here's what i was thinking:

1. "real food" has plenty of vitamins and stuff

2. some of that stuff might have a long half-life in the body

3. and be needed only in small (catalytic?) amounts.

so that

1. you wouldn't know about them if you just studied basic nutrition textbooks (or perhaps nobody knows about them)

2. if your social eating is frequent enough, you'd never lack them.

so, ideally, people following some soylent-type practice strictly will develop some interesting symptoms, and we'll discover some new stuff. but if they cheat, we don't learn as much.

i admit there's a good possibility that we already know about all the vitamin-like stuff there is. after soylenters start showing better 10-year mortality, i'll gladly join them.