When Soylent, the nutritionally complete meal replacement, first debuted, I was incredibly skeptical. I love food. A lot. And the idea of devoting any of the allotment of calories I can healthily consume in a given day to something so comparatively bland and boring seemed silly. However, I recently decided to try it and quickly became an enthusiastic convert. I can’t imagine going for long without real food, but I could never imagine doing the same now with Soylent either.
I embarked on this experiment with my girlfriend, and we originally planned to just replace breakfast with Soylent. We ordered two boxes, one of Cacao and one of Nectar. The flavoring in the latter, frankly, is disgusting. The lemon notes to it taste more like Lemon Pledge than something belonging in food. However, Cacao tastes like a creamy bottle of chocolate milk. I have yet to try the other flavors, though I have a box of the new Vanilla caffeinated variety on the way.
When one tries any sort of nutritional or health product, it is important to be mindful of the placebo effect. Expecting something to make you feel better will often make it do just that. However, the first bottle left me feeling energetic and satisfied, so we decided to do a second for lunch that day. We have replaced every single breakfast and lunch since, while still allowing for a rather sizable dinner of “real” food.
The results are profound already. I’m down a few pounds. We have spent a lot less time deciding meals, cooking, cleaning up, etc. Waste for these meals is reduced to a single, recyclable bottle. We have saved a lot of money. Even after heavy dinners like pizza, I found myself not feeling the usual bloated fatigue that often comes from consuming unhealthy food.
In a couple of instances, I drank a bottle of Soylent on a completely empty, audibly growingly stomach, worried that it would not be enough to satisfy me. In both cases, not only did it quell the rumbling of my stomach, but it made me feel psychologically satiated as well. It took over four hours before I even had a substantial appetite again.
But what about my love of food? As much as I’ve come to love Soylent Cacao, it certainly is no perfectly medium-rare steak or hearty bowl of curry rice. However, a few weeks ago, I had a realization that prompted me to reconsider Soylent in the first place: by trying to make every meal special, I was ensuring that few meals actually were. I took food for granted.
The real meals I have eaten in the past week are among the most I have ever enjoyed. Never have I felt desperate for real food, but I savor each bite several times more. Before, it was often hard for me to remember what I had eaten more than a couple of days before, despite the fact the food we were eating was anything but boring. But meals blurred together. Now, I have vivid memories of each meal. By whittling down my experiences with food, each becomes more profound.
Soylent is not for everyone, nor could I ever imagine ever giving up real food completely. However, it is easy to underestimate how much food complicates your life and how much Soylent can simplify it. I encounter a lot of people reacting to Soylent with skepticism and/or revulsion, and as someone who used to be staunchly among them, I have to now say flat out: I was wrong.