There's no science here. This so-called experiment is worthless IMHO.

Feeding people all-liquid diets to keep them alive is well known. That's what happens to coma patients and lots of work in creating enteral nutrition products has been done. Given that people's lives depend on this that's a good place to start (take a look at, for example, Jevity [3]). And the people who make that stuff worry about keeping your gastrointestinal system working, the right balance of everything needed to keep a (in this case, sick) person alive, how to keep the product from spoiling, etc.

So, he's not creating something new.

The other argument against the existing products is price. Here's a quick comparison. He claims that it costs him $155 per month [1]. If he were to live on Jevity 1.5 he'd need to drink 4.2 cans per day at a cost of $57/24 per can (it's sold in packs of 24 cans [2]) or $9.98 per day which is roughly $300 a month. (If he ups the kcal to 2,000 a day from the 1,500 he was on then he'd need to drink 5.6 cans a day which is $400 a month).

So, he'd be spending 2 to 2.5 times what he currently is. But he'd be spending it on a product that's been quality controlled and tested.

Is there any indication that he can fundamentally change the economics of this type of food? I don't think so. Especially when you factor in all the work that the makers of Jevity etc. are doing at that price point (the QA, the distribution, the packaging).

And certainly not enough to meet all his other goals about solving world hunger.

If a market for soylent emerges then I'd imagine that companies that make things like Jevity would step in. Oh wait, they already do. There's Ensure etc.

Also, there's so much other crap in his blog posts about how soylent lasts forever [4], how no one need muscles anyway [5], how even stopping eating soylent for a week led to massive cognitive problems [5], that it's hard to take the whole thing seriously.

And then there's this [1]: "I for one would not miss the stereotype of the housewife in the kitchen. Providing diverse, palatable, and nutritious meals for an entire family every day must be exhausting. What if taking a night off didn't mean unhealthy pizza or expensive take out? How wasteful society has been with its women! The endless hours spent cooking and cleaning in the kitchen could be replaced with socializing, study, or creative endeavors."

Ah yes, soylent is not only going to solve world hunger, make us more healthy, save time, make us more creative, save money: it's going to emancipate women!

But there's more [5]: "We no longer live in a hunter-gatherer society. I have no use for bulging biceps. No one in the United States plows fields or hammers steel. It has all been automated. We need mental strength. We need creativity, patience, discipline, and humility. If people had more self-control obesity would take care of itself. Perhaps companies would be more productive if managers had more humility and employees had more discipline."

Yes, soylent will result in an increase in humility and all those fat people who lack self-discipline will be thin.

Hooray.

[1] http://robrhinehart.com/?p=298

[2] http://www.abbottstore.com/jevity+reg/jevity-15-cal-8-oz-can...

[3] http://abbottnutrition.com/brands/products/jevity-1_5-cal

[4] http://www.soylent.me claims it 'lasts for years'

[5] http://robrhinehart.com/?p=570