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Comment by mortenjorck | Hacker News Reader

This is the kind of idea that will probably go nowhere, but could change the world.

My first reaction, being an ardent lover of many ethnic cuisines, was "of course I'd never use something like that" but then I got to this line:

Eating to me is a leisure activity, like going to the movies, but I don't want to go to the movies three times a day.

Suddenly, I'm imagining "A DVR for eating." You have a steady intake of Soylent (the name absolutely must change), and when you have time to prepare a nice meal or go out to a restaurant, you adjust your intake ahead of time so your hunger level is appropriate. Crazy, but now I have another ingredient for my sci-fi universe.

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This stuff, which I'm going to call meal replacement powder [1], already changed the world for two groups of people I know of. First ones are famine victims, who need a special diet to recover, a diet which was time and work intensive for relief workers to prepare until meal replacement formula became widely adopted. Might sound crazy but this plus rehydration salts save lots of unlucky people every year.

Second group are bodybuilders, weightlifters and some elite athletes who want to easily ingest a specific number of calories with a carefully controlled macro-nutrient ratio several times during the day. Doing this through traditional meals is not compatible with a traditional full time job in any shape or form. With meal replacement protein powder it's pretty easy: just add water and maybe some milk to your powder which you already have in your shaker and shake.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=meal+replacement+protein+pow...

I prefer the name Bachelor Chow myself, though I'd try Soylent as well. I wouldn't want to eat it for every meal but every once in a while I'm in such a hurry that it would be practical to do this for a period.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who instantly thought of Futurama. This does seem like a food product for people who are too lazy to make even a simple meal and clean afterwards.

It's not a matter of being lazy. Cooking and eating consumes hours in my day. At least four hours a day, and typically six hrs a day if I get fancy with cooking.

Wow, you need to optimise! I spent less than an hour today cooking and eating a healthy breakfast in the morning, and a healthy dinner (with leftovers) this evening. I bought prepared food for lunch, but it wouldn't have taken me three hours to cook and eat something else...

too lazy, or too busy? I could be doing a bunch of other non-lazy things I much prefer doing instead of cooking, such as coding, exercising, music, reading, etc.

My thoughts exactly.

I'm hoping for it to spread to impoverished countries or slums. If the price of production is indeed low, this could be a great chance for them.

Then let's hope it doesn't get associated too much with homeless people's food, and the rest of the world might adopt it as well. Once a large-scale production industry exists, there might not be such a high threshold for adoption. People are in a hurry to eat so often, if they could just pass by a place to grab some Soylent, they'd certainly take the opportunity.

Yeah some sci-fi books/films have incorporated that idea. For example the scene in the Matrix where they eat goop that contains "everything the body needs".

"It doesn't have everything the body needs." - Mouse

I'd be interested in the long term effects on cognition and mood. I already supplement my eating with mixes of protein powder and half n' half, this could be an interesting addition.

Then you'd probably be interested in this: http://www.angryman.ca/monkey.html

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