To me, what's most interesting is Soylent as a marketing challenge. If people can indeed by optimally nourished by something that is more convenient and cheaper than fast food, then it's bound to become more successful and ubiquitous in the long run. It is, at the very least, the same premise of Chipotle's business: offering something conventionally agreed to as healthy food in a convenient manner at roughly the same cost as other fast food franchises. The ideal outcomes are similar too: healthier people are in a much better position to positively contribute to society.
Do you think that, given the buttload of nutrients we'll need to be prosperously healthy, a complete food product can be engineered? Perhaps the real question is can it be complete and cheap at the same time...
I'm not knowledgeable about nutrition, but if I can directly fund an effort to develop the perfect food, I will. (And have)
But marketing-wise, soylent has already proved itself very successful. It's invented a niche that didn't exist and converted consumers to having a "need" of which they were previously unaware.
That said, I suspect it'll be a niche market. What's more likely is that soylent will be added to other products. Milkshakes ... with soylent! Steak diane ... with soylent!
The classic example is how many obese people discount the calories of "healthy" foods. "Those fruit smoothies don't count, they're healthy". It's a substitution heuristic.
The efficiency is just one benefit of quite a few, many significant.
Different people react differently to different foods, even the same food at different times or under different conditions. His remarks there read a bit like some stuff I've read by the proponents of, variously, vegetarian, paleo and keto diets.
I don't eat breakfast, as a rule. I used to get peckish in the mid-morning, now I don't get hungry until lunchtime. Not being hungry helps me concentrate. I hardly see this as the basis of a new way of life.
We're left to wonder exactly what Rob was cooking for himself when he got off the juice. I support Soylent, but I don't believe you necessarily have to feel this way with only access to mostly whole foods.
Whether or not you enjoy cooking is irrelevant, especially if we stand to gain all that Soylent promises. Soylent won't deprive anyone of the option to cook a meal. If anything it may simply add more value to the act of cooking.
1. Macronutrients, two of which are essential to life.
2. Micronutrients, of which
a. Vitamins are essential to life, and
b. Pseudo-vitamins are critical for health.
c. Other micronutrients with positive effects of various degrees and kinds.
You can absolutely survive for a long time on a reductionist soup. That's what's given to lots of very obese patients in protein-sparing modified fasts. The problem is that there are a metric buttload of micronutrients that improve health in the long term. And new ones are being discovered all the time. The easiest way to get the benefits is ... eat a varied diet. Just like they told you at primary school.
But most of the arguments in favour of soylent are daft. Really, just silly. Save time cooking? Cook something easier. Prevents eating the "wrong thing"? Why is the "wrong thing" even in your house? And so on.
HN is full of people who like to be hyper-rational and so this appeals. But I think it's an example of where myopically optimising one or two parameters leads to foolish outcomes.