Soylent – a meal in a cup.
Have you ever noticed that in science fiction movies there always seems to be some kind of food replacement with an incredibly unappetising name? I’m not talking about the three-course meal chewing gum from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, because that sounded amazing, besides the unfortunate side effects.
No, I’m talking about convenient, and often flavourless, food stuff that exists purely for nutritional value and survival. Firefly had the Alliance Food Bar, Lost in Space had Protein Pills, and in an amusing parody, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy had the The Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser – a device which produced a liquid that was “almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.”
It seems that this fantastical notion of flavourless sustenance may be stepping out of the world of science fiction and onto the supermarket shelves in the near future, thanks to Rob Rhinehart – a 24-year-old software engineer from Atlanta. Rhinehart has managed to concoct a kind of creamy beige smoothie that supposedly contains all of the nutrients that the body needs to survive. The name of this scientific breakthrough? Soylent. That’s right, as in Soylent Green, which according to the movie of the same name was made out of people. Rhinehart has pointed out that in the original book, soylent green was in fact made out of lentils and soy, but his choice of product name is still incredibly amusing.
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