Gruel today, gruel tomorrow

By M.H. | SEATTLE

EARLIER this year Asda was among a number of British supermarkets shamed because some of their beef products were found to contain horsemeat. Luckily, consumers are a forgiving lot. Asda reported last week that its sales have already recovered to pre-scandal levels. Brands have recovered from worse. Take "Soylent Green", a dystopian science-fiction film set in 2022, in which the eponymous nutritious wafer is unveiled as containing recycled humans. Now, nine years early, a product called Soylent is about to hit the shelves in America.

Its creator, Rob Rhinehart, a 24-year-old computer scientist, assures Babbage that his version of Soylent contains no human flesh. In fact, Soylent promises to be as tasteless as its name, comprised as it is mostly of powdered starch, milk proteins, olive oil, oat fibre and various trace minerals and vitamins. When reconstituted with water, Soylent becomes a unflavoured beige liquid. "There are no secrets here," says Mr Rhinehart. Just the quantities of every essential nutrient, as recommended by America's Food and Drug Administration, in their "most economical, bioavailable, water-soluble form".