The End Of Food By Lizzie Widdicombe

The Synthetic Food Nightmare
Nearly all of the coffee in the world is gone. Nobody can have their morning cup. Starbucks is closed, so is Bigby, McDonald's, and Dairy Queen. In fact, all the restaurants in the U.S. no longer exist and grocery stores are closing as well. The remaining option for food is a slimy synthetic beverage called “Soylent”. Humans survive on Soylent as a convenient meal replacement instead of real food. Imagine if this nightmare was the future of the food industry. As shown in the article, The End of Food by Lizzie Widdicombe, people such as Rob Rhinehart, the inventor of Soylent, would like to see the dominance of synthetic foods as a reality. Rhinehart and others see real food as an inconvenience and want it to be replaced …show more content…
The culture of food in different countries can range from Italian pizza to German sausages. Surely the American culture finds food to be very important. One would find it a challenge to avoid seeing a steak house or grocery store for just one day. There is even a television channel dedicated exclusively to food. Though this may be true, synthetic foods such as Soylent have threatened to put an end to food culture as we know it. Soylent “... has been heralded by the press as ‘the end of food,’ which is a somewhat bleak prospect. It conjures up visions of a world devoid of pizza parlors and taco stands—our kitchens stocked with beige powder instead of banana bread, our spaghetti nights and ice-cream socials replaced by evenings sipping sludge” (Widdicombe). Imagine being stripped of the social experience that food brings. Any date night would be grim without the restaurant to dine in or at least the popcorn at the movie. The process of choosing different types of foods, purchasing food, preparing food, and eating food, is long held tradition that defines various cultures and creates a social experience. However, Rob Rhinehart, the creator of Soylent, “...seems unmoved by consumer culture in any form”(Widdicombe). This is because Rhinehart and other synthetic food eaters see food only as barrier from hunger. By viewing food in this way the culture created by food begins to fade …show more content…
Living on synthetic food, however, raises many health questions. Many doctors believe that “‘It’s a little bit presumptuous to think that we actually know everything that goes into an optimally healthy diet.’”You can live by eating synthetic food. ‘“But you may not live maximally, and you may not have optimal function. We’re concerned about much more than just surviving”(Widdicombe).Synthetic food may cause consumers to miss out on several minimal ingredients naturally found in regular food that can cause problems if not consumed in the long term. For example, “Foods contain a wide variety of fibers, vitamins and minerals, including some not yet identified but thought to be important to our health,” As stated by Hope Warshaw in the article Nutrition Q & A: The Pros and Cons of Soylent. All of these different ingredients cannot possibly be blended up into one uniform Soylent shake. A few individuals may claim that synthetic eating works for them, however “the product—and the balance of nutrients—is aimed at cubicle workers craving efficiency rather than at men in the gym or the elderly”(Widdicombe). This could cause frequent exercisers to consume way fewer calories than needed, as well as cause sedentary people to consume too many calories. Overall, consuming synthetic foods from a health perspective ranges from questionable to