Soylent is a startup that makes a nutritional powder and drink that are supposed to be able to replace meals. As part of Silicon Valley’s desire to disrupt everything about modern life—whether it needs to be disrupted or not—Soylent has become a popular company for venture capitalists to back and Valley types to be seen with. The company’s newest drink, Soylent 2.0, was released last October, and costs $32 for 12 bottles. It has seen a marketing push of late, with advertisements appearing on Facebook, Instagram, and other internet properties that millennials and those that want to market to them tend to congregate.
The tech team at Quartz decided to try a bottle—live on Facebook—for the first time today. It’s safe to say that most of us will likely continue to keep eating food, instead of drinking our meals. But in case you’re so fed up with having to carry out that arduous task of taking time to purchase and masticate something a few times a day and are interested to know what Soylent tastes like, here are a few of the descriptions of its flavor that the team came up with in video, and after having the flavor linger for a little while:
- Wet cardboard
- Sand
- Water
- Glue
- The aftertaste of Cheerios cereal
- Licking stamps
- Stale cereal
- Old refrigerated oatmeal
- A taste of nothingness and awfulness
- Not food