They can (and probably will) help the poor once they scale up their production and drive the marginal production cost down.
Low cost hinges on scaling up (and hopefully also being less strict about pseudo-"hypo-allergenic" properties).
Low cost hinges on scaling up (and hopefully also being less strict about pseudo-"hypo-allergenic" properties).
It's impact on poverty world wide could be like the potato was to Europe and the Islands. On second thought...
To that end, Soylent has a DIY section where people have contributed recipes so you can make soylent yourself, often with a button to add all the ingredients into your amazon cart.
http://diy.soylent.me/wiki/why-diy-soylent
And you can view the recipes by my favorite or most complete: http://diy.soylent.me/recipes?pctComplete=0.99&sort=favorite...
The thing to remember that when you DIY, you're buying the ingredients in bulk and it seems expensive. Take for example the [QuidNYC's Superfood for him](http://diy.soylent.me/recipes/quidnycs-superfood-for-him) which will cost you $437 up front, but gives you an ~80 day supply, so it really comes down to $5.50/day. Also, if you compare that to the Soylent campaign prices, it's $255 for a 1 month supply, or $130 for a 2 week supply. There's no real "trial size" at this point, so it's rather difficult to try a bunch of recipes and see what you like.
Also, not all recipes are created equal: http://diy.soylent.me/recipes/hungry-hobo-i-cant-believe-its...