A little over a week ago, I got my first shipment of Soylent after patiently waiting for 5 months. I decided that I was going to try eating it every day for lunch, only to see if I could figure out what all of the hype was. For those that don’t know what Soylent is, Soylent is a powdered “food” that you mix with water and an oil additive, which can supposedly replace meals, or even your entire diet. Indeed, there are people that claim they are living entirely off of Soylent.

Soylent Boxes

The idea is compelling for a couple of reasons. Firstly, if it lives up to its claim, it is cost effective. It works out to just over $4 a meal for me. If I had reoccurring shipments, it works out $3.33 a meal. Packing lunch every evening is a bit of a hassle, and even when I do I’m always in a rush in the morning and leave it in the fridge. Lunch in Washington DC can get expensive. A simple sandwich will run you about $6. Over a working week, that adds up quite a bit. Halving those costs seemed appealing, and I wouldn’t have to do any preparation, I can just leave a bag of Soylent at work. Secondly, it supposedly provides balanced nutrition. It’s tempting to eat junk food for lunch and convince yourself it isn’t that bad.

Preparing it is dead simple. You mix water and Soylent together in a 2:1 ratio by volume, and add the oil mixture to it. The powder itself provides most of the nutrition and mass, the oil adds Omega-3. The oil is based on algal, or algae, which means Soylent happens to be vegan, too.

Soylent Bag

Soylent provides a pitcher for making large quantities of Soylent at once, which isn’t exactly what I wanted. The life of “prepared” Soylent is about 2 days when refrigerated. I wanted to keep it in its powdered form as long as I can, and I don’t want to occupy too much space in the work fridge. Soylent instructs you to mix it together and shake and stir it a bit, but I found the texture to be very grainy and clumpy at first. I then opted to get a Jaxx shaker for a few dollars. Preparing the Soylent in one of these fixes the clumpy-ness and it comes out pretty smooth. For taste, I think it is quite pleasant. I was rather surprised, it has a vanilla and oats taste. Since most of the mass and carbohydrates of Soylent is powdered oats, it makes sense. It wasn’t too sweet or undersweet.

It took me a day or two to figure out how to get “full” from it. Soylent is pretty much a liquid, and I never felt satiated by it at first. The hunger just eventually evaporated after 30 minutes to an hour of eating. One thing that did help with that is splitting the meal. I’ll eat one half, wait and hour or so, then eat the second half. That helps me feel fuller, and it keeps me feeling ull for longer.

Some have heard that Soylent makes some people rather gassy. I myself haven’t experienced this, however I’m not doing a full diet of Soylent. Soylent also recommends a few over the counter enzymes to help with digestion if it is a problem, but I haven’t had the need.

I decided to sign up for a reoccurring subscription since this seems to be working for me. I still continue to enjoy food, but I’m rather happy with Soylent for lunches. I don’t know if I would recommend it if you think it is weird — it is weird. But if the benefits seem appealing to you and it’s something you want to try, go for it.