It lasts for years without refrigeration, preparing it is as easy as measuring out your daily dose and mixing it with water
There’s a romance to food. It’s one of life’s great sensory and social pleasures. But a lot of us don’t eat healthily, and a lot of us don’t enjoy the process of preparing food, especially when we’re eating alone. Furthermore, the way we eat today is incredibly wasteful throughout the entire production and consumption process, to the point where it actively damages our bodies and our planet. Enter Soylent: a food engineered to efficiently deliver 100 percent of the healthy body’s needs with minimal waste, junk food-beating convenience and a very low cost, or, as the inventors put it, “creating an efficient form of fuel for humanity for the first time in history.” Food has always been sexy, and this sounds about as exciting as artificial insemination. But when you check out the details, this ambitious plan actually makes a lot of sense.
This is a tough project to look at objectively, because food ranks alongside sex and sleep as one of the great pleasures of life. The subtle dance of flavor and texture, the mystery of the exotic, the social ritual of the shared meal that has glued families, tribes, friends and clans together for hundreds of thousands of years.
But if you can look past the romance and think about food rationally, there are some pretty significant problems with the way we eat in the developed world. For starters, it’s wasteful. If two things cost the same and one is bigger, we’ll go for the bigger one, all else being equal. American restaurant serving sizes have taken this to its logical conclusion. The result is either overeating or perfectly good food going in the bin, not to mention the packaging waste of all that extra food.
Secondly, a lot of us aren’t very good at it. I’d be fascinated to know what percentage of the population genuinely eats well, according to what the body needs, as opposed to overdoing it on the sugars, or salts, or carbs, or fats, or simply leaving out important nutrients because we felt like eating something else that day.
Thirdly, and more broadly speaking, there are supply chain issues. Steak, many people agree, is very tasty. But the land, water, feed and emissions cost of producing it is massive. As we have noted before, the calorie yield of a piece of meat is typically around one fifth of the calorie yield of the grain you’ve fed to raise that cow. Every time I eat a steak, I’m effectively throwing away four times that amount of calories. So I’m prepared to go along with Rob Rhinehart when he says there’s got to be a better way.
The Latest Bing News on:
Replacing food
- Biden orders stopgap relief; food, job protections aim of stepson January 23, 2021 at 6:44 am
President Joe Biden took executive action Friday to speed a stopgap measure of financial relief to millions of Americans affected by the coronavirus pandemic while Congress begins to consider his much ...
- Kingsley looks for options to replace closing grocery storeon January 22, 2021 at 6:30 pm
Kingsley residents will soon experience what so many others who live in small towns have gone through, when Chet's Foods closes on Jan. 31. That will leave the town of ...
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- Biden signs executive orders to boost food benefits, workers' rights as part of Covid relief pushon January 22, 2021 at 11:30 am
Biden has already signed executive orders to offer coronavirus relief as he tries to pass a $1.9 trillion aid package in Congress.
- Food tech startup Egnis emphasizes balanced meals with Labnosh, a meal replacement food brandon January 22, 2021 at 10:01 am
Food tech start-up Egnis launched Labnosh, a meal replacement food brand in 2015, and is expanding its product lineup steadily, presenting the simplest and most balanced meal targeting women in 20s ...
- The Kitchen Tool Ina Garten Thinks You Should Replace Each Yearon January 22, 2021 at 8:27 am
The Barefoot Contessa has taught us a lot over the more than 18 years on air. This is the kitchen tool Ina Garten thinks you should replace every year.
- Biden increases food aid payments to low-income families with childrenon January 22, 2021 at 6:56 am
The program has been plagued with delays this year because of a mix of political failure in Congress and bureaucracy at the Agriculture Department.
- Meal Replacement Products Market Report 2020-2025, Industry Growth, Trends, Share, Size, Top Key Players Analysis and Forecaston January 22, 2021 at 2:11 am
Jan (SUPER MARKET RESEARCH via COMTEX) -- Meal Replacement Products Market Report by Application (Weight Gain, Weight Loss, Physical Fitness, ...
- Biden Signs Orders to Expand Food Stamps and Raise Wages, but Says Economy Needs More Helpon January 22, 2021 at 2:00 am
The president called it an “economic imperative” to provide more aid for millions of Americans who are struggling to make ends meet as the virus exacts a bruising toll.
- Augmented Reality Used in Knee-Replacement Surgery in a U.S. Firston January 21, 2021 at 10:12 pm
A surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York recently performed the first knee-replacement surgeries in the U.S. using augmented reality.
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Replacing food
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Meal replacement products
- Food tech startup Egnis emphasizes balanced meals with Labnosh, a meal replacement food brandon January 22, 2021 at 10:01 am
Food tech start-up Egnis launched Labnosh, a meal replacement food brand in 2015, and is expanding its product lineup steadily, presenting the simplest and most balanced meal targeting women in 20s ...
- Meal Replacement Products Market Report 2020-2025, Industry Growth, Trends, Share, Size, Top Key Players Analysis and Forecaston January 22, 2021 at 2:11 am
Jan (SUPER MARKET RESEARCH via COMTEX) -- Meal Replacement Products Market Report by Application (Weight Gain, Weight Loss, Physical Fitness, ...
- 12 Must-Try Weight Loss Shakes That Are Effective & Deliciouson January 21, 2021 at 2:45 am
Looking to lose some weight? Here are the best weight loss shakes available on Amazon that you can eat as meal replacements.
- High Costs of Pancreatic Enzyme Replacement Therapy Barrier to Medicare Beneficiary Drug Accesson January 20, 2021 at 1:48 pm
Arjun Gupta, MD, Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center (Baltimore, MD), discusses results from a study assessing out-of-pocket and total spending on pancreatic enzyme replacement ...
- The Best Frozen Foods at Walmart in 2021on January 20, 2021 at 11:27 am
Walmart is home to plenty of healthy foods, and the freezer aisles are no exception. Here are some of the best frozen foods at Walmart.
- Yield10 Bioscience Announces Achievement of Proof-of-Concept Milestone for Producing PHA ...on January 19, 2021 at 10:03 pm
(GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Yield10 Bioscience, Inc. (Nasdaq:YTEN), an agricultural bioscience company, today announced successful field testing of prototype lines of the oilseed Camelina sativa that have ...
- Meal moths as food: Europe gives the go ahead for the first insect to eaton January 14, 2021 at 12:56 am
This is stated by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in its first scientific opinion on an insect as a "new food". Which means "green light" throughout the EU. The Commission should therefore ...
- Meal Replacement Products Market Share, Size 2021 Research, Growth Opportunities, Analysis and Forecasts Report 2021-2024| Says Market Reports Worldon January 13, 2021 at 11:25 pm
Global Meal Replacement Products Market 2020 :- report presents the market competition landscape and a corresponding detailed analysis of the major vendor/manufacturers, Production, Revenue, Supply, ...
- Food Tech Startup Raises $8.2 Million For Gut Health Products—And Honors A Sister’s Legacyon January 13, 2021 at 4:00 am
Muniq, a Black-owned, food-as-medicine brand, has raised $8.2 million in a Series A round to expand sales of its nutritional shakes that help lower blood sugar by improving gut health.
- Dad thought '£30' free school meal pack meant to feed daughter for a week 'was a joke'on January 12, 2021 at 6:42 am
A Cheltenham dad has slammed the "£30" free school meals pack meant to feed his daughter for a week. He said it contained little more than bread and ham, and was barely enough to feed 11-year-old Lola ...