When you don’t want to eat people – Soylent

“Soylent the wonder food, not so wonderful.”

So opines Richard Graves of Tactical Fanboy after his taste test of what the manufacturer describes as “delicious” and “satisfying.”

“My first taste was like eating liquidized paper, as in, it tasted like printer paper smells, with a creamy consistency. As I kept trying it, I kind of… ‘got used to it’, but there was never a point where I found it completely palatable. For me, the taste shifted from “liquidized paper” to “liquid bread” as I kept drinking it, which was better, but also still pretty disconcerting. I realize there are people who have transitioned completely to Soylent for their day-to-day nutrition, but for me, it’s a last resort option.”

Not terribly appetizing, but then Soylent might not necessarily be something an Epicurean willingly puts on the table. From a disaster survival or other emergency perspective it probably has something to say for it. It is available in drink or powder form, the former in 12- to 144-bottle packages, each bottle recyclable, each delivering 400 kcals boasting a “…smooth texture with a subtle, delicious flavor.” Presumably none of it is (was) your neighbor.

Creamy printer paper is indeed subtle and delicious. We'll probably relegate Soylent to a SHTF or TEOTWAKI measure. Maybe we can get the guys at OFFGRID drunk enough they'll agree to live on Soylent for a month and tell us what they think.

Soylent of course shares a name with Soylent Green, from the 1973 Charlton Heston movie directed by Richard Fleischer. In that film, set in a dystopian 2022 future, the starving masses eat “high energy plankton” from the Soylent Corporation. Of course, as any sci-fi fan knows, that plankton is actually people.

Read the original in its entirety here.