Strong feelings and opinions revolve around this experiment. A reader objects to my eating of solid foods at all, even though the instructions clearly state to slowly ramp up my ingestion of the product. Other readers believe that I am pumping my body full of harmful chemicals in spite of what the publicly available list of ingredients says. Ok, I admit the list of ingredients sounds scary, but it’s the same stuff listed on whatever you buy in the supermarket.

Breakfast

I sat down to “enjoy” my breakfast. I was a little hungry in spite of the gigantic Lebanese buffet of the previous night. I am not dreading this, which is both an improvement and a surprise. Interestingly, the glass of cold Soylent goes down easily, and I even enjoyed the “sandy” texture. Weird.

Lunch

The single serving kept me satisfied until lunch time. Timing couldn’t be better – there was an Apple Event to watch so it’s not like I would have gone to a cafeteria. Simple: pour and drink. Satisfied yet not full.

Gym

After work but before dinner I stopped at the gym. In spite of having had nothing but Soylent all day, I didn’t feel hungry and I was able to workout at the same level as usual – which is admittedly pathetic but still. I think this is worth noting.

Dinner

This time I will avoid the wrath of my readers: another full serving of Soylent for dinner. Unlike the previous day, I no longer detect the faint smell of fish oil in it.

On Ars does Soylent, writer Lee Hutchinson described one of the notorious side effects of the original Soylent 1.0 as follows:

It was bad. These weren’t mere ha-ha toot kinds of emissions; this was hair-raising. It was room-clearing, horse-killing, World War I mustard gas-type gas.

I am eating version 1.1. Its main improvement is the addition of “digestive enzymes” that ameliorate the aforementioned issue. I will say the following: when it comes to gases, it has not been the quantity but the quality. These are very high quality farts. Unless you are a person who’s not attached to my own nose, then they are horrendous.

Thankfully, the quantity is small and I’ve avoided displeasing my coworkers more than usual and have had no elevator incidents. I am still happily married and for the next few days I plan on only hanging out with my two friends who have no sense of smell.

But I will add this and I am not joking: given that 1.1 is having this effect on me, I would love to get my hands on some 1.0 just to see what that would be like.

The experiment continues tomorrow. I am now open to deviating from the plain Soylent and welcome suggestions for culinary improvements. Chocolate? Peanut butter? Sriracha?