[allforJesse]

And that's the question that's gone unasked, because we're focusing (understandably) on the health implications first:

Could Soylent be scalably produced to feed 10% or more of the world's population? Would the material prices skyrocket in response to demand?

Let's set aside the physiological consequences for a moment, what are the potential economic and environmental ramifications of Soylent?

[samstave]

The counter question is how cheaply is Abott's liquid food product produced?

The profit margin on their product, I suspect, is pretty large.

Why aren't liquid foods like this being supplied to under-nourished children in the 3rd world already? Because they are not a profit source.

The world is optimizing to the wealthy. Whole Foods isn't cheap for a reason.

[sp332]

Why aren't liquid foods like this being supplied to under-nourished children in the 3rd world already?

Probably because it doesn't keep or ship well.

[samstave]

False.

My mother just passed of cancer, she was on a feeding tube for 8 months consuming this Abott liquid food. It was shipped in cases just like anything else - cardboard boxes - and delivered via foil-boxes just like the portable milk that you see at any starbucks, though it required no refrigeration.

However, this substance was not made for taste buds and it smelled fairly bad.

They have different types depending on what caloric intake was prescribed by the doctor.

[sp332]

As stated in Steko's quote above, that costs ~4x as much as soylent. Note also that the numbers for soylent don't include packaging or shipping. If you made a commercial version with preservatives etc. the price might be comparable.

[samstave]

I am still skeptical of that stement: the medical cost of Abott's product is high. That does not mean the manufacturing cost is high. In fact, as I mentioned, I think the margins are what is extremely high.

The packaging of this is ubiquitous in many many other products (milk, juice, etc) and I am sure is a very very low cost factor.

[jtheory]

Yes, this -- manufacturing Soylent at scale (including a well-managed supply chain with much-lower-than-consumer pricing) would make it far cheaper than it is now to make.

Also consider that Soylent isn't primarily optimized for price, but for quality nutrition and taste.

ALSO consider that anything normally paid for by medical insurance has hugely inflated prices... Abott's probably costs a fraction of Soylent's cost to make. The rest is profit.

[schiffern]

>Note also that the numbers for soylent don't include packaging or shipping.

Sure they do. He says he's buying them in personal-size containers, and the price includes shipping. Someone is already buying the ingredients in bulk and reselling them in smaller containers, it's just not the soylent guy. Once he's buying in bulk I would expect costs to drop, even with the added expense of packaging and shipping.

[illuminate]

"Why aren't liquid foods like this being supplied to under-nourished children in the 3rd world already?"

There is an abundance of food, it just doesn't get to where it needs to go because the rest of those governments' infrastructure need to be fixed along with the starving children.

[michaelbuckbee]

Plumpy'nut [1] is food product specifically designed to be consumed by malnourished children. Given that the cost of it is around $30/mo I would actually guess that the barriers to adoption are political and social in nature and not technical.

1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpynut

[jtheory]

That sounds pretty good, actually! I do love good peanut butter.

It can be even cheaper than $30/month as well, since the manufacturer allows local production of the paste (in peanut-growing locales) with no license fee payment required.

[lilsunnybee]

Oh great. "The poor don't need solid foods. Just feed them this mush. That'll be a kick in the pants to get back into the work force too."

The current costs are also way too high. Most of the world survives on much less than $150 a month for food. I spend less than $150 and i live in the USA.