Soylent, Yeah!
Food, or some type of nutrition and sustenance, is necessary for all species. If you take a look at this pyramid, you can see that the need for food is located at the base of the human needs pyramid. Without that base, the entire pyramid, everything else, collapses.
There’s no doubt about the importance of food, but the problem of efficiency must be tackled. Even today, healthy food might not always be accessible easily and quickly. In developing countries, some people still don’t have access to a steady supply of food. These are all problems that Soylent tries to tackle.
Costing around 9 dollars per day, Soylent promises to provide access to “all of the essential nutrients required to fuel the human body.” In addition to this nutritional advantage, Soylent includes only a minimal amount of added sugars, saturated fat, or cholesterol, three of the leading causes of today’s dietary diseases. Additionally, an average meal of Soylent takes only 3 minutes to produce. What we see here is a food product that satisfies the need behind food itself, nutrition, for an amazingly cheap price at a conveniently fast preparation time.
Despite all this, a prospective buyer still might be skeptical. What if it tastes horrible? What about the societal aspects of food: going out with friends, celebrating with co-workers, or just being together with your family? While Soylent talks about efficiency and convenience, maybe food shouldn’t be consumed so hastily.
While Soylent can be a lot to take in, and its nutritional and financial advantages might not seem as tantalizing, let’s look to other places. In many developing countries, people suffer from malnutrition due to a lack of food. Soylent, with its plethora of nutrients and its affordability, can bring relief to an otherwise hopeless scenario for these people. With a combination of government funding and humanitarian aid, distributing Soylent to developing countries becomes even more feasible. Since Soylent is a powder, it doesn’t rot easily, which means it can be shipped long distances without the use of preservatives or other unhealthy methods.
Food has always been a struggle for humanity, even today, but it doesn’t need to be this way. Soylent has the potential to revolutionize the world by providing convenient yet healthy meals to aid the plight of others around the world.
