Eat to live? That is so yesterday
The lab-grown burger bankrolled by Google's Sergey Brin may not have come to India but another Silicon Valley food innovation — Soylent — has. A liquid meal being touted as the future of food, Soylent has made several Indian techies give up eating.
Twenty-seven-year-old Shirsendu Karmakar was fed up of thinking what to eat, from where and then how to clean up the mess while he was clocking almost 18 hours of work a day (he has a regular 10-6 job and then works into the wee hours on his dream start-up). A bachelor, living with three others, food was a nuisance rather than a sensory pleasure. "Why should I have to think so much about food every time I feel hungry? I am not living in the 20th century.
There should be a default response for hunger," says Karmakar who lives in Delhi. Then he re a d ab o u t Soylent on Hacker News and it was as if his wish had come true. He read up the recipe, cooked a two-week batch, and in September started drinking Soylent instead of eating regular food. He has been on and off it. "I usually make a two-week batch. Then I take a week's break for cooking more and then again I am on it for two weeks," says Karmakar.
Achal Agarwal's reasons for going off food were similar. "Food took up so much mental space and time that I wanted to see how my life will change if I removed food from the equation," says 27-year-old Aggarwal who is co-founder of Airwoot, a Delhi-based social customer support company. He went off food from September 15 to October 1. "I had only five conventional meals during this 45 day period," says Aggarwal. He adds that not eating also reduced his carbon footprint, as he is not using fuel to procure food and cook it. "Now I look at eating food as a leisure activity to be pursued when I have time," he adds. The first few days he had to battle cravings but over the time his system got used to the new food.
An interesting and ironic spin-off of going without food for 30-year-old Harsh Batra, director of EthosData Limited in Delhi, has been renewed respect for food. "Now when I have regular food, say once a week, the experience is amazing. Never has food tasted so good," says Batra who has been taking Soylent since September. His motivation was convenience and better sports performance. Batra works out every day and plays cricket, and after the first month of consuming Soylent he says his performance on the pitch improved remarkably. The effect, however, didn't last. Now, he is looking for a sports scientist who can tweak his Soylent formula to enhance sports performance.
All these three men decided to ditch food after reading about the potion that Rob Rhinehart, a San Franciscobased techie, had developed because he wanted nutrition without the hassle of food. The 25-year-old studied the recommended daily requirements of nutrients for a healthy male, as listed by the Institute of Medicine, and came up with a formula, which is a cocktail of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, sugars, vitamins and minerals. It's in powder form but consumed as a drink like any other protein shake. The name 'Soylent' is taken from a 1964 novel 'Make Room! Make Room!' by Harry Harrison. In the book Soylent is made from soy and lentils as a cheap food for the masses.
While Soylent may do little to address the problem of food security, for Rhinehart it has emerged as a sound business proposition, securing $1.5 million in seed capital from venture capital and angel investor firms in Silicon Valley.
Rhinehart experimented with Soylent for 30 days in January-February this year and blogged about it. In o n e p o s t he wrote: "Monthly I was spending about $220 on groceries, and another $250 eating out for lunch and the occasional dinner. Consuming only Soylent costs me about $50/month." Like Rhinehart, Batra has been painstakingly logging details of his Soylent experiment on Facebook. He regularly uploads his blood test results. "My cholesterol levels were always high but now I see an improvement. However, my liver function count has come below the healthy range," says Batra, whose girlfriend has also started taking Soylent. "She wants to lose weight," he adds. Consuming Soylent does lead to fat loss, as you are not eating fatty foods. He carries his jar of Soylent to dinners and parties with friends and family. "It has become a great conversation starter," says Batra laughing. Since Soylent currently does not have the FDA's approval to sell outside the US, Indians are making their own formula by sourcing locally available ingredients. Consuming Soylent costs roughly Rs 500 a day — quite economical considering the spiralling prices of vegetables and groceries.
Nutritionists may be divided on the risks of giving up food but for Karmakar the experiment has worked out well so far. He says it has helped him stave off allergies. "The level of allergens in my blood came down," says Karmakar. Aggarwal reported fewer headaches. His colleague and co-founder of Airwoot, Saurabh Arora, says that during the 45-day period Aggarwal performed better at work. "He reported fewer errors and submitted his code earlier than usual," says Arora.
Dr Devashish Saini, MD internal medicine, says that as long as the body is getting all the essential nutrition the means should not be a problem. "The human body has the capacity to adapt to new ways of metabolism. For example, astronauts take food in form of pills. There may be issues with satiety though," he says.
Taste is a sacrifice that Soylent drinkers say they are ready to make in order to revolutionize the idea of food.
Twenty-seven-year-old Shirsendu Karmakar was fed up of thinking what to eat, from where and then how to clean up the mess while he was clocking almost 18 hours of work a day (he has a regular 10-6 job and then works into the wee hours on his dream start-up). A bachelor, living with three others, food was a nuisance rather than a sensory pleasure. "Why should I have to think so much about food every time I feel hungry? I am not living in the 20th century.
There should be a default response for hunger," says Karmakar who lives in Delhi. Then he re a d ab o u t Soylent on Hacker News and it was as if his wish had come true. He read up the recipe, cooked a two-week batch, and in September started drinking Soylent instead of eating regular food. He has been on and off it. "I usually make a two-week batch. Then I take a week's break for cooking more and then again I am on it for two weeks," says Karmakar.
Achal Agarwal's reasons for going off food were similar. "Food took up so much mental space and time that I wanted to see how my life will change if I removed food from the equation," says 27-year-old Aggarwal who is co-founder of Airwoot, a Delhi-based social customer support company. He went off food from September 15 to October 1. "I had only five conventional meals during this 45 day period," says Aggarwal. He adds that not eating also reduced his carbon footprint, as he is not using fuel to procure food and cook it. "Now I look at eating food as a leisure activity to be pursued when I have time," he adds. The first few days he had to battle cravings but over the time his system got used to the new food.
An interesting and ironic spin-off of going without food for 30-year-old Harsh Batra, director of EthosData Limited in Delhi, has been renewed respect for food. "Now when I have regular food, say once a week, the experience is amazing. Never has food tasted so good," says Batra who has been taking Soylent since September. His motivation was convenience and better sports performance. Batra works out every day and plays cricket, and after the first month of consuming Soylent he says his performance on the pitch improved remarkably. The effect, however, didn't last. Now, he is looking for a sports scientist who can tweak his Soylent formula to enhance sports performance.
All these three men decided to ditch food after reading about the potion that Rob Rhinehart, a San Franciscobased techie, had developed because he wanted nutrition without the hassle of food. The 25-year-old studied the recommended daily requirements of nutrients for a healthy male, as listed by the Institute of Medicine, and came up with a formula, which is a cocktail of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, sugars, vitamins and minerals. It's in powder form but consumed as a drink like any other protein shake. The name 'Soylent' is taken from a 1964 novel 'Make Room! Make Room!' by Harry Harrison. In the book Soylent is made from soy and lentils as a cheap food for the masses.
While Soylent may do little to address the problem of food security, for Rhinehart it has emerged as a sound business proposition, securing $1.5 million in seed capital from venture capital and angel investor firms in Silicon Valley.
Rhinehart experimented with Soylent for 30 days in January-February this year and blogged about it. In o n e p o s t he wrote: "Monthly I was spending about $220 on groceries, and another $250 eating out for lunch and the occasional dinner. Consuming only Soylent costs me about $50/month." Like Rhinehart, Batra has been painstakingly logging details of his Soylent experiment on Facebook. He regularly uploads his blood test results. "My cholesterol levels were always high but now I see an improvement. However, my liver function count has come below the healthy range," says Batra, whose girlfriend has also started taking Soylent. "She wants to lose weight," he adds. Consuming Soylent does lead to fat loss, as you are not eating fatty foods. He carries his jar of Soylent to dinners and parties with friends and family. "It has become a great conversation starter," says Batra laughing. Since Soylent currently does not have the FDA's approval to sell outside the US, Indians are making their own formula by sourcing locally available ingredients. Consuming Soylent costs roughly Rs 500 a day — quite economical considering the spiralling prices of vegetables and groceries.
Nutritionists may be divided on the risks of giving up food but for Karmakar the experiment has worked out well so far. He says it has helped him stave off allergies. "The level of allergens in my blood came down," says Karmakar. Aggarwal reported fewer headaches. His colleague and co-founder of Airwoot, Saurabh Arora, says that during the 45-day period Aggarwal performed better at work. "He reported fewer errors and submitted his code earlier than usual," says Arora.
Dr Devashish Saini, MD internal medicine, says that as long as the body is getting all the essential nutrition the means should not be a problem. "The human body has the capacity to adapt to new ways of metabolism. For example, astronauts take food in form of pills. There may be issues with satiety though," he says.
Taste is a sacrifice that Soylent drinkers say they are ready to make in order to revolutionize the idea of food.
No comments:
Post a Comment