[DISCUSSION] What is your opinion about meal replacement shakes?

I use them to not lose weight to my cancer 🤷‍♀️

Soylent is great. I don’t use it on the regular but it works for all the things you’d want one to work for. 400 calories downed quick and satiates for about 3 hours.

I used them when I had covid and lost my sense of taste. When you can't taste, all food is just a gross mush in your mouth.

I drank huel for a while, then plenny. I switched because plenny doesn't add thickener, which makes it way easier to drink and use in smoothies and stuff

I tried Soylent for a little bit. It was okay. I think they work well as a once-in-awhile kinda thing, or in particularly strenuous or limiting conditions, but relying on them for any real length of time would be a little sad imo.

I'd still look for some for a solo road trip of any sort, they're preferable to most road food.

I tried to get into it, but between finding recipes and washing the blender, it wasn't less effort or money than just making a sandwich. I did not find it helpful as a diet aid, because I would still be hungry after a "meal replacement." If I don't have time to cook, I don't have time to blend. If I make a bunch in advance, I can just as easily make a bunch of salads in containers.

I'm already fat and disabled, though, and I work from home, so factor that into my experience.

When we get sick we rely on Ensure to keep our nutrients up when we can't eat, but I've never used them to replace a proper meal because they are wholly unsatisfying, I would need a sandwich or something to top off my fat ass.

I don't use them and wouldn't use them. I like food, and would rather cut into other things' time to cook and eat.

I generally have a pretty negative opinion of the idea of "replacing meals" with soilent-esque products. I understand the various reasons people use these, and don't blame them, but to me it's treating a symptom rather than the problems that cause it.

I use them because I have a lot of food allergies and it's inconvenient to eat in public. But I don't enjoy it.

I started having a Soylent shake for lunch last week. I hate having to deal with eating during my work day (WFH), and want to stop doordashing. It’s worked well, I’m hungry by dinner and it has better nutrition than what I normally eat.

Will keep on doing it this week and see how it goes.

I drink Soylent when I'm in a can't-be-arsed mood.

Had the Aussie version of Soylent, Aussielent for a few months. I don't get as much satisfaction from food as others, so for me it was awesome, I saved so much time not preparing food, and I didn't need to think about balancing my diet.

Then I started my relationship and had to start eating normie food again. Let me go back to the Nebuchadnezza and eat my nutrient slop.

Probably saved my life during a severe anxious period where I was physically unable to eat enough regular food and became dangerously underweight very fast.

Nowadays, useful as a convenience when I don't have time to make proper food, or just to switch it up a bit. I enjoy these particular shakes I get so sometimes I just get them because I like them.

I have a subscription to Holfood and I love it. It definitely makes life easier. For me, the advantages I get from meal replacement shakes are

• it saves me from having to decide what to eat so I can put that energy towards things I actually care to do
• it's not very filling, so i can have a shake fairly soon after a solid meal and fit more calories into my day
• Probably much healthier than any other meal I can make in the same amount of time
• Very tasty in my opinion, but that's down to personal preference
• Makes solid meals much more enjoyable because they're no longer mandatory, you don't have to eat so much that you get sick of the foods you normally enjoy, and you can choose your solid meals to maximize enjoyment rather than nutritional value

The main con is that it's expensive relative to cooking for yourself. But if you factor in the time savings, it may not actually be any more expensive.

I looked into them because I hate cooking, often forget to dedicate time to preparing food and then over eat junk because of convenience, but the cost to get them where I live didn't make sense for me. If I could find something local and cheaper I'd definitely give it a go.

Food brings me joy daily. Eating and cooking are fundamental human activities that are part of culture and bringing people together for millennial. Why I want to replace that?

They're antithetical to enjoying cooking and food and so they have no place in my home.

I've tried Soylent, Huel, and Jimmy Joy. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages. Soylent has a very smooth texture but not too many flavors, Huel and JJ have great flavor variety but a more grainy texture. Huel (and I think JJ now too) have hot meals which are pretty good and a nice change of pace from cold drinks.

I use them partly for convenience and partly because they have a good amount of fiber which I sometimes don't get enough of. I don't really have the self discipline or the willingness to eat the same thing 3x/day in order to put exactly X number of calories in me so I can lose weight.

There’s a few main aspects to these things I see: the enjoyment of drinking them, the nutrition value, and convenience. For context I’ve ordered a box of Soylent a few times a year for a few years, and my roommate has been using it (or products like Soylent such as Huel) since 2015~2016.

Flavor/enjoyment: Plain Soylent tastes like liquid cheerios. Any flavors you find taste like liquid cheerios with flavor syrup added. To many that sounds gross, but if that sounds bearable to you then it’s worth a try. I like the flavored ones, mainly the creamy chocolate and mint chocolate, which tastes like melted ice cream.

Nutrition: you probably know but each bottle has a decent amount of calories enriched with 20% of your daily value of vitamins and nutrients, which is neat. I’m not a health professional, but I’m guessing it’s probably healthier than taking vitamins but not as good as getting them from a source that naturally has the nutrients. For me who has maybe one bottle in a day it’s a way to keep a baseline of nutrients that I may not get from my normal diet and that aren’t covered by my vitamin supplements.

Convenience: Having bottles is really nice if you commute. I like that when I’m headed out the door I can grab one to drink for work. I won’t be hungry or spend money on fast food. I will often be hungry by the time I’m home but as a person that tends to overeat I consider that a good thing.
My roommate who does the shake blending himself works remote so he can often find the few minutes to put a bottle together. He’s built up a reserve of ~20 blender bottles but usually needs about a third of them for his daily drinking if we keep up on dishes. He’ll use 2-4 a day for breakfast and lunch before a solid food dinner. We also keep space for 2-3 gallons of milk for how much he makes.

That’s all anecdotal, but I hope it gives you an idea of what daily life with the stuff may look like.

They're no replacement for a meal in terms of making you feel less hungry. Soylent has some good flavors, but it's also kinda chalky. Best one I've ever had though.

If these things actually filled your belly and didn't just provide a meal's worth of vitamins and such, I think they'd be pretty good for a super quick replacement to real food. Definitely not something you want when you're actually hungry.

I used to drink them quite a bit, but I don't any more sure to food allergies.

I think they're quite useful and can even be tasty (I used to make smoothies using them). I just saw them as a convenient form of protein.

Having said that, I've noticed that I'm much less hungry eating whole food proteins, and so I'm actually less likely to snack and ingest less calories over all.

You meant Soylent Green?

I seriously pity people who's culinary skills end at mixing some powder with water.