European Soylent alternatives

Meal replacements really are awesome. I've been on Soylent 2.0 for several months. I don't have to cook, wash dishes, or refrigerate my food, it's shipped to my front door, all of my waste is recyclable (to my knowledge), I don't have opportunities to impulse buy any more, it's more nutritious than what I was eating before, I'm a vegetarian (vegan, even?) as a side effect, and it's hard to choke on it. Rosa Labs also just released a caffeinated version with coffee in it, which will replace my energy drink habit. (I should probably drop caffeine altogether, but I love it so much.)

Cons include people looking at me weird, possible nutrition-related black swans, jaw muscle atrophy (which may be a notable pro for any transwomen out there), and lack of fibrous material to chew on to clean out the fissures in my molars, which could increase risk of dental caries. I could pick up a gum habit for the last one; xylitol gum would probably be best as long as I'm trying to improve my oral health.

[-]Viliam9y40

Chewing gum is generally recommended with this kind of food.

There are already known problems with this kind of food, and I wonder why no one seems to address them. First, the lack of probiotics. Second, some metabolic pathways cannot be done at the same time (sorry, I don't remember the specific examples), so if you eat both X and Y in the same food, X will take priority and get digested, but Y will be ignored. This is not a problem if some of your food contains only X and other contains only Y, but may become a problem when X and Y always come mixed together.

The second problem seems relatively easy to fix: just split the food into two (or more if necessary) variants. For example, make one variant with double X, zero Y, and the usual amount of everything else, and other variant with no X, double Y, and the usual amount of everything else. Not sure what to do about the first problem; I suspect probiotics do not have the same shell life as the usual Soylent ingredients.

[-]buybuydandavis9y40

I started probiotics around Christmas last year. Been losing weight consistently since then. Have largely gotten off the easy carbs. Pre diabetic. All numbers have gotten much better since then.

There has been a lot of noise in recent years about probiotics for treating diabetes and generally controlling insulin levels.

[-]Mir2y10

some metabolic pathways cannot be done at the same time

Have you updated on this since you made this comment (I ask to check whether I should invest in doing a search)? If not, do you now recall any specific examples?

[-]Viliam2y30

I haven't paid attention to this recently (I have small kids, so we need to cook anyway), but I think it is magnesium and calcium -- they somehow interfere with each other's absorption.

Just a random thing I found in google, but didn't read it: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1211491/

(Plus there is a more general concern about what other similar relations may exist that no one has studied yet, because most people do not eat like "I only eat X at the same time as Y, mixed together".)

[-]Gurkenglas5y20

Is this up to date?

[-]ChristianKl5y20

No, it's an analysis from 2016.

[-]buybuydandavis9y20

I've never tried the meal replacements, but I've got a pretty good simple food regimen going lately. At least I like it, feel good, and have been losing weight.

(I supplement heavily as well. )

Cheerios in the morning, with almond+coconut milk plus vanilla powdered eggs over them. Tasty. Avoids dairy and easy carbs. Carrot juice with some of the ac milk (much tastier with the ac milk added).

Lunch - salad bar at work. Chunk fruits. Spinach. Red/Green peppers. Olives. Artichokes. Feta. Wish they had avocados. Usually some chunked chicken and tiny cheapo shrimp.

Dinnner - Vegetable infused pasta, chopped chicken thighs, some tomato sauce, and shredded cheese. Started having some wine with it.

I've gotten off the rice/bread/potatoes. And I only actually cook once a week, when I bake a pile of chicken thighs. Otherwise, it's pour or microwave to reheat. With cooking not a daily grind, I usually cook something interesting once a week. Rib eye steak last night. Tasty.

[-]andygor9y20

Have you tried Soylent? An e-commerce project selling it in Ukraine and i want to know, should i buy it or any alternatives. Thanks.

[-]philh9y00

I've tasted soylent, and in the past I've had joylent and queal regularly. I don't remember if I found soylent pleasant or unpleasant, but I remember it seemed less tasty and with a worse texture (too gritty) than either of the others. I can't speak to any other factors.

(I'm pretty sure it wasn't as bad as queal's forest fruit flavour.)

[-][anonymous]9y10

I feel like you left out what is to me the most important characteristic of these meals: how filling they are. To me the taste/texture is a minor part of the product, more important is the nutritional characteristics and how much they sate hunger. The former is observable without buying the product, the latter isn't, so I was wondering whether you could give any opinions on that?

For example, I've tried soylent, joylent, and huel. Huel might taste worse but for me it's overwhelmingly the best in terms of filling me up and relieving hunger.

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[-]ZeitPolizei9y00

There is also Bertrand, which is organic. Their ingredients look like it would be pretty tasty, but it costs 9€ per day.

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European Soylent alternatives

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