Comment by axlprose | Hacker News Reader

Comment by axlprose | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

the meal replacement (or "MRP") is extremely well established. Just walk into any nutrition store like GNC or VitaminShoppe and they'll likely have a whole section devoted to MRPs right next to the protein shakes/bars.

And as for specific products...

- https://www.bodybuilding.com/store/vega/one.html

- https://www.bodybuilding.com/store/garden-of-life/raw-organi...

- https://www.iherb.com/pr/Madre-Labs-Zenbu-Shake-Meal-Replace...

- https://www.iherb.com/pr/Now-Foods-Tru-Food-Vegan-Natural-Be...

- https://www.iherb.com/pr/Nature-s-Plus-Source-of-Life-Vitami...

- https://www.iherb.com/pr/Orgain-Organic-Meal-All-In-One-Nutr...

- https://www.iherb.com/pr/PlantFusion-Phood-100-Whole-Food-Me...

- https://www.iherb.com/pr/MRM-Veggie-Meal-Replacement-Chocola...

- https://www.iherb.com/pr/Pure-Advantage-MRP-Meal-Replacement...

- https://www.iherb.com/pr/Vibrant-Health-Maximum-Vibrance-Ver...

- https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0038B1EOY/

- https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00KS6WUUE/

- https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0184DGHHO/

- https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004VRGS7W/

- https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0088YQ8MO/

- https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01N2M3RK0/

- https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01N3Y7R1S/

And those are just a few results from a quick search for "meal replacement" across 3 different stores.

Now, I'm not against Soylent, and I'm definitely pro meal replacement products, but let's at least be honest here and call a spade a spade. Soylent's main differentiating factor is it's marketing pitch and that's ok, it doesn't have to be totally revolutionary to succeed.

Skimming the ingredients and descriptions for those, they seem to be intended as protein powder mixes for bodybuilders, not general meal replacements.

Yes, because like I said: marketing. "Protein Shakes" are a bigger/more popular niche than "Meal Replacements", so naturally a lot of products are gonna double dip and try to claim belonging to both categories. But that's irrelevant because what matters is the actual nutritional composition of these products.

Soylent has 20g of protein per serving, and most of the products listed above are also in that 15-30g of protein range and share most of the same micronutrients, so functionally they're about equivalent. The only real differences between all these products are marketing, price, taste, "recommended" serving sizes, and small tweaks in nutrient ratios. Other than that, they're all pretty interchangeable.

The serving size is the whole freakin' point. If you were to consume 1 bag of the Soylent powder, or 5 bottles of the pre-mixed drink, you would have exactly 100% of your RDA for most macros and some micros (+/- some modest amount) for a 2000cal diet.

This breaks down easily into per-meal replacements especially for the powder. Half a bag is half a day's needs, and so on.

That is literally the whole reason Soylent exists. As far as I know, it's the only product that works that way at that price point.

The only items in that list that require less than 10 servings to get to 2000 calories are the ones with serving sizes that are twice as large. Not even remotely comparable.

The "Recommended Serving Size" for these products can effectively be considered as just another part of the marketing. Comparing them based on their superficial face value is as useless as comparing apples and oranges, you have to actually calculate the amount of nutrients per quantity of mass if you want to compare them thoroughly.

Right off the bat, it's worth noting that Soylent has an unusually large serving size of 106-142g [0], compared to the products listed above which have an average serving size of 30-40g, and therefore position themselves as being 'better deals' because they can claim to have more "servings". But otherwise the nutrient ratios are quite comparable and it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

[0] https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/204409635-Preparin...

Uh yeah I looked at a 6-7 of the "meal replacements" you linked randomly, they all have way too much protein.

> Soylent has 20g of protein per serving, and most of the products listed above are also in that 15-30g of protein range and share most of the same micronutrients, so functionally they're about equivalent.

The point is that they have 15-30 g of protein per 120-150 kcal serving as opposed to 20g per 400 kcal serving for soylent.

The macro ratios are not comparable at all. Point me to a single meal replacement that has comparable macros. If it's actually cheaper I will gladly cancel my soylent order and buy that instead.

Have you heard of keto or Atkins diets? High protein intake isn't really a problem.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com