On Wednesday, May 28, 2014 11:29:45 PM UTC-4, Julie Bove wrote:
> "Travis McGee" > wrote in message
>
> ...
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> > http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/te...e.html?hp&_r=0
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> >
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> > The Soylent Revolution Will Not Be Pleasurable
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> >
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> > MAY 28, 2014
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> >
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> > Farhad Manjoo
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> >
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> > I just spent more than a week experiencing Soylent, the most joyless new
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> > technology to hit the world since we first laid eyes on MS-DOS.
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> >
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> > Soylent is a drink mix invented by a group of engineers who harbor
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> > ambitions of shaking up the global food business. Robert Rhinehart, the
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> > 25-year-old co-founder and chief executive of the firm selling the drink,
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> > hit upon the idea when he found himself spending too much time and money
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> > searching for nutritious meals while he was working on a wireless-tech
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> > start-up in San Francisco. Using a process Mr. Rhinehart calls
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> > �scientific,� the firm claims to have mixed a cornucopia of supplements to
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> > form a technologically novel food that offers the complete set of
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> > nutrients the human body needs for survival.
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> >
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> > You can live on Soylent alone, Mr. Rhinehart claims, though in practice he
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> > said customers would most likely use it to replace just their �staple
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> > meals,� by which he meant most of the junk you eat every day to fill
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> > yourself up. Mr. Rhinehart argued that Soylent, which costs about $3 per
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> > serving, is cheaper, easier to prepare and more nutritious than much of
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> > the food that makes up the typical American officer worker�s diet today.
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> > Photo
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> > Robert Rhinehart spent months living on nothing but Soylent and claims it
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> > improved his health.
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> >
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> > About a week and a half ago, I began drinking Soylent every day. I can�t
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> > recommend that you do the same. For a purported breakthrough with such
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> > grand plans for reshaping the food industry, I found Soylent to be a
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> > punishingly boring, joyless product. From the plain white packaging to the
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> > purposefully bland, barely sweet flavor to the motel-carpet beige hue of
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> > the drink itself, everything about Soylent screams function, not fun. It
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> > may offer complete nourishment, but only at the expense of the aesthetic
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> > and emotional pleasures many of us crave in food.
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> >
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> > And although the drink is tastier than its horror sci-fi name implies, the
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> > whole idea of replacing lots of your meals with the same stuff day after
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> > day is a nightmarish prospect. It suggests that Soylent�s creators have
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> > forgotten a basic ingredient found in successful tech products, not to
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> > mention in most good foods. That ingredient is delight.
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> >
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> > Most whiz-bang technologies don�t sell themselves on function alone; they�ve
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> > got to offer pleasure, too. My favorite recent example is the ride-sharing
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> > service Uber. Sure, hailing a cab on your phone is more convenient than
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> > waiting for one on a street corner. But that�s not the main reason people
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> > love Uber. They love it because Uber lets you feel like the boss: A car
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> > rushes to pick you up, and when it drops you off, you jump out without
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> > ever reaching for your wallet, as if you own the town. Uber isn�t using
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> > technology to sell convenience. It�s selling addictive thrills. It�s
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> > selling joy.
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> > Continue reading the main story
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> > What�s in Soylent?
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> >
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> > There are over 30 listed ingredients in the shake. The vast majority of it
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> > is carbohydrates, fats and protein:
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> > Primary Ingredients
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> >
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> > Over half is made up of oat flour and maltodextrin, a starchy
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> > substance that comes from corn.
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> > About a quarter is protein derived from brown rice.
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> > A significant portion is also made up of fatty acids that come from
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> > canola and fish oils.
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> >
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> > Supplementary Ingredients
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> >
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> > The shake includes several vitamin and mineral supplements, like vitamin
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> > C, zinc, potassium and calcium, plus small amounts of more surprising
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> > ones:
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> >
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> > Copper, which works with iron to help the body form red blood cells..
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> > Iodine, which helps the body metabolize nutrients.
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> >
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> > Sources: Soylent, National Institutes of Health
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> >
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> > Besides offering no joy, Soylent presented other troubles. For much of the
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> > time I used it, Soylent produced gastrointestinal symptoms ranging from
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> > mildly irritating to perilous. Judging by other users� online descriptions
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> > of my experiences, my gut�s reaction wasn�t unusual, but Mr. Rhinehart
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> > said it was likely to be temporary, the result of my body adjusting to the
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> > government-recommended amount of fiber in Soylent.
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> >
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> > I believe him, but there are still questions about Soylent�s
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> > healthfulness. Though Mr. Rhinehart spent months living on nothing but
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> > Soylent and claims it improved his health, the firm has not performed any
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> > large-scale studies to show that drinking Soylent over an extended period
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> > of time is good for you, or even that it�s not bad for you. Mr. Rhinehart
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> > said the firm was conducting a large study, but he declined to divulge any
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> > details or a timeline for when it might post results.
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> >
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> > Soylent�s biggest failing, though, is its stultifying utilitarianism. Even
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> > Mr. Rhinehart describes Soylent mainly in terms of its functional promise.
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> > �The most important aspect of this product is simplicity,� he told me. �We�re
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> > trying to abstract away the complexity. Here�s this drink that has
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> > everything you need, so if it�s your go-to meal, you don�t have to worry
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> > about anything else.�
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> > Photo
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> > Credit Stuart Goldenberg
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> >
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> > But there is something troubling about the notion of a �go-to meal.�
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> > During the last week and a half, I consumed Soylent for most, but not all,
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> > of my meals. There were a couple of days when more than 90 percent of my
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> > calories came from the powder. At first, as Mr. Rhinehart promised, I did
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> > find Soylent to be extremely convenient. It alleviated some of the stress
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> > I often feel when I�m pressed for time on a busy workday and need to find
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> > something healthy to eat.
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> >
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> > That feeling faded. The longer I used it, the more Soylent began to feel
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> > like a chore. I began to yearn for the mechanics of solid meals � chewing,
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> > swallowing, using my hands and silverware and experiencing a variety of
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> > textures and temperatures. I missed crunchy foods, salty foods, noisy
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> > foods and hot foods. (Soylent, like revenge, is best served cold.)
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> >
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> > Most of all, I missed variety. Soylent�s instructions suggested adding
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> > peanut butter, fruit, vanilla extract or other flavorings to the drink. I
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> > did, but still, Soylent tasted pretty much the same from day to day � like
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> > gritty, thinned-down pancake batter, inoffensive and dull.
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> >
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> > Mr. Rhinehart offered a canny defense for the criticism that Soylent is
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> > leaching the joy out of food. �Obviously there�s a lot more to food than
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> > nutrition,� he said. �We don�t expect people to live on this entirely. In
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> > fact, we think this elevates food into more of a leisure activity. You can
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> > go out with your friends or family, and if your default, staple meal is
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> > very healthy and sustainable and balanced, you can enjoy your other meals
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> > even more, because you don�t have to worry about how healthy they are.�
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> >
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> > But as soon as I began using Soylent, it dawned on me that Mr. Rhinehart�s
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> > entire premise of dividing food into �staple meals� and �leisure meals�
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> > was suspect.
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> >
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> > It�s true that people sometimes eat meals that are mainly for sustenance
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> > (cheap frozen dinners, dried ramen, corn dogs) and other times we�re
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> > looking mostly for pleasure (72-hour short ribs). But I suspect that most
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> > of the time, for most meals, we want both sustenance and pleasure.
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> >
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> > Soylent�s fatal flaw is that it can�t offer both. It optimizes for total
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> > sustenance at the expense of any pleasure. So while the drink might be
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> > nutritionally preferable to eating a diet of pizza, ramen and frozen
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> > dinners, I doubt it would be more pleasurable than doing so. There�s a lot
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> > of variety in pizza and ramen (try each with a fried egg). Soylent,
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> > meanwhile, will always be just the same.
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>
>
> I can see how this could be useful in some situations, but...

I can see how this could be useful for a joyless ****.