Are humans condemned to eat to live, so that they can live to work?

The essentials of living itself can be seen as a waste of time for a certain genre of workers, judging by the latest trend swamping the 24×7, time-zone-less techie world — and spilling over into other spheres too.

That’s definitely the lot whose penchant for drinkable meal substitutes that allows them to stay working at their stations instead of ‘wasting’ time eating has generated millions for the magic mush business. However, if meals as adults are to be reduced to quaffable variants of the nutritious swill we gobbled as babies, the question arises about the need to ever switch from formula to food in the interregnum in the first place, the delights of mastication and MasterChef ambitions be damned.

Indeed, the thought also arises then about all the other evidently useless things the average human being spends time on that can — if not should — be gainfully utilised otherwise. Sleeping, bathing and those rather indelicate but imperative bodily functions would rank among the prominent points of concern. Unfortunately, none of them can be forsworn or conveniently substituted by an external device or concoction. Maybe that is why the focus of the timesavers has been on eating, whose contribution to human existence is sought to be reduced to dull, oatmeal-like mulch loosened with water or milk. We must not succumb!