Althouse: "For a purported breakthrough with such grand plans for reshaping the food industry, I found Soylent to be a punishingly boring, joyless product."

May 28, 2014

"For a purported breakthrough with such grand plans for reshaping the food industry, I found Soylent to be a punishingly boring, joyless product."

"From the plain white packaging to the purposefully bland, barely sweet flavor to the motel-carpet beige hue of the drink itself, everything about Soylent screams function, not fun. It may offer complete nourishment, but only at the expense of the aesthetic and emotional pleasures many of us crave in food."

I've already blogged about this topic here, linking to a much more detailed New Yorker article, but this new article, in the NYT, has some good photos and a funny video of people doing a taste test.

15 comments:

Sorun said...: I thought it was supposed to be about function, not fun.

Ok, so add food coloring, brilliant packaging, more cocoa powder, and a Tony the Tiger-like mascot and you'll win over the NYT crowd.; 5/28/14, 10:31 PM
Polynices said...: That Soylent stuff is such a huge scam. It's TUBE FEEDING. Hospitals have been using it for decades. It's widely available, there's lots of brands, and sometimes hospitals mix it up themselves (first page of Google results yields http://abbottnutrition.com/categories/adult/adult-tube-feeding-products among others).; 5/28/14, 10:35 PM
Birches said...: My reflexive instinct is to defend anything the NYT turns up their noses at, but I must concur: I think they're right.; 5/28/14, 10:38 PM
furious_a said...: You've got to tell them, Hatcher, you've to TELL THEM...; 5/28/14, 11:07 PM
Pat said...: I can't resist.

Solyent Green is PEOPLE; 5/29/14, 4:37 AM
Curious George said...: Farhad thinks Soylent tastes like Manjoo; 5/29/14, 5:42 AM
Rusty said...: If you want to eat well, go to France.; 5/29/14, 5:53 AM
Bob R said...: You should be very frightened by the idea that this product is "scientific." The science of the human diet is extremely primitive and uncertain. It's not much of an exaggeration to say there are NO controlled experiments on the subject. (Imagine what controlled experiments would look like, and try to pretend they could take place outside of a totalitarian nation.) Again, Gary Taubes' books on diet are important not so much for their guesses about what a good diet would be, but for their meticulous documentation of the hilariously low quality of scientific research on diet.; 5/29/14, 5:57 AM
tim maguire said...: Polynices, it's a scam because there is another product out there that could be repurposed to compete? Is that what scam means?

Separating fun from function is the point. A person can (and probably most people do) enjoy a nice meal with friends sometimes and yet find the biological imperative to eat 3 or 4 times a day every day an expensive, time crushing hassle.

So you keep some soylent around for when you need to eat, and do something nicer when you want to do something nicer.; 5/29/14, 6:16 AM
Illuninati said...: How is Solyent different from Boost or Ensure - taste?; 5/29/14, 6:30 AM
Larry J said...: Bob R said...
You should be very frightened by the idea that this product is "scientific." The science of the human diet is extremely primitive and uncertain. It's not much of an exaggeration to say there are NO controlled experiments on the subject. (Imagine what controlled experiments would look like, and try to pretend they could take place outside of a totalitarian nation.)

For the past 10 years or so, North Korea has tested low calorie diets on millions of people. The results were not good.; 5/29/14, 7:36 AM
James Pawlak said...: Sounds like a good diet for convicted (Only) criminals held in jails and prisons.

This would provide additional motivation for staying out of such places.; 5/29/14, 8:41 AM
Paul said...: Next thing you know they will rename it Soylent Green and add another ingredient.; 5/29/14, 1:58 PM
K in Texas said...: Pat, that was the very first thing I thought of. They should add the green food coloring and be done with it. Funny, how many decades has it been since the movie came out? The seas are still alive, the earth hasn't overheated, and the US does not have 2 billion people living in it.; 5/29/14, 3:00 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: It's for single men without the time or motivation to cook. Grocery shopping is expensive and time consuming. Fast food is bad for you.

So, you drink some of your meals and avoid dealing with the hassle.

Not a terrible idea. We're constantly told to eat better, but we're not told how to do it. Here's an easy solution.

That's why the critics hate it- because it's too easy. It's supposed to be hard, and time consuming, and expensive to eat well (nutritionally speaking.) If it's easy, then there must be something wrong.

I'll try it. I don't have any time for lunch (I regularly work 12 hour shifts) and when I do I'm stuck with fast food. I'll try any alternative to that. I don't care how it tastes, I care about having the energy to do a physically demanding job for long hours without resorting to energy drinks constantly.; 5/29/14, 10:08 PM