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> we know people do fine on traditionally healthy food

This is a valid point to an extent, but we don't know that people do fine on a particular subset of traditionally healthy ingredients. We may discover that Soylent lacks some subtle nutrient, but we could discover the same thing with MealSquares.

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The body reflexes to things like mastication, salivation, etc triggered by texture and the presence of actual things in your mouth, so I think the (bias of) argument is more along the lines of reducing the variables away from normal eating. If you look at the military and other people who "starve for a living" (hikers, climbers, explorers etc), these considerations are very self-evident and at the forefront of mind. Its not clear that "wishing them away" (considerations of texture/pallatability) is backed up by any hard science. But I'd be curious to see if there are any leads in that direction.

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