Project #1 Part #2 :Draft #1
In society, different people have contrasting views on what meals mean to them. In The End of Food by Lizzie Widdiecombe, Rob Rhinehart believes that food is a waste of time and money. His view on meals as a hard working engineer led him to switch from a technology start up into the food industry. After much research and studying, he realized that what we get from food to survive can be given to our body in other forms than food itself. He went online and ordered himself the 35 nutrients required for survival and when they came in, mostly in pill or powder form, he put everything in a blender and added water to it. He called the slurry mixture “soylent” and started living off it for quick meals. His invention became more popular after he posted online about it and more people showed interest in it. Today, people create their own forms of the soylent or buy it online and use it as a meal replacement for their busy lives. But, not everyone sees the soylent as beneficial in their lives and prefer to eat meals for their gustatory pleasure or for the social aspect.
In opposition to Rhinehart’s beliefs, my family has a tradition of eating homemade pizza together on Friday nights. In my favorite meal essay, I talked about how much value this night holds in my life. As a kid, my cousins and I got very close by having time once a week to play together and then eat our pizza together at the “kids table.” Our Friday night pizza night brought my family together once a week and without it, the special bond I have with them wouldn’t have been possible. The tradition was started by my Nana when my mom and her siblings were kids. They made pizza on Friday nights to celebrate the end of the school week and my mom and her siblings have continued this tradition with their kids and take turns hosting and making the pizza each week. We all take time out of our lives to stop and take a break from work or school and eat a meal together. Although soylent can be beneficial to maximize the amount of time in a work day, I believe that eating meals with family and taking a break from work is more important.
There are many ways people approach the value of their meals in their day. During a work or school day when breakfast or lunch may set you back in what you are working on, soylent can be an option drink quickly while working. Rhinehart was a busy, hard working man himself and believed, “Food was such a large burden… It was also the time and hassle” (Widdicombe 1). Rhinehart thought that there was a lot of time taken out of his day to buy the groceries, plan the meal, make the meal and then sit down to eat the meal he had to cook. His solution to this problem was his invention of soylent, something he could order the materials on his computer, make in bulk and then drink while he was still working and didn’t have to take a break. On the other hand, my family and I see value in eating dinner or meals together. We use it as a time to take a break from what we are doing and talk to each other about our day or just to catch up on life. In my mom’s words, “The value of pizza night is that it has brought my family closer than other families. It gave us the chance to get together every week and catch up with what is going on in our lives and family. This has created a special bond between our extended family.” My family takes time out of our week to make pizza and eat it together. Whoever is hosting pizza night each week must go to the grocery store to buy the ingredients and make the pizza for all 15 or so of us, depending on the week.
While I see the point Rhinehart has that the meals we eat everyday take up a lot of time in our life, I believe for my family taking this time out of our week has not been a waste of time because I got the opportunity to get close with my cousins and have a special bond with my family. In certain cases such as maybe breakfast or lunch, soylent would save time during the work day, but I see dinner as a time to take a break from working and spend time with family. Without pizza night and getting the time to play and eat together with my cousins for a few hours once a week, we wouldn’t have had the chance to get so close.
Adjusting to the college meals has been different and more difficult than it was at home. At home, my mom knew what I liked to eat, since I am a very picky eater, and she cooked the meals for my family. If my mom had a busy day at work, my sister and I would take more time to help her get dinner ready. At school, I go to the dining hall and try to find something I like and something that is healthy, but it can be a struggle. On week nights, my friends and I stop doing our homework and make time to go to dinner together. During this time, we step away from what we were doing and go sit down and talk to each other. We could just work through dinner and drink a soylent to maybe go to bed a little earlier or have more free time, but we enjoy getting to take a break and socializing while eating. Sometimes at college, I see times when soylent would be an effective alternative rather than going to the dining hall to eat a meal that is probably unhealthy for me. It could save my friends and I time during our day to get more homework done instead of walking to the dining hall to eat. Soylent could also be very effective for college students during finals week to continue studying insteading of stopping 3 or more times a day to go eat. I feel as though stopping to eat meals 3 times a day as time to give my brain a break and refresh before continuing to study again is personally beneficial for my mental health.
Project #1 Part #2: Draft #2
The Value of Meals
In society, different people have contrasting views on what meals mean to them. In The End of Food by Lizzie Widdiecombe, Rob Rhinehart believes that food is a waste of time and money. As a hard working engineer, his view on meals led him to switch from a technology start up into the food industry. After much research and studying, he realized that what we get from food to survive can be given to our body in other forms than food itself. He went online and ordered himself the 35 nutrients required for survival and when they came in, mostly in pill or powder form, he put everything in a blender and added water to it. He called the slurry mixture “soylent” and started living off it for quick meals. His invention became more popular after he posted it online and with each view more people showed interest in it. Today, people create their own forms of the soylent or buy it online and use it as a meal replacement for their busy lives. But, not everyone sees the soylent as beneficial in their lives and prefer to eat meals for their gustatory pleasure or for the social aspect.
In opposition to Rhinehart’s beliefs, my family has a tradition of eating homemade pizza together on Friday nights. In my favorite meal essay, I talked about how much value this night holds in my life. As a kid, my cousins and I grew close by having time once a week to play together and then eat our pizza together at the “kids table.” Our Friday night pizza night brought my family together and without it, the special bond I have with them wouldn’t have been possible. The tradition was started by my Nana when my mom and her siblings were kids. They made pizza on Friday nights to celebrate the end of the school week. My mom and her siblings have continued this tradition with their kids. Each parent takes turns hosting and making the pizza each week. We all take time out of our lives to stop and take a break from work or school events and eat a meal together. Although soylent can be beneficial to maximize the amount of time in a work day, I believe that eating meals with family and taking a break from work is more important.
There are many ways people approach the value of their meals in their day. During a work or school day when breakfast or lunch may set you back in what you are working on, soylent can be an option drink quickly while working. Rhinehart was a busy, hard working man himself and believed that food took up a large amount of his day and “was such a large burden and hassle.” His solution to this problem was his soylent creation and said, “Drinking Soylent was saving him time and money,” as he continued to live on soylent he saw his grocery expenses costs drop significantly (Widdicombe 1-2). Rhinehart thought that there was too much time taken out of his day to buy groceries, plan the meal, make the meal and then sit down to eat the meal Soylent was something he could order the materials on his computer, make in bulk and then drink while he was still working and didn’t have to take a break. On the other hand, my family and I see value in eating dinner or meals together. We use it as a time to take a break from what we are doing and talk to each other about our day or just to catch up on life. In my mom’s words, “The value of pizza night is that it has brought my family closer than other families. It gave us the chance to get together every week and catch up with what is going on in our lives and family. This has created a special bond between our extended family.” My family takes time out of our week to make pizza and eat it together. Whoever is hosting pizza night each week must go to the grocery store to buy the ingredients and make the pizza for all 15 or so of us, depending on the week.
While I see the point Rhinehart has that the meals we eat everyday take up a lot of time in our life, I believe for my family taking this time out of our week has not been a waste of time. I got the opportunity to get close with my cousins and have a special bond with my extended family. In certain cases such as maybe breakfast or lunch, soylent would save time during the work day, but I see dinner as a time to take a break from working and spend time with family. Without pizza night and getting the time to play and eat together with my cousins for a few hours once a week, we wouldn’t have had the chance to get so close.
Adjusting to the college meals has been different and more difficult than it was at home. At home, my mom knew what I liked to eat, since I am a very picky eater, and she cooked the meals for my family. If my mom had a busy day at work, my sister and I would take more time to help her get dinner ready. At school, I go to the dining hall and try to find something I like and something that is healthy, but it can be a struggle. On week nights, my friends and I stop doing our homework and make time to go to dinner together. During this time, we step away from what we were doing and go sit down and talk to each other. In Rhinehart’s opinion, we could just work through dinner and drink a soylent to maybe go to bed a little earlier or have more free time, but my family enjoys getting to take a break and socializing while eating. Sometimes at college, I see times when soylent would be an effective alternative rather than going to the dining hall to eat a meal that is probably unhealthy for me and something I don’t enjoy eating. It could save my friends and I time during our day to get more homework done instead of walking to the dining hall to eat. Soylent could also be very effective for college students during finals week to continue studying insteading of stopping three or more times a day to go eat. I feel as though stopping to eat meals three times a day is an important time to give my brain a break and refresh before continuing to study again is personally beneficial for my mental health.
There are many instances that soylent could be a good alternative to meals. Rhinehart created it after he found the majority of his meals during his work week to be a waste of time. According to Rhinehart, “Most people’s meals are forgotten,” In the future he believes, “we’ll see a separation between our meals for utility and function, and our meals for experience and socialization. Soylent isn’t coming for our Sunday potlucks. It’s coming for our frozen quesadillas” (Widdicombe 3). Rhinehart believes that he has created soylent not to take over, but to draw a line between quick meals to satisfy hunger and meals for socialization. I agree with this statement because as a college student who spends a lot of time doing homework, I would save time out of my day by drinking soylent. I personally don’t think I could do it for all three meals a day but every once and a while when my workload is heavy it could allow me more time to get work done sooner and get to bed earlier. With this being said, I still believe that Friday night pizza with my family is important and wouldn’t trade it for drinking soylent instead.
As Rhinehart sees meals, the time spent preparing and making the meal as well as sitting down to eat it takes up too much time. My mom and her siblings take turns making the pizza each week so no one is doing it every time. In my favorite meal essay I wrote, “In order to make homemade pizza it does not require many complicated steps or a long grocery list, rather it is an easy meal to make for the whole family. The recipe requires dough, pizza sauce, mozzarella and parmesan cheese and any toppings you wish. It takes a little over a half hour to prepare and cook the pizzas. During this time everyone helps out to get the table set and pizzas ready.” Although making the pizza for Friday night pizza can be for a lot of people some weeks, it is a fairly simple meal to make for a large group and the ingredients are not too costly. While Rhinehart has a valid argument that meal preparation can take a large time, for my family pizza nights, we all help out and use the time to catch up with each other.
Rhinehart and I do not have the exact same views on the value of our meals. While he believes that his invention of the soylent drink meal replacement is the best new thing for meal replacements, I think spending time with family or friends to sit down and eat a meal is more important. Considering some of the points and ideas Rhinehart uses as his argument in “The End of Food,” I do see instances where soylent can save time and even money such as in my life right now as a busy college student. However, I cannot completely agree with soylent as my only meal because of the Friday night pizza tradition my family has. This meal does take time and money since there are many of us eating pizza each week, but the time I get to spend with my family and the memories I have from playing with my cousins on these Friday nights are priceless.
Works Cited
Widdicombe, Lizzie. “The End of Food.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 12 May 2014,
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/12/the-end-of-food.
