A perfectly balanced meal in a glass? Of course it's popular. Most people don't come close to "balanced meal", and suffer the consequences via various illnesses. Most people have other things to do most of the time than making and eating awesome food; for a great many it's more an inconvenience of making hunger pains go away for a few hours.

Soylent's creator makes it very clear he still enjoys making and eating awesome food - he just doesn't want to deal with doing so 1,095 times every year. If anything, he appreciates good food even more.

Not everyone enjoys preparing food (I don't, for example. And the popularity of restaurants and prepared foods indicate to me that I am not alone) and not every meal is a great joy, especially if you want it to be healthy. If I could reduce the time wasted on cooking/eating 2/3 of my meals, and then truly savor the last 1/3, I would be quite happy.

I get that, but I'd consider it a fairly rare stance. Perhaps I muddled things up in the comment by including cooking. I happen to enjoy both, but I'd argue that most people enjoy at least the eating part. To try to save time on it sounds like a terrible trade off (unless other people eat for hours on end?).

Cooking, eating and cleaning up after it take time. If I can prepare a daily meal in 10 minutes, with no washing up, consume it on the go, and it turns out healthier than what I would otherwise eat (I'm no good at healthy cooking)... I don't see the drawback.

I suppose I'd still eat recreationally, at least from time to time. And on social occasions, obviously. But saving up even half an hour every day is huge.

I have gall-stones and another unidentified digestive problem that does not allow me to eat very much sugar or fat in any of my food, essentially knocking out about 99% of foods found in the world today out of my diet.

I mostly eat protein power drinks with almond milk, basic grains, vegetables, very lean meats, etc. etc.

I used to be a professional cook. I now cannot eat anything remotely fun or tasty. But soylent seems like one thing I could actually add to my regimen.

Not every meal is a gourmet experience that you savour with friends. Sometimes, you just need to refuel your body. Soylent could be perfect for that.

What if every meal is an experience to savour with friends and/or family? (well ok, every evening meal)

I like to live that way.

But then I also couldn't eat the same thing for lunch every day. Stuff that has actual flavour and texture gets boring fast. This would be boring before I'd finished the glass.

Then this is not a product for you. But I'd say you're the exception, at least from my anecdotal experience.

Exactly. There are times when you want to enjoy the experience, but there are also times (I dare say this is the majority of cases) when food is just a time-wasting distraction from the things you want to do at the moment.