I got a troll-looking mention on Twitter. It is worth mentioning because good things came from it. What happened was that I posted an image of a breakfast (Queal shake balancing on knee), mentioned Queal and said something deep like "cheers!" A while later, there was a mention the main coherent message of which was "Stop Soylent, eat real food", mainly in the form of rather negative-sounding hashtags. At the end was a link.
My first reaction was to get annoyed at the empty trolling. Do people not have anything better to do? Then I looked at the Twitter profile (it had a very non-spammy avatar image) and noticed both a human-sounding profle text as well as a fair number of followers. Somebody into health and exercise, it seemed. I took another long hard look at the link, then followed it and landed in an article the person had posted on Linkedin, of all places. It was a rather well-written rant about everything wrong about the thinking and attitudes of the people behind Soylent, gleaned from articles interviewing the creator. Even though I was already put off by both the tone of the original tweet as well as the somewhat upset tone of the article, there were some good points. Essentially, that it is nicer and tastier to exercise and eat a good mixed diet than going all-out powder hoping it will solve all problems. Completely fair, and once in the right mood I can also smile at the overkill of someone creating the whole powder meal shake industry instead of just learning to eat a balanced mix of food.
Still, absurd direction or not, there are advantages. Like the fact that even though I cook and eat pretty well, cooking for myself all the time holds no attraction in itself. I do not have enough motivation to make every meal a good one. With powder food, suddenly the default, uninspired option of least resistance is suddenly also the healthiest, most balanced one. It is a very nice complete turnaround of the rules.
At the end was the argument that powder foods are and should be a supplement to other food. I enjoy picking at words too much to let that one go. A supplement is something you add to what you otherwise eat. So, for me at this time, cooked meals are clearly a supplement to my regular powder shakes. Supplement is not a value judgement.
I am happy eating real food, both in powder and more classic forms. Currently, the classic forms are clearly the supplements for me.
I replied to the Tweet, agreeing the text had some good points but that the tone of tweet and text nearly kept me away. Received a like back, so I think we are all friends.
(Rather hungry for my dinner shake.)