Deciphering a Meal through Open Source Standards: Soylent and the Rise of Diet Hackers
summary
Open-source Soylent formula spawns a crowd of DIY dieters who publish 5,600 recipes from 30,000 users in 75 countries and use forum troubleshooting, nutrient calculators and self-tracking of mood and sleep to iterate powders. A mixed-methods study uses online participant observation of three forums and 21 interviews to show motivations: control over nutrients, peer optimization and rising nutrition literacy; outcomes include changed shopping habits but no evidence of population-level impact and unresolved long-term health risks.
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chapters (8)
- 0:00Introduction to Soylent
- 1:12Soylent origins and community
- 3:26Research background and motivation
- 5:54Study methods and findings
- 8:02Community risk management
- 11:06Soylent as citizen science
- 12:33Personalized nutrition speculation
- 14:41Q&A session
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