為吃飯發愁的時候，總想能有一種“營養藥片”省去吃飯的麻煩，可是當這種富含人體所需全部營養物的“營養飲料”Soylent出現之時，很多人才發現其實吃飯并不只是為了補充能量和攝入營養……

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?
你是否想象過未來的某一天，一袋粉末就能提供我們身體每日所需，而我們唯一需要做的就是加點水沖著喝？

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.
來自美國的一個工程師團隊聲稱他們做到了這一點，他們開發出了一款名為Soylent的飲料粉，能為我們的身體提供全部營養，而且只要你愿意，食用期間，你無需再吃其他食物。今年4月，第一批Soylent已經送達到美國消費者手中。

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歲的羅伯特•瑞恩哈特正是這家飲料公司的CEO與共同創始人之一。他發現自己在舊金山工作時，總是將很多的時間和金錢花在尋找營養豐富的菜肴上。

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，這位電子工程專業的畢業生開始像思考工程問題一樣思考起了食物。《紐約客》引用了瑞恩哈特的原話：“我們需要各種氨基酸和脂肪，而不是牛奶。我們需要的只是碳水化合物，而非面包。”他認為通過攝取食物而獲得生存所需，其實是一種低效的行為。

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.
為此，他專門請假，自學了營養學與營養生物化學，并最終列出了人類生存所需的營養清單。隨后，他在網上按照清單購買了這些營養劑（大都是藥粉或藥片），并將其磨成粉末混合在一起，再加水沖開。《紐約客》的文章則將其比作糊狀的檸檬水。自此，瑞恩哈特就開始喝Soylent為生，在一些采訪中，他說Soylent已經改變了他的生活，讓他比以前更健康。

Fast, but no fun
高效卻無趣

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.
瑞恩哈特希望他的產品能夠顛覆整個食品產業。同時，Soylent也許會更加環保，因為根據《衛報》的報道，制造食品排放的溫室氣體占到溫室氣體總排放量的30%。但是，這種寡淡無味的飲品真的可以完全代替我們的一日三餐么？很多人并不這么認為。

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.”
畢竟，對于大部分人而言，食物不只是能量來源，也是人生樂趣。《紐約時報》撰稿人法爾哈德•曼約奧用一周半的時間體驗了Soylent之后，認為“Soylent雖然在功能性上登峰造極，但卻毫無趣味可言”，并將其稱為“微軟DOS系統之后影響世界的最無趣新科技”。

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.
《紐約客》撰寫瑞恩哈特文章的撰稿人莉齊•威特庫姆也曾嘗試Soylent。她說，依靠Soylent，你可以持續工作一整天，如果你在電腦前工作到饑腸轆轆，你無需停下吃飯了，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的缺點也正在于此，威特庫姆寫到，“每頓飯就如同為我們生活中的小停頓：讓我們在一頓飯之后得到恢復精力和體力。因此我們期待用餐的時間，因為吃到一個或美味或難吃的三明治而開心或難過。而自從桌上有了一瓶Soylent，時間就變得平淡無味，在我們面前延伸而去，想來反而覺得有些傷感。”