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The End of Food?

newyorker.com

1–10 of 74 posts

Re: The End of Food?

#2
I would personally be happy if I had the option to have a convenient liquid meal replacement, but I'm also skeptical Soylent is going to be the solution to it.

There's still too much we don't know about how we get nutrients from food to be able to fully replace fresh unpackaged products with powders. I suspect we're still at least a few decades away from being able to do that safely on the long term.

Nutrition research has been terribly inconclusive for the past century and there's no indication that this is changing anytime soon. It's not the researchers' fault: the domain is incredibly complex when you take in consideration various timespans, all the various human generic permutations etc.

Re: The End of Food?

#3
This screams link bait title, similar to "The End of the PC". Who knows what the longterm effects of Soylent are. At best, it's a supplement, and at worst... I don't even want to know. With that said, Soylent has a potential to make a big impact. But you can't scream that this is the end of food just because there is a cheaper and more efficient way of getting your nutrients. Eating food is a staple of our culture and the way we socialize revolves around it.

Re: The End of Food?

#4
post #3

This screams link bait title, similar to "The End of the PC". Who knows what the longterm effects of Soylent are. At best, it's a supplement, and at worst... I don't even want to know. With that said, Soylent has a potential to make a big impact. But you can't scream that this is the end of food just because there is a cheaper and more efficient way of getting your nutrients. Eating food is a staple of our culture an…

We barely know the long term effect of traditional food items out there.

Re: The End of Food?

#6
post #3

This screams link bait title, similar to "The End of the PC". Who knows what the longterm effects of Soylent are. At best, it's a supplement, and at worst... I don't even want to know. With that said, Soylent has a potential to make a big impact. But you can't scream that this is the end of food just because there is a cheaper and more efficient way of getting your nutrients. Eating food is a staple of our culture an…

The article addresses your concerns. First - the author lives almost entirely on Soylent for the past year and half. The reporter wrote that he looked and behaved really healthy. Sure, there could be some side effects that will manifest much later, but to this date it seems that there are none. Second - he doesn't believe that Soylent will, or should, replace food entirely. He calls everything else "recreational food" and says that Soylent is a replacement for frozen stuff that you eat because its cheap and gives you calories, not for meals in restaurants that are meant to socialize.

Re: The End of Food?

#7

I would personally be happy if I had the option to have a convenient liquid meal replacement, but I'm also skeptical Soylent is going to be the solution to it. There's still too much we don't know about how we get nutrients from food to be able to fully replace fresh unpackaged products with powders. I suspect we're still at least a few decades away from being able to do that safely on the long term. Nutrition resear…

The way I see it is that so many people get by on nutrient-low, unbalanced diets that it's impossible to know exactly what the optimal combinations of food to eat really is. Humans are pretty resilient.

I doubt Soylent will be better or worse for you than the diet of a typical HN user if taken in the long term. Time will also tell: if after 5 years no adverse health effects are reported after a sufficient number of heavy users begin drinking it, then that's probably as best a "green light" as one could ever get.

Re: The End of Food?

#8
> One of Silicon Valley’s cultural exports in the past ten years has been the concept of “lifehacking”: devising tricks to streamline the obligations of daily life, thereby freeing yourself up for whatever you’d rather be doing

Well, to be frank, I'd rather be eating. What's the point of your life if you don't have time to even eat, let alone enjoy yourself.

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