Let me see: Each bottle of Soylent, at 400 calories, contains:
Soy protein—forget about avoiding allergens, as soy is allergenic. And to get soy, you certainly have to convert large areas of land to agriculture.
Algal oil—we’ve come full circle now. From converting food (corn) to fuel for our cars, now a company is converting biofuel (algae) to food.
Isomaltulose from beets—again, requiring large areas of land for agriculture, plus wasting all of the other components of the beets, like fiber and tasty redness. Speaking of which, where is the fiber in Soylent?
Vitamins & minerals—each bottle contains 1/5 of the RDA of essential micronutrients. So, to get the full RDA would require drinking 5 bottles—which, for me, is about 500 calories over my daily needs. Furthermore, where do those micronutrients come from? I bet they are extracted from food—again, a huge waste of food and excess use of agricultural lands.
Environmentally, this stuff is clearly not very good for the environment. And it probably would make for a very unhealthy diet if consumed exclusively. It’s major value would be as something to tide one over if one really did not have access to real food for some reason.
Fiber-who needs fiber if this is your only food input. It should run through you like a freight train with no brakes. I wonder if a case of this comes with a box of Depends?