I’ll admit it: I am a little disappointed that this story is going to turn out as mundanely as it’s going to.  Then again, I’m sure everyone I work with is perfectly happy that nothing insane happened with my digestion today.

This is what roughly one-third of a day’s ration of Soylent looks like:

I mixed this up last night and left it in the refrigerator overnight without tasting it.  This morning I poured what looked to me to be about a third of the container (I’m now slightly doubting that measurement, and will have to experiment) and downed it for my breakfast this morning.  I put maybe a teaspoon of vanilla extract in it just for some flavor.

First, Soylent is not nearly as thick as I thought it was going to be, which is entirely my discretion– I followed the directions that I was provided with; I plan to use a bit less water next time so as to impart more of a shake-like consistency.  The texture is… well, it’s gross as hell is what it is.  I’d liken it to drinking river silt.  It’s more like a suspension than a solution; the Soylent doesn’t dissolve so much as float in the water, and the oil had separated to the top of the container, requiring a lot more shaking.  However, from what I’ve seen on the boards, everyone is horrified by the texture at first but most people get used to it fairly quickly, so I’m not going to let this stop me just yet.  But yeah: Soylent, even with a bit of vanilla in it, tastes pretty damn bad.  Future iterations may include a banana; we’ll see.

I wanted to report back on gastrointestinal issues; there were none.  Slight TMI here: I did have a bowel movement in the morning (this is typical) and it was entirely normal.  I can report no gas.  I was a little belchy after lunch, but at the moment I’m attributing that to pop and not to the Soylent.  Now the good news: part of the reason I’ve purchased this stuff is that meals at work are very difficult, and furthermore I’ve been finding myself crashing in the morning in a way I really don’t like– and since my gall bladder surgery several years ago I can go from not hungry at all to nearly fainting from hunger in a matter of just a few minutes.  I have to have something that evens my mornings out, and I’m hoping Soylent can do that for me.

I not only made it to lunch with no issues but lunch was late– I didn’t make it out of a meeting until almost 12:30, which would kill me most days.  No problem today.

Tomorrow, I plan to take what’s left to work with me in a thermos, keep it in the fridge, and sip from it all morning, with the idea being that it’s breakfast and lunch, just spread out.  If I get home from work without wanting to eat the entire kitchen (another problem: even if I eat a largish lunch, I get home hungry, and just eat anything I can find) I’m gonna call this stuff a win.  At the moment I don’t plan to replace dinner with it; we may try a day with that this weekend to see what happens, but not quite yet.

So: not funny yet, unfortunately, but not a waste of my money either.  Winning?

OH WAIT SHIT I ALMOST FORGOT edit:  As I said, I tend to get home from work hungry.  My thought today: I’d had a regular dinner glass full of the stuff for breakfast, and I thought I’d try drinking roughly a whiskey glass full as a post-work snack.  So I poured some into a glass and got the vanilla and added some.  A couple things:

• Essence of peppermint is contained in a bottle that is exactly the same as vanilla extract;
• Peppermint essence is an incredibly thin liquid that pours very quickly;
• Soylent with way too much peppermint essence in it is completely fucking undrinkable.

So so much for that experiment.  I decided to reserve the rest for tomorrow.