"My co-workers all give me dirty looks," admits the 36-year-old Bushwick, Brooklyn, resident, Kib Bibens, who runs a language school in Manhattan, after bringing his lunch to his work.
He's not eating a tuna sandwich, but somewhat drinking a $2.30 bottle of Soylent, a flavorless, nutrient-packed meal substitute.
"It makes them feel bad. They're like, 'Oh, you're only having 400 calories and you know exactly what you're getting,'" says Bibens, who drinks Soylent for two or three meals a day.
Rob Rhinehart, invented Soylent in 2013 and it isn't intended to be a health drink, but quite a geek-friendly beverage composed of soy protein and suitable for eating algae oil, with every vitamins, minerals, fats, carbs and protein that the entire body desires - and nothing of the moment in time wasted on the definite buying, preparing and eating of food.
Soylent, formerly accessible in powder form only in September, its first premixed product is already in the market, dubbed Soylent 2.0, which appears in handy 400-calorie bottles traded online by subscription (starting at $29 a month for 12 bottles at soylent.com).
"Eating to me is a leisure activity, like going to the movies, but I don't want to go to the movies three times a day," Rhinehart told Vice upon introducing his product.
According to Soylent co-founder David Renteln, most of their customers are busy professionals from ages of 18 and 35.
John Pate Hamilton, 24, who was a little years behind Rhinehart at Georgia Tech, subscribed for the Soylent waitlist the moment he heard the innovative product's crowd-funding movement to raise $100,000.
His first three-meal-a-day was delivered in August 2014, a year after signing up. Hamilton, who works as a production designer, now drinks it one time per day. He says he's never felt hungry and has even gained weight.
"I was probably malnourished, and it helped me get everything I needed," he says. "My best description is that it tastes efficient. After all, who needs taste when you have all that free time? When you get accustomed to consuming a meal in five minutes or less, you get bored sitting in a restaurant," Hamilton explains.
