eSports Brand Test: My Week With Soylent

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ESPORTS BRAND TEST: MY WEEK WITH SOYLENT

eSports Brand Test: My Week With Soylent (Photo: Soylent)

eSports Brand Test: My Week With Soylent (Photo: Soylent)

Welcome to a new content feature on The Next Level. In addition to the TNL Brand Tracker and deeper analysis of Brands in eSports, I’m going to do a week long experiment with a different product and see how it could really work within eSports. This is NOT a paid endorsement or sponsored by any of the companies.


Soylent Sponsorship of Hollywood eSports (Photo: Hollywood eSports)

Soylent Sponsorship of Hollywood eSports (Photo: Hollywood eSports)

TNL Take: I love food documentaries like “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”.

I love food shows that focus on the art like “Chefs Table”

I love watching food shows like Anthony Bourdain’s or basically anything Vice does with Munchies, Action Bronson and Eddie Huang.

 

I love everything food related yet I can’t boil water.

 

I’ve burned pots trying to simply boil water. I also don’t have the time nor patience to cook currently. It’s challenging to accomplish all of these three things in New York City: 01/ Eat healthy 02/ Moderate Cost /03 Limited prep time.

I then heard about Soylent — I hope you get the reference — which was basically a “meal in a drink” and offered everything I was looking for. After giving up my credit card info to hackers in the future, my order was on its way.

 

DAY 1

Consumed: 1 Total

12:45 PM: First Soylent taken for lunch. What does it taste like? A really good piece of chalk with notes of vanilla.

3:45 PM After just three hours, I’m definitely hungry. If this is a “meal replacement”, #1 didn’t do the trick. May take some time getting used to.

 

 

DAY 2

Consumed: 2 Total

8:00 AM For the second day’s experiment, decide to start with breakfast.

1:00 PM I realize that it’s lunchtime and after five hours, Soylent has kept me full. I decide to take another one and see if I can get through two straight “meals” with Soylent alone.

1:30 PM Ugh. A bit of nausea.

7:00 PM Outside of the nausea, two Soylent throughout the day kept me full till evening. If any sickness dissipates after the week, this is a great sign.

 

 

DAY 3

Consumed: 1 Total

8:00 AM I start with breakfast again and after 15 minutes, get the familiar nausea and even throw up slightly.

1:00 PM Similar to Day 2, although I did experience some nausea, the breakfast Soylent kept me full till lunch. I decide to keep it to just one today to see if too much is causing the nausea. Others have done this experiment for a full month, so it could be unique to my body chemistry.

 

 

DAY 4

Consumed: 1 Total

12:00 PM After putting out the usual early morning work fires, I forget to eat or drink a Soylent, so take the first one for lunch. The empty stomach may have added to the affect, but the nausea won’t go away.

6:00 PM Continue same results, a bit of nausea but I’m full. The meal replacement part has kicked in.

 

 

DAY 5

Consumed: 1 Total

8:00 AM I’ve the trifecta — start the day, no nausea and keeps me full enough that I almost forget to eat lunch.

 

 

DAY 6

Consumed: 2 Total

8:00 AM Based on yesterday’s results, I decided to double-down as the week draws to a close. I start my breakfast with a Soylent and decide regardless to have one for lunch.

1:00 PM No nausea and kept me full. Train running right on schedule and I chug bottle #2.

One interesting side effect: “missing” the act of actually eating. While Soylent keeps me full, there’s a lack of feeling you get after spending the time and consuming a meal.

You can’t change eons of evolution overnight.

 

 

DAY 7

Consumed: 1 Total

8:00 AM For the final day, I decide to eat two actual meals and have Soylent for lunch. The morning meal consists of fat-free Greek yogurt, organic granola and Chia seeds aka The Brooklyn Breakfast.

1:00 PM Take down the Soylent and have lost all feelings of nausea post drinking.

8:00 PM I eat a normal dinner of chicken and steamed veggies and don’t have that “missing what food tastes like” feeling when consuming just one normal meal a day.


CONCLUSION

Soylent Sponsorship of eSports Arena (Photo: eSports Arena)

Soylent Sponsorship of eSports Arena (Photo: eSports Arena)

PORTABILITY

This is such a critical point for me in Soylent’s value. I can throw one in my bag in the morning, have meetings around the city throughout the day and if I ever need a quick meal, I can simply chug the bottle on the subway.

Quick and easy.

 

 

COST

Remember, Brooklyn is home to the $10 cup of coffee [Edit: We now have $18 coffee]. If coffee is that expensive, your farm-to-co-op, organic kale salad made by fairies is going to run you close to $20.

Depending on what package or subscription you buy, Soylent is ~$3 per meal.

 

 

TASTE

This is not a 5 hour meal at The French Laundry.

There is no Amuse-bouche.

If Jon Oliver were to describe it, I would imagine he would say “Imagine a goat threw up. Then a frat boy ate the goat’s vomit. Then the frat boy threw up. And you drank his vomit. That’s what it tastes like.”

[Note: This test was done with the Original flavor. I can imagine their new Cacao and Nectar flavors will have improved on this.]

 

It’s palatable for me as I’m not expecting grandma’s cooking or a homemade made meal. It’s not about the taste — but the efficiency, portability and cost of what Soylent offers.

From an eSports perspective, you can easily see the application for both general usage and definitely for the professionals at events and hence Soylent smartly investing in the space.

For me, Soylent solves my bachelor-living-in-NYC-who-can’t-cook problem and now my fridge looks a lot like this.

Fridge Full of Soylent (Photo: YouTube “Life After Food”)

Fridge Full of Soylent (Photo: YouTube “Life After Food”)