Meal replacements have been around forever. Why is soylent better?
2. If we're assuming that this is a meal replacement for when you don't want to eat traditional meals, does it matter if it's suitable for long-term use?
Will I gain weight if I drink Ensure®?
You can increase weight if that is your intended goal. Consuming Ensure® Regular or Ensure® High Protein (1.0 kcal/mL) [...] is a good way to maintain a healthy weight and help build muscle mass. Ensure® Plus Calories has a higher caloric content (1.5 kcal/mL) and may help you in increasing your weight. [...]
Ensure Plus is labeled in the US as "to gain or maintain a healthy weight" or somesuch.
There's no difference in what they're meant for. It's just that the makers of Ensure are much more conservative about marketing. (The ellipses in the quote above are all "please, please talk to your doctor.") If you prefer a product whose marketing strategy is more cavalier about human nutritional needs, but not meaningfully different in terms of actual product, by all means use Soylent. But Ensure is cheaper and available off-the-shelf everywhere.
- Ensure is nutritionally unbalanced. You'll get 200-400% of some nutrients (Vitamin C, Manganese) over 2000 calories and much less than 100% of others (fiber). Drinking Ensure over a whole day would have you consuming 120g of sugar (!), double that of Soylent.
- Ensure comes in a fixed variety of flavors, all of which are sickeningly sweet. You can make Soylent as flavorful and sweet as you want or drink it bland, depending on your preference.
- Ensure comes in silly formats (250 calorie bottles? what, am I supposed to open and drink three at a time?)
- Ensure uses milk products while Soylent is Vegan.
Manganese seems to be the same way; at around 500% DV, you should worry about toxicity, but not before.
The rest of your criticisms are legitimate, though they're much more matters of opinions/preference than objective inferiority. (Personally, for instance, I find the taste of Ensure just fine; a bit on the sweet side, yes, but personally I use it when I'm failing to have an appetite, and sweet works for me.) Note that if you're aiming for a full meal replacement, the 350-calorie Ensure Plus is probably a better choice.
One objective advantage of Ensure is that, to my knowledge, it does not cause the legendary smelly stool that Soylent does.
Soylent is a total food replacement; you don't need to eat anything else at all. It's not supplemental, and it's not interim.
If you're not eating it a lot, then no, there isn't any need for Soylent.
For how long can I use Ensure®?? How many servings do I need to consume each day to meet my daily needs for good health?
Ensure® products deliver complete and balanced nutrition Ensure® products can be used daily. Individual needs depend on many factors — age, gender, level of activity, health status. Please consult your health care professional for details related to your health.
Can Ensure® replace a meal?
Yes. Ensure® products are complete and balanced, when used in appropriate amounts they can be used to replace meals.
Basically, if you're going to do something like switch to Ensure or Soylent or anything as your sole meal source, talk to your doctor first, but if the doctor doesn't object, Ensure is as usable for this purpose as Soylent.
What is the appropriate amount of Ensure you'd have to eat in a day to survive on nothing else, and is that the actual amount recommended for meal replacement?
> that wording exhibits a good deal of effort trying to hide that fact from you.
No, that wording is keeping them compliant with stringent regulatory systems. The fact that Soylent ignores that regulation is a bug, not a feature.
More than one person has pointed out your error. The fact you continue to push it is dishonest.
That's also the right answer for the same question about Soylent, btw. It just turns out that people who are unenthusiastic about proper medical advice form a lucrative market.
Unless you're talking about instant porridge. Please don't tell me you're recommending instant porridge.