A simple bunch of ingredients mixed together? Isn't that basically a recipe by definition. Or a diet?
Getting a bunch of ingredients and turning it into something nutritious just isn't particularly difficult. Finding such a combination that is both nutritious and palatable is the challenge. The interesting bit with soylent is not that it is a fantastically revolutionary recipe. One could probably concoct something out of rice, beans, and a brassica cultivar that would serve the purpose of being a complete human diet just fine.
Rather, it's people saying "I'm going to give up the pleasure I get from food in exchange for removing whatever distress the uncertainty in deciding what I'm going to eat causes me." It's a mental hack, not a culinary one. Are you're willing to make that trade? The culinary and scientific problems just aren't that difficult on the scale of culinary or scientific problems, but I don't think most people would be willing to do it.
Getting a bunch of ingredients and turning it into something nutritious just isn't particularly difficult. Finding such a combination that is both nutritious and palatable is the challenge. The interesting bit with soylent is not that it is a fantastically revolutionary recipe. One could probably concoct something out of rice, beans, and a brassica cultivar that would serve the purpose of being a complete human diet just fine.
Rather, it's people saying "I'm going to give up the pleasure I get from food in exchange for removing whatever distress the uncertainty in deciding what I'm going to eat causes me." It's a mental hack, not a culinary one. Are you're willing to make that trade? The culinary and scientific problems just aren't that difficult on the scale of culinary or scientific problems, but I don't think most people would be willing to do it.