely the power of a potential market for it.

      The military would be the logical one to test it as they as they may actually have a need for it.

  4. If anyone’s interested I can supply you with custom mineralized stock food at 50c a kg, at 13mJ/kg one kg a day will supply your dietary requirements.
    That’s a years supply of food for a mere $180, a bargain!

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