The Man Who Would Make Food Obsolete

The Atlantic ^ | 4/28/2014 | Rick Morin

[nickcarraway]

Rob Rhinehart invented Soylent—a beverage that he claims contains all necessary nutrients—as a food replacement. The first batch is shipping this month.

“I was 6 or 7,” Rob Rhinehart began, “and I guess my mother was serving salad. I was looking down at a plate with these leaves on it. I could look outside and see leaves on the trees, and it just seemed a little weird. It seemed a little primitive - like something an animal would do. On this nice plate, in this nice house, why would I eat this thing that grows on trees? I thought, ‘We can do better.’”

“Better,” for the now 25-year-old Rhinehart, is Soylent, a beige beverage that he claims contains every nutrient the body needs. With tongue firmly in cheek, he named it after the ubiquitous food substitute Soylent Green found in the dystopian science fiction movie of the same name. For 30 days, the software engineer turned kitchen chemist consumed nothing but Soylent and reported his progress on a blog. With the help of an enthusiastic online community, he honed his formula, raised $3 million from investors, and is now bringing his product to the market.

I sat down with Rob at a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles in January to talk about the future of food. He drank black coffee while I sipped Soylent from a chilled metal thermos he had brought.

* * *

This is pretty good. It tastes a bit like unsweetened custard.

What I’ve found is that a lot of people who like the idea, like the taste, and a lot of people who don’t like the idea are repelled by the taste. Because it has so little intrinsic taste, it pretty much comes from your expectation.

[publius911]

Bookmark

[Augie]

Garden listers may be interested in this one.

[greeneyes]

Feel free to post it again on Friday in case anyone wants to read it. As someone who has studied nutrition quite a bit, I find some of his answers to be totally off base, but it was interesting.