Hacker News Reader

It must be because:

a. Somebody bothered to post the initial announcement of this guy

b. He describes his process in detail

c. He's a Software Engineer; it would be disingenuous to think that the fact that he's a peer for the members of this audience isn't a factor

I think a large part of its draw on this site is that he's packaged the ideas from the 'hacker' perspective. It's an interesting thought experiment to think of other slightly dated but mainstream activities could do with a similar treatment.

I am positively frustrated that more people don't realize this. Amazon has hundreds of results for "meal replacement shakes" right now.

If I remember correctly, someone addressed this pretty early on with an argument that hinged on economics. I'm going from memory, but I think that living off of the prepackaged predecessors would be either unworkable (not comprehensive nutrition) or prohibitively expensive (treated as medical supplies rather than food).