One of the most surprising things about the commentary on Soylent, is the level of vitriol and anger that they are pushing out a meal replacement product without an exceptionally high level of testing and scientific design; and that the entire _concept_ of trying to create a meal replacement product is morally wrong, or totally and completely impossible.
(For examples, just read the comments on this article, or any of the Soylent-related articles).
It seems to be based on a presumption that we all have amazing, carefully designed and scientifically tested diets as is, and Soylent is going to make our diets demonstrably worse, or (apparently) make us really sick, or (even) kill us.
Given that 69.2% of the adult US population is overweight, it would seem that our current amazing diets are perhaps not working.
Of course, the vast majority of us make it up as we go along, influenced by food manufacturers and marketing, and the people around us, as well as our parents.
Sure, food manufacturers have more scrutiny than you or I, but no one is making sure that any particular combination of food in the supermarket is going to lead to a healthy diet - nothing stops me from choosing and carrying out a bad diet - and many many people 'choose' and carry out bad diets as is.
Do you seriously think that, when the supermarket put in an entire aisle of confectionery, that they were doing it as some attempt to give us a good diet?
Or that coke is attempting to help us lose weight when the dump all that sugar - or HFCS - in?
If you think the person buying Taco Bell for breakfast, McDonalds for lunch, and KFC for dinner is following a carefully designed, healthy diet, you are deluded. If you think these people don't exist - you're deluded there too.
To be not evil, Soylent only has to be _not worse_ than the average existing diet.
Now, I agree that a complete meal replacement product should get more scrutiny than the average person's diet - and Soylent is! I certainly haven't had my diet designed by a group of food scientists or dieticians.
> the level of vitriol and anger [...] that the entire _concept_ of trying to create a meal replacement product is morally wrong
You're right there. Some people really do have a strong emotional response against the idea, which makes them put forward nitpicking arguments against it.
Will the initial implementations of Soylent be perfect? Probably not. But there is no reason why it's impossible to make an all-in-one food that is tasty, nutritious, convenient and cheap, so I'm sure that if enough effort is put into doing so, eventually it will happen.
When it happens, it's unlikely that I will solely eat Soylent; I like cooking and I like varienty. But I wouldn't be surprised if I come to use it for 30% of my calorific intake.
(For examples, just read the comments on this article, or any of the Soylent-related articles).
It seems to be based on a presumption that we all have amazing, carefully designed and scientifically tested diets as is, and Soylent is going to make our diets demonstrably worse, or (apparently) make us really sick, or (even) kill us.
Given that 69.2% of the adult US population is overweight, it would seem that our current amazing diets are perhaps not working.
Of course, the vast majority of us make it up as we go along, influenced by food manufacturers and marketing, and the people around us, as well as our parents.
Sure, food manufacturers have more scrutiny than you or I, but no one is making sure that any particular combination of food in the supermarket is going to lead to a healthy diet - nothing stops me from choosing and carrying out a bad diet - and many many people 'choose' and carry out bad diets as is.
Do you seriously think that, when the supermarket put in an entire aisle of confectionery, that they were doing it as some attempt to give us a good diet?
Or that coke is attempting to help us lose weight when the dump all that sugar - or HFCS - in?
If you think the person buying Taco Bell for breakfast, McDonalds for lunch, and KFC for dinner is following a carefully designed, healthy diet, you are deluded. If you think these people don't exist - you're deluded there too.
To be not evil, Soylent only has to be _not worse_ than the average existing diet.
Now, I agree that a complete meal replacement product should get more scrutiny than the average person's diet - and Soylent is! I certainly haven't had my diet designed by a group of food scientists or dieticians.