Trying “Soylent”

I’m giving DIY “Soylent” a try. Mostly as a simple way to manage calories and eat better nutrients. I’ll assume you have no idea what “Soylent” is (hereafter I’m going to omit the quotes) so in a terribly brief summary: It’s all the essential Macro and Micro nutrients a human needs to be healthy, mixed together in powdered form and consumed as a drink.

Since then he did a Kickstarter campaign and they have been moving steadily towards shipping out a product. There is an excellent write-up that gives you (way) more info than you could want: ArsTechnica does Soylent for a week (using the pre-release of the official one). Honestly this series is worth a read just for the hilarity that ensues, especially when he starts tinting it green and red.

I have seriously considered buying a month’s worth but $255 is a little steep, especially when the ship date is indeterminate and keeps slipping. Along with more time and better health one of the other consistent results seems to be weight loss since people are eating the right number of calories; and I’m anxious to do something about that.

So, since the official version isn’t available yet and the official site downright encourages people to try building their own soylent that fits their own specific needs and tastes… I decided to try DIY soylent. After a few days of research I quickly homed in on “People Chow” (because “SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!”) as the most popular DIY recipe, it’s also around $129 a month if you buy it all from Amazon, less if you can find the stuff locally for less. The creator is very active on Reddit and the comments section of that recipe. As of right now he’s updated it to version 2.3.0 with an update to 2.4 coming in the next day or so.

So with all that in mind I went shopping on Jan 1st to see if I could get all the ingredients. I would have gotten away with it if not for those kids if not for most stores being closed for the holiday. So I got what I could and then ordered the rest from Amazon. Then the “polar vortex” shut down the midwest and my order sat on the loading dock waiting for UPS for nearly a week. I finally got it all on Jan 13th.