I came across Soylent recently with an eye catching question on its company homepage - “what if you never had to worry about food again?”

I was excited for a while. Being one of those people that others envy, that is someone who can eat piles of food and not put on weight, I thought this could be a solution to my eating woes. What woes? Much as a lot of people would love to eat without restriction, I’d prefer not to have the obligation to consume at all. If I want to enjoy a tasty burger or sumptuous chocolate then great, but otherwise I’ll just get on with other things in my life.

So I was rather crazily thinking Soylent really did mean I didn’t have to worry about food - I could replace my stomach with a high power battery and just plug in when I needed more juice - and not of the fruity kind either. Obviously there is a lot more to digestion than pure energy release, we need the nutrients and other minerals as well as the by-products of our gut flora, but maybe one day this will come true.

Assuming large parts of me will eventually be replaced by better performing man-made designs, those will need some sort of power supply - so why not have a USB-style power source for the body rather than having a different standards for each? Let's start thinking about it early on!

Soylent releases formula 1.2 - Soylent - 10-Nov-14