From the beginning, Soylent was shorthand for a certain kind of guy. A guy who worked in tech and probably wore a hoodie. A guy who, despite his six-figure salary, lived in an unfurnished apartment. Soylent Guy, above all else, did not have time for quotidian tasks such as cooking and chewing. One way you knew this was that he slugged the nutrient-dense slurry known as Soylent. Remember Soylent' In the mid-2010s, Soylent promised to change the world by solving a timeless problem: Everybody has to eat. Instead of chopping vegetables or defrosting a meal, you could fertilize yourself, like a needy rhododendron, with a blend of oat flour, maltodextrin, brown-rice protein, canola oil, fish oil, and just enough sucralose to mask the flavor. For a brief moment, Soylent was beloved'at least in Silicon Valley, where venture capitalists helped turn it into a $170 million brand. It was also a dystopian punch line: What if you stripped life of all joy and bottled the result' Ha! In 2023,...
learn more
