Having said that, most people -- even very busy people with busy lifestyles and a "poor" food diet -- are not nutritionally deprived (and really, a centrum can alleviate concerns with ease).

There are a lot of valid reasons for products like Soylent. Stocking a bunker, for instance. Or for coping when under low energy (depression, as mentioned elsewhere), or in a critical crunch. But that seems to be such a niche that the presentation on here constantly as if this is the future of food seems like fantasy, and would never get a pass if it weren't that it somehow got bound up in the valley/VC bubble. If Oprah came out and started pushing Soylent, it wouldn't get a mention on here beyond derision.

This is false, particularly for Soylent 2.0. https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/212769503-Glycemic...

I'm not saying Soylent is a super-food, but it is a food that isn't horrible for you (at least not as horrible as you're letting on!)

Both false and misleading. According to the link provided by the parent poster:

-Soylent 1.6 _powder_ has a GI of 60

-Soylent 2.0 _liquid_ has a GI of 49.

Also, note that common white bread has a glycemic index of 75, which is higher than that of table sugar (65), so your statement, even if you had used the right number, is not as much of an indictment as you make it out to be.

Apologies, I should have said Soylent 1.5. Not sure why you decided to say "both false", however, given that sucrose most certainly has a GI of 65. Further, what is the relevance of saying _powder_. You realize that mixing a powder into water generally doesn't reduce its GI, right?

Further, saying "white bread is worse" is a laughable diversion. White bread is considered the unholy worst case for GI, so being better than it is not a high mark.

I beg to differ. White bread and other baked goods like bagels, pizza, etc are a staple of the western diet, so it is absolutely a valid baseline for comparison. People don't regularly consume plain table sugar.

Moreover, as far as I know, Soylent 1.5 powder isn't even being sold anymore. According to the Soylent site, the current version being sold is 1.8.

Therefore, I think I'm perfectly justified in calling your statements misleading.

From the horses mouth, most use cases I've heard are pretty sensible. Very few users treat it as their entire diet. You've a good point that food is great, and it's good to do it right. I'd hope students would take the opportunity to learn, but they rarely do. Still, Soylent or equiv >>> pizza. Most other arguments against it/characterisations are a little circular at best, or reduction to absurdity at worst.

I honestly don't think it exists, though. Cooking and preparing food takes time and creativity.

> Not only is good one of the greatest luxuries in life

See, I promised myself I would leave this thread before people started toting out the arguments isomorphic to "you only eat Soylent 100% of the time! You monster!" - and yet here we are :). I thought I made it clear in my OP, but I don't eat Soylent for every meal- just the meals where, in the absence of Soylent, I would have had something worse.

Does that clear things up?

You announced this at the outset, and remarkably have left a number of comments now. Yet you were the one who keeps bringing up this strawman, and exactly the same circle of argument happens every single time. You, as is the rote cycle, are trying to argue both sides at the same time.

(In my defense I didn't expect my comment to become popular at all. I find it only polite to people asking me direct questions, such as yourself.)

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/24/new-statu...

Care to elaborate? I can cook and know how to eat a balanced set of macro-nutrients, but I find it quite difficult to be consistently health concious when eating out all the time and cooking regularly is anything but minimal effort and time.

So Soylent and real food hardly need to be enemies.

totally agree with this. soylent feels too much like... dog food for humans

Personally, I think this whole "food fetish" mantra is a ridiculous exaggeration. There are literally thousands of things that bring me more pleasure than food.

I love cooking, I love eating, but cooking well takes time, effort, ingredients, shopping trips, storage, inventory management. I can do all that, but when you get right down to it replacing some of my diet with Huel (a British product in the same niche as Soylent, although the composition is substantially different) just makes my life easier. It's tasty enough, it keeps me going, I can be confident that it's giving me a balanced meal, and on a busy day it's saving me a pile of money too.

Then when I do have time, I cook something ridiculously delicious.

For me, this category is about convenience, and it serves it very well.

And there's nothing wrong with that. It's great to enjoy your meals, but you don't always get an opportunity for that.