Soylent (meal replacement)

A Soylent package, along with the powder and resulting drink

In January 2013, American software engineer Rob Rhinehart purchased 35 chemical ingredients—including potassium gluconate, calcium carbonate, monosodium phosphate, maltodextrin, and olive oil—all of which he deemed necessary for survival, based on his readings of biochemistry textbooks and U.S. government websites.[3][4] Rhinehart used to view food as a time-consuming hassle and had resolved to treat it as an engineering problem. He blended the ingredients with water and consumed only this drink for the next thirty days. Over the course of the next two months, he adjusted the proportions of the ingredients to counter various health issues and further refined the formula.[3][5][6] Rhinehart claimed a host of health benefits from the drink and noted that it had greatly reduced his monthly food bill, which fell from about US$470 to $155, and the time spent behind the preparation and consumption of food while providing him greater control over his nutrition.[3]

Rhinehart's blog posts about his experiment attracted attention on Hacker News,[4][7] eventually leading to a crowdfunding campaign on Tilt that raised about $1.5 million in preorders[8][9] aimed at moving the powdered drink from concept into production. Media reports detailed how operations began for Soylent Nutrition, Inc., in April 2014, using a relatively small $500 system to ship the first $2.6 million worth of product.[10] In January 2015, Soylent received $20 million in Series A round funding, led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.[11] In 2017, the company raised $50 million in venture funding.[12] In 2023, Soylent was acquired by Starco Foods, the third Starco acquisition in six months.[12]

Soylent is named after a food in Harry Harrison's 1966 science fiction novel, Make Room! Make Room![13] In the book, most types of "soylent" are made from soy and lentils, hence the name of the product, a combination of "soy" and "lent". The word also evokes the 1973 film adaptation, Soylent Green, in which the eponymous food is made from human remains.[4] Rhinehart has said he chose the name, with its morbid associations, to pique curiosity and deeper investigation, since the name was clearly not chosen with a traditionally "flashy" marketing scheme in mind.[14]

Soylent was only available for purchase and shipment within the United States until June 15, 2015, when it began shipping to Canada.[15] In October 2017, Canada disallowed further shipments due to a failure to meet food regulations on meal replacements;[16] shipments to Canada resumed in 2020.[17]

In July 2017, 7-Eleven stores in and around Los Angeles became the first offline venues to sell Soylent.[18] By April 2018, the product was sold in over 8,000 U.S. 7-Elevens and was available at Walmart, Target, Kroger, and Meijer.[19] By 2021, over 28,000 retail stores carried Soylent.[12]

The makers of Soylent claim it contains the nutrients necessary for a healthy lifestyle.[20]

Some people have experienced gastrointestinal problems from consumption of Soylent, particularly flatulence.[21][22]

Soylent has gone through multiple iterations since its release, which have significantly changed the flavor, texture, and nutritional ingredients.

Rhinehart called the flavor of the original versions "minimal", "broad", and "nonspecific".[38] Soylent 1.0 contained soy lecithin and sucralose as masking flavors and to adjust appearance, texture, and smell.[39] Before version 1.4, vanillin was included as an ingredient for flavoring.[40]

Dylan Matthews of The Washington Post noted in 2013 that Soylent fulfills a similar need as medical foods like Abbott Laboratories' Jevity, but at a much lower cost.[41]

Reviews on the taste of powdered Soylent have varied. Writing for The Verge, Chris Ziegler said he was "pleasantly surprised" with the "rich, creamy, and strangely satisfying" flavor,[22] and a reviewer for Business Insider likened it to a vanilla milkshake with the texture of pancake batter,[42] while a writer for The Guardian wrote that it was "purposefully bland", "vile", and made the taster "gag".[43]

Farhad Manjoo of The New York Times said he "found Soylent to be a punishingly boring, joyless product".[21] Chris Ziegler of The Verge, who experimented with subsisting only on Soylent for almost a month, said that although he liked and "never really tired of the flavor", he still concluded that "Soylent isn't living, it's merely surviving", and described the apple he ate at the end of that period as "my first meal back from the abyss" and the best he'd ever had in his life.[22] A writer for Gawker said he "was having trouble getting it down" and eventually "dumped the whole thing in the sink".[44]

Both Manjoo and Ziegler said they had experienced some gastrointestinal problems from drinking the product.[22][21] Lee Hutchinson of Ars Technica also reported a brief period of "adaptation gas" at the beginning of a four-day experiment.[14]

The mocha-flavored version has been described as similar to a "caffeinated Nesquik drink".[45]

• Nutritionism
• Protein shake
• Therapeutic food

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Soylent.

• Official website