Is "approved as a food" like those fake star naming companies which claim that that the star names are in the library of Congress?

The FDA approving it as a food doesn't mean the FDA approves of it being consumed in a specific way. I'm pretty sure ketchup is approved as a food too, but that doesn't mean you can drink a bottle of it for lunch each day and stay healthy.

One thing from the link above that I didn't previously know: "The Soylent recipe is based on the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and is approved as a food by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)." (emphasis theirs)

That triggers my bullshit detector.

FDA does not "approve as food". It has a list of substances which have been approved as food additives or are GRAS (generally recognized as safe, basically a grandfathering clause). I'm willing to believe that Soylent ingredients all come from that FDA-approved list. That does not mean that the FDA approved Soylent as food.

Rain, thanks for the link. I'm impressed they factored in the question of Crohns/IBS. Most people tend to forget the issue.

I hope to get a chance to talk to my GI about it and some other supplements soon, when I have more time to judge his reliability (new guy so the verdict's still out), just so I can have his opinion on the subject.