硅谷工作狂青睐液体营养餐

SAN FRANCISCO — Every night, Aaron Melocik, a software developer, follows a precise food routine. He blends together half a gallon of water, three and a half tablespoons of macadamia nut oil and a 16-ounce bag of powder called Schmoylent. Then he pours the beige beverage into jars and chills them before bringing the containers to work the next day at Metrodigi, an education technology start-up.

旧金山——每天晚上，软件开发者埃伦·梅洛西克(Aaron Melocik)都会遵守一套严格的饮食流程。他会把0.5加仑（约合2.275升）水、3.5汤匙澳洲坚果油和一袋16盎司（约合453克）的Schmoylent粉末混合在一起。然后，他把这种米黄色的饮品装进罐子，冷藏起来，第二天再把它们带去上班。他在教育科技初创公司Metrodigi工作。

At the office, Mr. Melocik stashes one Schmoylent jar in the refrigerator and takes the other to his desk. From 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., he sips from the first jar for breakfast, and the second for lunch. He consumes about 14 fluid ounces of Schmoylent each day so he can focus on coding instead of grabbing a bite to eat.

到办公室以后，梅洛西克把一罐Schmoylent放进冰箱，然后把另一罐放到办公桌上。从早晨6点半到下午3点半，他会把第一罐当早餐，第二罐当午餐。每天，他都要喝掉大约14液盎司的Schmoylent，这样他就可以把注意力放在编程上面，而不是去找东西吃。

“It just removes food completely from my morning equation up until about 7 p.m.,” said Mr. Melocik, 34, who has been following his techie diet since February.

“如此一来，从早晨直到大约晚上7点，我都不用考虑吃的问题了，”34岁的梅洛西克说。自2月以来，他一直在按照自己的这套技术宅食谱进食。

Boom times in Silicon Valley call for hard work, and hard work — at least in technology land — means that coders, engineers and venture capitalists are turning to liquid meals with names like Schmoylent, Soylent, Schmilk and People Chow. The protein-packed products that come in powder form are inexpensive and quick and easy to make — just shake with water, or in the case of Schmilk, milk. While athletes and dieters have been drinking their dinner for years, Silicon Valley’s workers are now increasingly chugging their meals, too, so they can more quickly get back to their computer work.

处在繁荣时期的硅谷需要人们努力工作，而努力工作——至少在科技领域——意味着程序员、工程师和风投资本家要转而食用Schmoylent、Soylent、Schmilk和People Chow等液态食物。这些富含蛋白质的粉末状产品价格不高，制作起来也方便快捷——加水搅拌即可；或者像Schmilk这样加牛奶搅拌。运动员和节食者多年前就已经在食用液态晚餐，现在越来越多硅谷员工也开始用喝这种东西代替吃饭，以便能以更快的速度回到电脑前工作。

Demand for some of the powdered drinks, which typically mix nutrients like magnesium, zinc and vitamins, is so high that some engineers report being put on waiting lists of one to six months to receive their first orders. And the drinks are taking off across techie social circles. Venture capitalists have also poured money into the companies that offer the meal replacements, and investors including Alexis Ohanian, a founder of Reddit, count themselves as fans of the drinks.

其中一些粉末饮品——这些粉末通常含有镁、锌和维生素等营养物——的需求量非常大，有些工程师甚至说，他们需要等待一至六个月才能收到第一批订货。这种饮品在技术人员的社交圈内非常火爆。风投资本家也在向提供这种代餐品的公司注资，Reddit联合创始人阿莱克西斯·欧海尼安(Alexis Ohanian)等投资者都表示自己是此类饮品的粉丝。

“My dream in an ideal scenario would be if I could just pick up some at the airport, pre-made in the refrigerator section,” said Mr. Ohanian, who invested in Soylent and treats the drink as a fallback meal. The entrepreneur, who frequently flies between New York and San Francisco for work, says he will whip up a batch of Soylent and sip it throughout the day when he is too lazy to make something to eat.

“我心目中的理想情形是可以在机场的冷藏区买到事先调制好的这种饮品，”投资了Soylent的欧海尼安说。他认为这种饮品是一种备用食物。因为工作，这位创业家经常在纽约和旧金山之间飞来飞去。他说，当他懒得做东西吃的时候，他就会调制一些Soylent，然后喝一整天。

In March, the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz served Soylent-inis and Soylent Whites at a cocktail event at the South by Southwest conference in Austin. Some members of the firm, which has invested in Soylent, have even gone on a Soylent cleanse, drinking only the liquid for several days, said Chris Dixon, an Andreessen Horowitz partner. He said he was not a participant.

3月，风投公司安德森-霍洛维茨(Andreessen Horowitz) 在奥斯汀“西南偏南”（South by Southwest，简称SXSW）大会的一次鸡尾酒活动上，为宾客准备了Soylent天尼(Soylent-inis)和Soylent白(Soylent Whites)。安德森-霍洛维茨合伙人克里斯·迪克森(Chris Dixon)说，作为Soylent的投资人，这家公司的一些人甚至进行了一次“Soylent排毒食疗”，连续几天只喝这种液体。他说自己并未参与其中。

Other coders are customizing the meal replacements to social occasions. On a recent Saturday evening in his Ikea-furnished apartment in San Francisco’s Haight neighborhood, Pulak “Potluck” Mittal, a 23-year-old software engineer, hosted a dinner party for half a dozen techie friends. On the menu were pad thai noodles and a side dish of Soylent.

一些程序员还对这种代餐食品加以改造，把它用在了社交场合上。最近一个周六的夜晚，在位于旧金山海特(Haight)街区的一所满是宜家(Ikea)家具的公寓里，23 岁的软件工程师“波特拉克”普拉克·米塔尔（Pulak “Potluck” Mittal，Potluck是一种每人各出一道菜的聚餐会。——译注）为六个技术圈的朋友举办了一次晚宴。菜单上是金边粉和用Soylent做的佐餐。

One attendee, Dan Carroll, founder of the education tech start-up Clever, complimented Mr. Mittal for mixing peanut butter into the oatmeal-colored drink to accompany the pad thai. “That was very thoughtful, that you really tailored the Soylent experience to the food,” Mr. Carroll said.

教育科技初创公司Clever的创始人丹·卡罗尔(Dan Carroll)也参加了这次活动，他对米塔尔在这种燕麦色的饮品中加入花生酱来搭配金边粉的做法表示了赞扬。“非常有想法，你真的把Soylent的体验跟食物搭配起来了，”卡罗尔说。

The rise of the meal replacements mirrors Silicon Valley’s start-up froth — and includes a dose of confidence. The makers of the new drinks said their products were better than the commercial powders that had been on the market for years, because those tended to have lots of sugar and overemphasized the use of protein. In contrast, Soylent and Schmoylent are both blends of nutrients that would allow one to drink only those meals and live a healthy life, they said.

这种代餐食品的兴起反映了硅谷的创业狂热——其中还带有一丝自信。这种新式饮品的制造者称，他们的产品比多年来市场上销售的那些量产粉末更好，因为那些粉末往往含糖量很高，而且过分强调蛋白质的使用。他们表示，相比之下，Soylent和Schmoylent都由营养物混合而成，人们只需喝这种饮品就能保持健康。

Rob Rhinehart, a software engineer, said he came up with the idea for Soylent in 2013 while working long hours at a wireless communications company and realizing he was eating poorly. He said he wanted to create something that could be “universally applicable” for hard-working people like himself. So he founded Soylent, based in Los Angeles, that year and gained more than $3 million in funding from the crowdsourcing site Tilt.

软件工程师罗伯·莱恩哈特(Rob Rhinehart)说，他是在2013年产生做Soylent的想法的。当时他在一家无线通讯公司的工作时间很长，并意识到自己吃得很糟。他说，他想为像自己一样辛苦工作的人制造一种“普遍适用”的东西。所以他当年在洛杉矶创立了Soylent，并且从众包网站Tilt上获得了超过300万美元（约合1860万元人民币）的资金。

Orders took off quickly. The company said it had shipped more than the equivalent of six million “meals” across the United States. Mr. Rhinehart decLined to share financial details but said his company was shipping “at the kiloton scale” each quarter and had attracted $24.5 million in financing. While Soylent has a diverse customer base, tech workers in particular have the “early-adopter personality” that makes them open to trying the powder, Mr. Rhinehart said.

订单增加得非常快。公司称，他们目前已经把超过相当于600万顿“饭”的产品运到了美国各地。莱恩哈特拒绝透露更多的财务细节，但是说他的公司每个季度的出货量可“以千吨计算”，并且已经吸引了2450万美元的投资。莱恩哈特说，尽管Soylent的客户群多种多样，但科技业者由于具有“爱尝鲜的人格”，所以愿意尝试这种粉末。

Soylent’s success has created opportunity for imitators, who are mixing and marketing their own powders. Alex C. Snyder, known on Internet forums as “Axcho,” quit his job at the software company Linden Lab last August to sell his own variants of Soylent, like Schmoylent and Schmilk. Many of his repeat customers in the San Francisco Bay Area work in technology.

Soylent的成功给模仿者创造了机会，这些模仿者也在调制和销售自己的粉末。去年8月，亚历克斯·C·斯奈德(Alex C. Snyder)——在网络论坛上名叫Axcho——辞去软件公司林登实验室(Linden Lab)的工作，开始售卖自己生产的类Soylent产品，比如Schmoylent和Schmilk。他在旧金山湾区的许多回头客都在科技领域工作。

Mr. Snyder said he was sometimes puzzled by the sales of the products that were in plastic bags and labeled with a sharpie, which made them look “sketchy.”

斯奈德说，他有时会为产品的销售感到很困惑，这些产品被装在塑料袋里，上面用记号笔画上标签，所以看上去有点“糙”。

“I was like, why are people even buying?” Mr. Snyder said, reflecting back about a year to the time when orders started pouring in. “It was really weird.”

“我当时就想，人们为什么要买呢？” 斯奈德回想起大约一年前订单开始猛增的时候说。“真是奇怪。”

With the demand, he said his company — which he plans to call Super Body Fuel — would move its production operation to a large warehouse in June, upgrading from a co-working space in San Francisco’s Mission District.

随着需求增加，他说他的公司——他打算给公司起名叫“超级身体燃料” (Super Body Fuel)——6月将把生产环节转移到一个大仓库，离开现在这个旧金山教会区的共享式工作空间。

Soylent, Schmilk and some others typically taste like bland, gritty pancake batter. But never mind that, since the meal replacements save techies money and time. While a meal generally costs upward of $50 at Silicon Valley-area restaurants, a week’s worth of Soylent or Schmoylent totals $85.

Soylent、Schmilk和其他一些产品一般吃起来都像是味道寡淡的煎饼面糊。但这并不要紧，因为这种代餐食品为技术人员节省了金钱和时间。一般而言，在硅谷区的餐厅吃一顿饭至少要花50美元以上，而吃一周Soylent或Schmoylent的总花销只需要85美元。

Alexandros Kostibas, a founder of Habit Monster, a San Francisco software start-up that nearly went bankrupt recently because of high costs, said he paid himself less than he paid his employees, and he guzzled Soylent partly because it was more economical than eating out. He said a frozen dinner was already a shortcut, but Soylent was a healthier, quicker alternative.

习惯怪物(Habit Monster)是旧金山的一家软件初创公司，由于成本太高，该公司最近几乎濒临破产。其创始人亚历山德罗斯·科斯提巴斯(Alexandros Kostibas)称，他付给员工的工资都比他付给自己的多，他之所以大量食用Soylent，部分原因是它比在外面吃更实惠。他说，吃冷冻餐点已经很省事了，但Soylent是一种更健康、更便捷的选择。

“I think engineers are ready to throw in the towel on the illusion that we’re having this family dinner,” he said. “Let’s do away with all the marketing facade and get the calories as quickly as we can.”

“我认为，工程师已经对享用家庭晚餐不抱任何幻想了，”他说。“我们也别管什么营销包装，就是尽可能快地获取卡路里。”

The time wasted by eating is, in Silicon Valley parlance, a “pain point” even for the highest echelon of techie. Elon Musk, Tesla’s founder, once said, “If there was a way that I couldn’t eat so I could work more, I would not eat. I wish there was a way to get nutrients without sitting down for a meal,” according to a new book on the entrepreneur, written by Ashlee Vance. Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment about whether he had tried Schmilk or Soylent.

用硅谷的话说，即使对于级别最高的技术人员，吃饭所花的时间也是一个“痛点”。根据阿什莉·万斯(Ashlee Vance)撰写的一本关于特斯拉(Tesla)创始人埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)的新书，马斯克曾经表示，“如果有什么方法可以不吃饭，从而做更多工作，那我宁愿不吃饭。我希望有办法可以让我不坐下来吃饭就能获得营养。”对于是否尝试过Schmilk或Soylent的问题 ，马斯克没有回应。

When Mr. Mittal started working at Clever this year, the company declared in an email introducing him to colleagues that he was an avid Soylent user. Soon after, Mr. Mittal said, some co-workers approached him to ask if they could try some.

当米塔尔今年开始在Clever上班时，公司在把他介绍给其他同事的邮件中说，他对Soylent非常着迷。米塔尔说，不久就有一些同事来找他，问是否可以尝试一下。

“I’ve been a little bit of a Soylent dealer to a number of my co-workers,” Mr. Mittal said.

米塔尔说：“对于许多同事，我已经有点像是Soylent贩子了。”

But Soylent, Schmilk and Schmoylent are acquired tastes. Mr. Mittal said many of his colleagues did not end up getting hooked on Soylent. The few who were still drinking it weren’t too enthusiastic.

但是， Soylent、Schmilk和Schmoylent的味道都需要适应。米塔尔说，他的许多同事最后都没有养成食用Soylent的习惯。仅有的几个仍然在喝它们的人也不是很热衷。

“I am getting sick of the taste,” Dan Sparks, an engineer for Clever, recently told Mr. Mittal. “I am thinking I’ll have to start flavoring it.”

“我已经烦死这种味道了，”Clever的工程师 丹·斯帕克斯(Dan Sparks)最近对米塔尔说，“我在想，我得开始给它加点味道才行。”