With the way we live now we may not see a future for our children or for ourselves because of a limited amount of food. Everyone sees the future of food in different ways. The way we, as a world, live now could jeopardize our future in terms of having a sufficient amount of food to maintain a healthy and happy society. Many people have different views on how to prevent the damage we may cause on the future of food. One person who is looking at both sides of this situation is Charles C. Mann. In Mann’s essay Can Planet Earth Feed 10 Billion People?, he considers two very different ideas of  how people view the future of food. One view is that our advancements in technology will help us in our times ahead with our food related problems. This view is called “techno-optimism,” and people who believe this view are referred to as Wizards. The other view surrounds the idea that if we reduce our food consumption and population numbers we will be able to ensure that the people of the future will be able to survive and pursue a happy, healthy life. This idea is also known as “apocalyptic environmentalism,” and people who believe this view are referred to as prophets. Both sides each have their advantages and disadvantages, and they can both be seen as reasonable options. But if we would like to have a shot at our best future, I believe we need to incorporate both ideas into one. If we are able to create a product or solution that helps appease both sides and utilize both ideas, we will be able to guarantee our best possible outcome.  

One man has already created such a product, and this product is called Soylent drink. New York Times writer Lizzie Widdiocmbe, was just as intrigued as the rest of us and interviewed the creator of this “magical” drink; Rob Rhinehart. This drink is made up of our required nutrients that we need to continue our daily lives. Widdicombe refers to this beverage as a “slurry of chemicals” that appears to resemble a sort of  “gooey lemonade”(Widdicombe, 2). This chemical slushy was created to help Rhinehart save time in his day for working and to not worry about food. He didn’t want to waste time on cooking, cleaning, and buying food because he would rather work. With this drink you simply need to add the nutrient powder to water. When Widdcombe had met with Rhinehart he had already been living off Soylent for a year and a half. This drink was made with science and has hence reduced Rhineharts food consumption overall.

Food consumption has become a big problem over these past years. There are many factors involved in why there has been such a large growth in consumption. One is that food has become a lot easier to access and produce. There are premade frozen pizzas you can just throw into the oven, bake for a few minutes, and then serve; no effort required. Another big advancement is food drinks. You can get protein shakes for when you wish to work out, you can get breakfast drinks that have daily nutrients to help you in the morning. And now we even have a Soylent drink. It’s “An over-all food substitute”(Widdicombe,11) states Rhinehart. We have drinks that we can substitute for our food and still get all the benefits we would if we were to have an actual meal. 

Wizards would agree with this because it uses science and different forms of chemicals to help us remain healthy. Techno-optimism, by definition, is “the view that science and technology, properly applied, will let us produce a way out of our predicament”(Mann, 2). Rhinehart created this drink while looking at the different chemical makeups we need in order to stay alive. Rhinehart explains this to Widdicombe saying, “You need amino acids and lipids not milk itself,” “You need carbohydrates, not bread”(Widdicombe,1). He was looking at the sciences behind the food and ways to exchange normal food for another healthy option. Wizards should be looking at food replacements, not food enhancements. 

  Prophets  believe in the idea of “apocalyptic environmentalism,” which, by definition, is, “the belief that unless humankind drastically reduces consumption and limits population, it will ravage global ecosystems” (Mann, 2). This Soylent drink helps with the reduction of food consumption. If people switched to drinking Soylent for one or two meals of their day, the food consumption rate would drop. I’m not proposing that we should completely switch over to Soylent and other nutritious drinks, but if we exchanged a few meals a day for Soylent we as a world could collectively reduce our food consumption. This shows that we need a mix of wizard and prophet ideas. 

The Wizards focus on different ways to have chemicals in plants to make them more efficient and abundant. In Widdicombe’s essay she states that, “Today, technological advances have created a new wave of anxiety about our edible present”(Widdicombe, 5). She’s talking about how people are scared or how scientists and technology has changed traditional farming and food all together. There are now genetically modified vegetables, and chemicals that are sprayed onto our vegetables to kill unwanted weeds (Widdicombe, 5). These are things that Wizards should turn away from. Mann tells us that “Wizards think the best course is to use genetic modification to create more-productive crops”(Mann, 6). Though this may be helpful, I think they should look into alternative options such as Soylent. 

I’m not proposing we need to completely turn away from food, but to limit the amounts we eat of the food. This is still a chemically made up food, but it hits the different food groups we need in our meals. There are also different kinds of Soylent mixtures. You can pick and choose which “ingredient” you want in your drink. Widdicombe discovers that there are over fourteen hundred different variations of the drink (Widdicombe, 13). There is basically a drink for every type of taste. Since there is such a large variety of the Soylent drinks you can have a different one for every meal and not get tired of having the same one over and over again. Soylents is a DIY type of drink that can appeal to all types of people and preferences. 

Soylent drink and other types of nutritious drinks are all great fill-in options. They provide us with all the things we need to survive our daily lives and manage to keep us healthy.  Rhinehart had been living off of Soylent for over a year and he feels the best he’s ever been. Soylent drink is the best of both worlds, and in this case those worlds are the Wizards and the Prophets. It brings the power of science and technology together to create something that will reduce our food consumption as a population. But we will also need to look at other factors. People don’t only view the future of food differently, but they also see the meaning of food differently. Food isn’t just something we use to fill our bellies, people use food as a source of income and a source for socialization. For us to fully get a grasp of the future of food we will also need to take these points into account. Putting both ideas together will point us in the right direction to start 

Works Cited 

Mann, Charles C. “Can Planet Earth Feed 10 Billion People?” The Atlantic, March 2018

 Widdicombe, Lizzie “The End Of Food” The New Yorker, 12 May, 2014