Soylent, the futuristic meal replacement product may not be as perfect as it claims. 

Many conventionally grown and processed foods carry the risk of exposure to harmful chemicals and heavy metals. That’s why experts compile lists like the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list of chemicals in produce; and conscious consumers, like you and me, shop so carefully. And that’s why it’s both surprising and not-so-surprising that Soylent, the makers of the vegan, nutrient-rich meal replacements, is defending questionable levels of heavy metals found in its products.

Surprising because, when used as recommended or at least modeled, Soylent should replace most, if not all, actual food. An environmental watchdog groups alleges that this means repeated exposure to lead and cadmium at levels above what is permissible in the state of California. And it’s not-so-surprising because, after all, Soylent is a processed food, no matter how it markets itself.

Watchdog group As You Sow alleges that Soylent violates California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, which requires that producers disclose the presence of detectable amounts of harmful chemicals. The group gave notice that it intends to sue Soylent after results from two separate tests performed at an independent lab found “that one serving of Soylent 1.5 (the powder mix) can expose a consumer to a concentration of lead that is 12 to 25 times above California’s Safe Harbor level for reproductive health, and a concentration of cadmium that is at least 4 times greater than the Safe Harbor level for cadmium.”

Long-term, low-level exposure to cadmium can lead to kidney, bone, and lung disease. Lead exposure can affect every organ in the body, but it’s most sensitive target is your neurological system, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Even low levels of exposure to lead are linked to nerve damage, lower IQ, and reproductive problems in adults.

“Nobody expects heavy metals in their meals,” As You Sow CEO Andrew Behar said in a statement. “These heavy metals accumulate in the body over time, and since Soylent is marketed as a meal replacement, users may be chronically exposed to lead and cadmium concentrations that exceed California’s safe harbor level. With stories about Silicon Valley coders sometimes eating three servings a day, this is of very high concern to the health of these tech workers.”

Soylent responded in a blog post, maintaining that “Soylent’s levels of heavy metals are entirely safe and sustainable, even for people using Soylent as a complete food substitute.” The post goes on to say that the California regulations in question are much more stringent than federal and other state regulations, which the product adheres to.

These allegations, and Soylent’s defense, should remind us to look for food sources that care about minimizing these risks and produce food without using harmful chemicals that can be ingested by consumers.

Soylent may contain “safe” levels of these heavy metals, but is that really “safe?” Soylent’s CEO, Rob Rhinehart, boasts that he relies on the product for 80 percent of his diet. I always thought questions about living on a single food for the rest of your life were a joke (for the record, my answer is pizza). I think all nutritionists would agree that eating a varied diet helps ensure your body gets all the required nutrients. It may also prevent excessive and repetitive exposure to chemicals and metals.

Behar told The Guardian that As You Sow has found high concentrations of heavy metals in several protein powder and food replacement products. According to Behar,  this is a consistent problem in processed food substitutes that rely on galvanized piping, ‘It usually comes down to something fairly simple to find and fix in these cases,’ he says.” This is another symptom of the over-processed food system we rely on.

So what can you do? Many experts recommend buying organic food for this very purpose. Organic food is raised and prepared without the use of harmful chemicals. Here is a list of more tips to avoid exposure to toxins in common foods.

Secondly, embrace the trend of buying local and getting to know your producer. Shopping at a farmers market or purchasing a share in Community Supported Agriculture gives you the chance to know who produces your food and how. Local Harvest helps you find one near you.

These simple guidelines are what have kept me away from Soylent so far.

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Soylent photo from Soylent.com

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Column What if we didn’t invest in food replacements like Soylent, but real food instead?

Unless you somehow missed what Soylent is, it’s an attempt at providing people with all the nutritional elements that a healthy diet would give them in one single drink.

The brainchild behind it is a 20-something tech guy named Rob Rhinehart, who we can only assume was so busy coding that he was annoyed at the idea of having to waste time on cooking and eating. Wouldn’t it just be better if you could drink a smoothie and call it a day?

The tech world has followed suite, and Rhinehart has charmed enough people that he has managed to get a heavy amount of investment in his product. Just last week it was announced that he had secured an additional $20 million in funding.

$20 million.

In a food replacement product.

Here are 20 other things that the $20 million could have been spent on, all that have nothing to do with food replacement, and good ol’ real food instead:

1. School garden programs.

2. Farmers market matching programs, where people using food stamps to buy fresh produce double the amount they have to shop with.

3. An anti-McDonald’s advertising campaign.

4. Supporting independent food journalism.

5. Food hubs that help serve as a link between regional and small-scale farmers and the retail sector.

6. Seed banks, to help protect biodiversity and our food system.

7. An anti Monsanto campaign.

8. Figuring out how to get fresh produce sold at every single gas station in America.

9. Start-up capital for zero waste restaurants.

10. Rooftop gardens.

11. Funding every single project on FarmRaiser.

12. Cooking classes for schools.

13. Community gardening programs.

14. A couple of food documentaries.

15. Food banks.

16. Urban farms.

17. Saving honey bees.

18. Eliminating the high fructose syrup industry.

19. Research about the link between cancer and pesticides.

20. Municipal composting programs.

Related on EcoSalon

Is Soylent a Threat to Foodie Culture? Foodie Underground

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This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Dennis van Zuijlekom

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ColumnSoylent: the food replacement that’s all the rage is sort of gross and wrong.

I’m on a fast right now, so no Foodie Underground this week.

Just kidding! About the column, not the fasting.

Not eating (at least not eating as I normally do) has gotten me to think more about eating. I’m overly aware of the moments in the day when there should be a full meal. I miss the time spent in the kitchen preparing it. It’s hard fill the hole that comes from not having a regular mealtime. In fact, it’s not necessarily the food I am craving, it’s the process that comes with it.

My mid-morning coffee break where I push away from the computer and just sit and think.

The early evening preparation of dinner. Maybe a glass of wine and kitchen laughter to go with it.

The late afternoon pick-me-up of hazelnuts and figs.

The connection to food isn’t just about the physical aspect – a human being can go without food for quite some time, some experts put the limit of upwards to two months – it’s about the emotional as well. So much of our eating habits are tied together by tradition and process. It’s not just what you put on the table for dinner, it’s how you came up with the idea for what you were going to prepare, when you went and bought the ingredients, who helped you cook, and who, ultimately you are sharing the meal with. In a culture where most of us are well-nourished – if not over-nourished – isn’t this what’s most important about eating?

Recently I learned about this thing called Soylent. It’s basically a liquid food substitute invented by a 25 year-old tech guy named Rob Rhinehart. Rhinehart, who’s obsessed with in food efficiency, developed the drink and reportedly lived off Soylent alone for 30 days. You may think that sounds weird and gross, but the tech nerds in Silicone Valley don’t; Soylent just got a $1.5 million round of funding.

As Rhinehart explains on his blog, “Food is the fossil fuel of human energy. It is an enormous market full of waste, regulation, and biased allocation with serious geo-political implications. And we’re deeply dependent on it. In some countries people are dying of obesity, others starvation. In my own life I resented the time, money, and effort the purchase, preparation, consumption, and clean-up of food was consuming.”

When it comes to the food waste part, I couldn’t agree more, and the fact that a certain percentage of the population is obese while others are dying of starvation is nothing new. But creating a product to essentially eliminate the need for food is simplifying things a little too much. That and the fact that I just can’t get the image of pale computer nerds locked in a dark cave of a room, exclaiming “This Soylent means I never have to get out of this chair again!”

We need sustenance to survive, but we also need the emotional benefits of food: the cultural connection, the tradition, the community. We are the only animal on the planet that cooks, it’s the thing that sets us apart from every other organism on earth. Are we ready to unravel thousands of years of cultural advancement for convenience?

Did we learn nothing from the Slimfast era? God, the French would cringe.

Ultimately, we may not need much to survive – certainly not a daily regime of cheeseburgers and pizza – but we do need something, and it’s more than just pure nutrients. Food, real food, not a supplement like Soylent, helps us connect to the people and environment around us. It’s not necessarily what we eat, it’s how and when and where we eat it. If we eliminate the need for real food, we lose a myriad of things that benefit us in the process.

I say, use real ingredients and enjoy the process of cooking and enjoying food with those you love. Take a break from the “bad” stuff once in awhile, but don’t be afraid to indulge. That’s the best way to stay healthy and alive.

Related on EcoSalon:

Foodie Underground: It’s Not What We Eat, It’s How We Eat It

Foodie Underground: How Food Builds Strong Community

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Jessica F.

The post Is Soylent a Threat to Foodie Culture?: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.