The End Of Food Widdicombe Analysis

Widdicombe concludes his article “The End of Food” with a beautiful sentiment, “The Soylent dream is a strange one: a place where our food-related hopes mingle with our nightmares.” The article arouses a sense of cognitive dissonance within us and Widdicombe’s sentiment further perpetuates the uneasy feeling. I was amazed by what a simple yet complex invention Soylent was however at the same time had an uneasy feeling due to the nature of its existence meaning “the end of food”. Widdicombe is smart in his conclusion and explains while the invention can provide potential “hope” it can just as well provide a potential “nightmare”. Soylent carries “hope” to potentially greatly impact and advance the fields of nutrition and medicine as well as …show more content…
In order to understand the possibilities and utility of Soylent it is essential to understand exactly what Soylent is. Soylent is a “smoothie like” liquid that contains the thirty-five essential nutrients necessary for survival (Widdicombe). At first glance the idea seems odd and unappealing, especially due to the fact that many of us have such easy access to food but upon stopping and thinking Soylent can be advantageous in may respects. Initially I was quite closed to the idea of letting Soylent, a “Synthetic food”, into my body however Rhinehart pointed out something that changed my perspective on the product. Rhinehart explains that Soylent was created to replace foods like frozen quesadillas and unhealthy foods that we consume for the sake of satiating our hunger and Soylent does just that. Furthermore, I thought of how many times I have been hungry in need of a quick, cheap, and filling meal, which results in me getting fast food. The difference is fast food is me filling my body with something containing a high percentage of unhealthy chemicals, that looks like “food”, as opposed to Soylent, which is a filling, healthy alternative, that doesn’t look like “food”. Furthermore, Rhinehart addresses there are a small difference in purpose between Muscle Milk, or for that sake, any supplement that we put into our body and Soylent. Soylent has shown to cause a better physique, clear skin, whiten teeth, thicken hair and remove dandruff. While individuals may be worried about what exactly they are putting into their body all of the chemicals are known, for Rhinehart has put the recipe online. Rhinehart releasing Soylent’s ingredients is beneficial because it both allows people to know what exactly it is they are consuming before they consume it as well