I liked the idea of Soylent as soon as I read about it. A powder that, when added to water and some oils becomes a nutritionally complete meal that’ll last you a whole day? Sign me up!

Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t dislike food. In fact I love food, and I love to cook. Maybe it’s not even the food so much as the different flavours that you can combine to your heart’s desire. I’ve even been known to post entire photosets to Facebook showing the process of raw ingredients turning into a delicious stew (my speciality).

Back when I was in college I often had some free time during the day, which left me more than enough time and energy for my culinary experiments. But once I started working nine to five that changed quickly. Especially in recent months I’ve been cooking for myself less and less, and have lived on ready-made meals more and more frequently. They were good meals, and tasty — I made sure of that. But the amount of thought that goes into organizing a nutritionally balanced, environmentally responsible and yet tasty diet was, to me at least, more effort than it was worth.

And that was just dinner, the most involved meal of the day. Here in the Netherlands our breakfast and lunch consist overwhelmingly of just one staple item: self-made sandwiches. Now here’s the problem: I don’t like the taste of bread — I never have. On my days off I could try to at least go for the more luxurious offerings: croissants, bagels, nuts-and-fruits buns. But even that wasn’t working. And during working days I was working my way slowly through simple sandwiches alongside my colleagues. It just wasn’t working for me.

It’s not all or nothing

By the time I learned about Soylent there had already been some reviews. Invariably, a journalist would describe how he tried to eat nothing but Soylent for a month but missed the taste and, most of all, the experience of eating regular food too much to make it through. Of course, once they strayed a little bit from the diet they prescribed themselves they felt they’d ‘failed’ and had to give up. From this they’d conclude that Soylent is an interesting idea in theory that just doesn’t work in practice.

I’m pretty sure these guys don’t get it. For one thing, these reviewers would usually describe how much they enjoyed regular food. Now, I might not be the expert here, but to me it doesn’t sound like a very good plan to force yourself into a diet that replaced all regular food when it’s exactly that kind of food that you like so much. Besides, people who deeply enjoy food aren’t exactly Soylent’s target audience, now are they?

But more than that, I think these reviewers are missing the point. Soylent is not a way to ban all regular food for those who “hate food”. It’s not another special diet such as we see pop up every year, especially around beach season. Soylent isn’t only for people who have no taste, or dislike the social experiences that accompany regular food.

Soylent. is. a. convenience.

Soylent replaces those meals that you were never going to put any effort into anyway, and then steps out of the way when it’s not needed. Want to go out to lunch with your business partner? Go ahead! Walking by a fancy restaurant and feel like checking it out? Nothing is stopping you. Coming home after a long day at the office with no energy to do more than heat up a frozen dinner? Soylent is here for you! Get the pitcher out, pour yourself a glass, no waiting, no effort, and no guilt over eating the nutritional equivalent of cardboard.

Once you’ve prepared a batch (good for three square meals), it goes in the fridge overnight. It will keep just fine if you leave it in there for another day or two. So replace the meals you don’t want to bother with, and spend your energy on those you do. This is the easy life that Soylent offers, or at least that is how I see it.

I’ve waited a while to see whether I could get my hands on the finished product but it’ll probably be some time before Soylent is available outside of the US. Not to worry: here’s DIY Soylent, to the rescue. My fellow countrymen have already developed great recipes using locally available ingredients. All that was left for me to do was to order it all up, mix my first batch and it’d be goodbye to hated bread, hello to Soylent breakfast, lunch and possibly dinner for me. Which is exactly what I did.

At the time I’m writing this, I’ve already been living care-free on my own Soylent mix for a couple of days, and I have yet to find any reason to quit anytime soon. I’ve even been tweaking the recipe, slowly making it my own. I’m looking forward to seeing where this road will lead, but I don’t expect any dramatic changes to my life. After all, it’s just food…