> Why does one meal made by a tech company need to have literally everything you need to live when the alternatives don't?

Mostly because of their marketing claims: 'We engineered Soylent to provide all the protein, carbohydrates, lipids, and micronutrients that a body needs to thrive.'

Particularly the 'micronutrient' claim I think is totally unproven.

Nobody seriously expects to survive and be healthy eating nothing but breakfast cereal (admittedly, a lot of cereal is crap), but that's Soylent's claim at face value.

One thing that traditional foods have going for them is that there is a lot of empirical cultural experience with them. You know yogurt, or curry, or broccoli is probably ok to eat, because humans have eaten them for some thousands of years and tinkered with them nonstop during that time. The same can't be said for 'engineered' foods, whether Soylent or any other modern processed food.