Harsh Batra, 32, is a lean and fit man who has the habit of testing his own blood. He was an early adopter of Soylent, and as he watched his health improve he grew serious about making his own version.

SupermealX, which has been certified by Indian regulators as fit for human consumption, is yellowish and has a tinge of vanilla flavor. Like Soylent, it derives proteins, sugars, fats, vitamins and minerals from both regular food and synthetic sources, but Mr. Batra has to import most of the ingredients. As a result, SupermealX in India, at 290 rupees a 500-milliliter meal (about $4.60 a pint), is almost as expensive as Soylent is in the United States.

The Indian government spends about 3 to 4.5 rupees per lunch in the midday meal program that it provides to millions of poor schoolchildren. The midday meal, which provides 450 to 700 calories, depending on a child’s age, derives most of its calories from grain-based carbohydrates. Grain, especially rice and wheat, is cheap in India because of government subsidies. Nutritious vegetables are expensive. When the poor eat at all, they usually fill their bellies with starch.

Angus Deaton, the 2015 Nobel laureate in economic science, and the economist Jean Drèze, observed in 2009 in an influential paper that the “anthropometric indicators of nutrition in India, for both adults and children, are among the worst in the world,” he wrote. “Indeed, according to the National Family Health Survey, the proportion of underweight children remained virtually unchanged between 1998-99 and 2005-06 (from 47 percent to 46 percent for the age group of 0-3 years). Undernutrition levels in India remain higher than for most countries of sub-Saharan Africa.”

The situation for the poor has not vastly improved in the past decade. It would appear that a drink with all the nutrients a body needs, which can be stored in powder form for several months and has been created for the rich, would be an excellent idea for India’s poor, too. For every meal that a customer purchases, Mr. Batra plans to give one away free to an impoverished child in the care of a chosen organization. But the poor have yet to taste his food. “I have no idea how they are going to react,” he said in an interview. “In a few weeks I will know.”