为吃饭发愁的时候，总想能有一种“营养药片”省去吃饭的麻烦，可是当这种富含人体所需全部营养物的“营养饮料”soylent出现之时，很多人才发现其实吃饭并不只是为了补充能量和摄入营养……
have you ever imagined that one day everything your body needs will come in powder form and all you have to do is add water?
你是否想象过未来的某一天，一袋粉末就能提供我们身体每日所需，而我们唯一需要做的就是加点水冲着喝？
soylent, a drink developed by a group of us engineers, claims it can do just that. it can provide your body with all the nutrients it needs and for as long as you want, you don’t have to eat any other food. this april, soylent shipped its first batch of products to consumers in the us.
来自美国的一个工程师团队声称他们做到了这一点，他们开发出了一款名为soylent的饮料粉，能为我们的身体提供全部营养，而且只要你愿意，食用期间，你无需再吃其他食物。今年4月，第一批soylent已经送达到美国消费者手中。
robert rhinehart is the 25-year-old co-founder and chief executive of the firm selling the drink. he found himself spending too much time and money searching for nutritious meals while he was working in san francisco.
25岁的罗伯特•瑞恩哈特正是这家饮料公司的ceo与共同创始人之一。他发现自己在旧金山工作时，总是将很多的时间和金钱花在寻找营养丰富的菜肴上。
an electrical engineering graduate, rhinehart began to consider food as an engineering problem. “you need amino acids and lipids, not milk itself,” he was quoted as saying by the new yorker: “you need carbohydrates, not bread.” he began to think that food was an inefficient way of getting what he needed to survive.
于是，这位电子工程专业的毕业生开始像思考工程问题一样思考起了食物。《纽约客》引用了瑞恩哈特的原话：“我们需要各种氨基酸和脂肪，而不是牛奶。我们需要的只是碳水化合物，而非面包。”他认为通过摄取食物而获得生存所需，其实是一种低效的行为。
he took a break from work and taught himself about nutrition and nutritional biochemistry. eventually, rhinehart came up with a list of nutrients required for survival. then, he ordered them off the internet — mostly in powder or pill form — and poured everything into a blender, with some water. the result, according to the new yorker article, looked like gooey lemonade. then, rhinehart started living on it. in several interviews, rhinehart said soylent changed his life and made him healthier than ever before.
为此，他专门请假，自学了营养学与营养生物化学，并最终列出了人类生存所需的营养清单。随后，他在网上按照清单购买了这些营养剂（大都是药粉或药片），并将其磨成粉末混合在一起，再加水冲开。《纽约客》的文章则将其比作糊状的柠檬水。自此，瑞恩哈特就开始喝soylent为生，在一些采访中，他说soylent已经改变了他的生活，让他比以前更健康。
fast, but no fun
高效却无趣
rhinehart hopes his product can be a game changer in the food business. but soylent may potentially be good for the environment, too. according to a guardian article, food production is responsible for 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. but to completely replace our daily meal with a bland-tasting drink? not many people are enthusiastic about the idea.
瑞恩哈特希望他的产品能够颠覆整个食品产业。同时，soylent也许会更加环保，因为根据《卫报》的报道，制造食品排放的温室气体占到温室气体总排放量的30%。但是，这种寡淡无味的饮品真的可以完全代替我们的一日三餐么？很多人并不这么认为。
after all, most of us see food as not merely fuel, but also a pleasure. new york times writer farhad manjoo lived largely on soylent for a week and a half. he declares that “everything about soylent screams function, not fun,” deeming it “the most joyless new technology to hit the world since we first laid eyes on ms-dos.”
毕竟，对于大部分人而言，食物不只是能量来源，也是人生乐趣。《纽约时报》撰稿人法尔哈德•曼约奥用一周半的时间体验了soylent之后，认为“soylent虽然在功能性上登峰造极，但却毫无趣味可言”，并将其称为“微软dos系统之后影响世界的最无趣新科技”。
lizzie widdicombe, who wrote the new yorker’s article on rhinehart, also tried out soylent. with soylent, you “cruise” through the day. if you are working at your computer and feel hungry, you don’t have to stop for lunch. you can always be productive.
《纽约客》撰写瑞恩哈特文章的撰稿人莉齐•威特库姆也曾尝试soylent。她说，依靠soylent，你可以持续工作一整天，如果你在电脑前工作到饥肠辘辘，你无需停下吃饭了，只要喝一些soylent就可以一直高效地工作下去。
and here lies soylent’s downside, widdicombe says: “meals provide punctuation to our lives: we’re constantly recovering from them, anticipating them, riding the emotional ups and downs of a good or a bad sandwich. with a bottle of soylent on your desk, time stretches before you, featureless and a little sad.”
而soylent的缺点也正在于此，威特库姆写到，“每顿饭就如同为我们生活中的小停顿：让我们在一顿饭之后得到恢复精力和体力。因此我们期待用餐的时间，因为吃到一个或美味或难吃的三明治而开心或难过。而自从桌上有了一瓶soylent，时间就变得平淡无味，在我们面前延伸而去，想来反而觉得有些伤感。”
