I heard about Soylent when it was first announced to raise funding for public production. I was at first disgusted at the idea that somebody would want to shun food for a drink. I love food.
But, later, as I sat eating and not really enjoying a subway sandwich, I realized that there wasn’t much difference between the solid filler I was holding in my hands and Rob Rhinehart’s liquid nutrition. Except that Rob’s idea was going to be cheaper and geared toward a better calculation of your needs from a meal.
So I bought a month’s supply.
If you know anything about Soylent, you probably know that a year later, production is still stunted, but I haven’t been in a hurry. I have been sitting back and waiting. However, recently, a friend decided to get in on the diy.soylent.me movement and try to make his own. My middle name being DIY, I figured I should follow suit. Matt picked a recipe with few ingredients that meets the full daily requirements, and he sourced most of them off of Amazon Prime. After the work he did, it didn’t even feel like DIY anymore…
My recipe is really just Matt’s recipe. I don’t buy the corn meal on Amazon, because it is much cheaper in the store. This recipe is also based on the original People Chow recipe. You can reference the original recipe for full nutritional information.
This recipe tastes like a blended, slightly sweet tortilla. It is alright, pretty cheap, and easy to mix up. I use it periodically to replace lunches and sometimes breakfasts. It isn’t perfect, It is a little gritty, and the corn flavor is not for everyone.
My Soylent has finally arrived though. The comparison is pretty stark. Real Soylent is much more what you would expect from a meal replacement shake. It has a stronger vanillaish flavor, and blends up much better. It is… kind of a delight. When I read reviews about it being flavorless, it starts to feel like a bit of a hit job. The online world loves to be cynical, and so it is easy to get away with that here. I would say it is everything I am looking for though.
Soy lecithin emulsification
In the DIY version the oil reacts like… well oil… in water. It doesn’t mix up. You have to shake it up before drinking. I have been experimenting with using liquid soy lecithin to emulsify it. That has actually been pretty great so far…
1g Now Liquid Soy Lecithin
- Add the oil from the recipe and the liquid Soy Lecithin to a blender
- Spoon the lecithin into the oil while blending. It should blend in pretty easy.
- Now slowly blend in about a cup of water. Slow at first, but you can speed up after the emulsification starts (it will be cloudy).
- Now you can add this mixture to your powder mixture and water and shake it up.
Xantham gum can help stabilize this and can thicken things up if you want more of a shake consistency, but the People Chow is already pretty thick generally.