Soylent, day 11
I started with the strawberry flavored Soylent and it actually tastes strawberry.
The white/gray/yellow-ish look of the dry powder morphed into a more suitable red after being mixed with water. That was a bonus because it actually does not look bad either.
The texture is a bit like a smoothie with a bit more oat flakes mixed in than is customary. To test if the mixture changed flavor or texture when stored, I mixed a batch/meal/shake/portion last night and placed it in the fridge over night.
The prepared mixture did not really change flavor or texture over night.
All the other flavors followed the same pattern as the first: Tasted what the label says(OK, the label should maybe state "X-flavored oat flavor"), looked the right color and had an OK texture. And about the texture: You learn to appreciate the seeds in the mixture, because you get something to actually chew on...
All in all a pretty pleasant experience.
I guess to some extent I (and it seems: many others I talked to) were expecting some of that terrible "diet powder" crap that, in my experience at least, has the distinctive taste of "horrible, but I'll endure it to get results even if I know I'll regain any weight loss immediately because I'm eating expensive crap instead of changing my lifestyle". But in that respect I'm happy to be disappointed.
I'm guessing that as Soylent actually contains the stuff your body needs, your body recognizes it as something it can try and even have some more of.
OK, so that sounds all swell and terrific. So what's the catch?
- I feel good. Not better. Not worse. No real change. And I've worked out the same as I usually do, so no problem there.
- Cheaper than my regular diet, but I almost exclusively eat out, so that does not really say that much.
- Mindbogglingly boring. At least to me that loves any good food, be it a juicy food-truck burger at lunch or a long breakfast with a book in my local café on the weekends. To have Soylent as my only food source for any length of time would probably lead to some form of bacon-deficiency induced depression.