Are that kind of drinks popular in North America and if, then why..?
I'm having problems understanding why would anyone want to consume something like that.
I'm having problems understanding why would anyone want to consume something like that.
I also will make shakes, but sometimes soylent is just easier.
Its not like no one had ever done meal-replacement foods before Soylent came along. Its not new, its not cheaper, its not as well regulated, its not as flavorful.
Seriously, why would you buy Soylent (which has had numerous beta 'failures') over a something like Ensure/
And I say this with the belief that Americans eat too many carbs, and a higher fat/lower carb diet would be better for people. I just don’t understand this disconnect.
To counter this, I'v been reading a lot lately about how science has a publish-or-perish problem / unreproducible results problem / influence by industry problem.
And the medical profession / pharmaceutical industry is complicit in the opium epidemic. Many of the medical drugs, doctors use, outside of infectious disease control, don't actually work in the sense that you take them for a period of time and are cured.
It is the fault of government department dietitians, and their political overlords, that we are in this obesity / diabetes / heart disease mess.
Given the traditional dietary advice of "eat less fat, start your day will a bowl full of sugar and milk" is wrong, is it any wonder people are making so much noise?
It's also not traditional dietary advice; at least living in the US my whole life, I've only seen it as “advice” in advertisements from people selling the sugary products in question.
Here's what the Dietitians Association of Australia[1] recommends:
- A bowl of whole grain cereal with milk, a dollop of yoghurt and sliced fresh fruit. Try adding a sprinkle of nuts for extra crunch!
- A delicious smoothie made from milk, fresh fruit and yoghurt
- A toasted slice of sourdough with some cheese, baked beans or avocado
- Untoasted muesli or rolled oats
- Poached eggs on whole grain toast with tomato, mushrooms or spinach
That seams reasonable to me, except maybe that every one of the recommendations includes grains. Although I don't see why breakfast can't be 100 grams of slow cooked / steamed meat with a bowl of steamed vegetables / a salad.
1. https://daa.asn.au/smart-eating-for-you/smart-eating-fast-fa...
You're painting with a very broad brush here. Many pharmaceutical companies product no opiates at all. Furthermore, most doctors won't prescribe them at all, especially after the DEA crackdown. Even if you get seriously hurt, you might have a tough time finding a pain management specialist, unless you live in one of a handful of geographic locations.
> don't actually work in the sense that you take them for a period of time and are cured.
That's kind of a ridiculous standard. For example, take HIV, antiretroviral medications don't cure AIDS, but if you take them, you'll die of old age or heart disease instead of AIDS, and you live an extra 20-30 years. That's pretty incredible. Or look at medication for seizures, they don't cure the heretofore unknown cause of seizures, but do prevent them nonetheless. Would you rather take meds and have no seizures or avoid a medication that doesn't actually cure you and die because you fell down the stairs during a seizure?
There is a bunch of foundational stuff in science that is great, but like any human endeavour, there is also plenty of garbage and nonsense.
One 8 oz bottle of Ensure has 220 calories and 33g of carbs, 15g of which is just sugar. You might as well just have a coke and some protein powder.
If a cheaper competitor emerges that doesn't taste like a milk shake, I'd switch to that. But so far no one has offered a reasonable alternative.
Nothing of what Soylent Green does is new, companies like Fresenius, Nestle, Abbot and whatnot have been manufacturing balanced liquid nutrition for medical needs for decades.
I'm far more surprised these established players in the enteral nutrition market haven't started their own push for something like this, trying to sell their medical products as convenience lifestyle products. I guess they wouldn't want to cannibalize their own profits from the medical sales by offering a more affordable non-medical lifestyle alternative.
As somebody who works with this kind of stuff, parenteral and enteral nutrition, I think there's a real market here. But I'd vastly prefer offerings from established companies, rather than some random guys buying bulk ingredients on Amazon and mixing them up in moldy warehouses.
> random guys buying bulk ingredients on Amazon and mixing them up in moldy warehouses
Is this based on something, because I highly doubt they are sourcing ingredients from amazon, this is needlessly inflammatory. And moldy warehouses, do you really have so little to say about Soylent you have to make things up?
The mold is unfortunate, but only with Soylent 2.0, the pre-made bottles. As soon as they found out they issued a recall, like any responsible company.
> A few of the packets were infested with mold, but that didn't bother me; I was a beta tester after all, and the packaging hadn't been finalized yet. It'd gotten punctured en route somehow, and moisture had got in—which did highlight its vulnerability to mold, an important point given that Rob touts its non-spoiling benefits as a solution to sending nutritious food to far-flung places.
So, while they were developing their product, in beta stage a few packets got moldy? That's what beta is for! Finding these issues, then resolving them.
Kinda funny reading the original article clears all this up, unlike the propaganda piece you posted.
The tube feeds [0] are pretty much exactly that. Those Fresenius ones are not flavored but other manufacturers, like HiPP/Abbot, even have flavored tube feed, as some tube patients like having the flavor come up when they have to burp.
A step closer are the "nutritional supplements", which is a weird name for it in German we call it "Trinknahrung" which literally translates to "liquid nutrition". These are usually flavored and come in a variety of forms, like powder or even puddings.
I've "eaten" the stuff sometimes for diet or after tooth operations, it's pretty okayish when cold, like a milkshake. The biggest issue is that you have to be really careful about how fast you drink it until your digestive system adapted to the high-calorie contents, as drinking too much too fast will also make it come out too fast, so to speak.
Do you have any examples of Trinknahrung?
In contrast, Amazon.de has a wide selection of different high caloric Trinknahrung, the Fresenius stuff even has Prime delivery [1].
[0] https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Da...
[1] https://www.amazon.de/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_17?__mk_de_DE=%C3%8...
> 2 x 200ml bottles per day will provide 40g protein, 800kcal and meets the average adult recommended daily requirements for vitamins and trace-elements# (DOH 1991).
You would need to drink 5 bottles to meet average calorie requirements. I don't know if there are health risks to consuming 2.5x above the daily requirements, but it was clearly not designed to be a total meal replacement.
The DRINK bottles are designed as a supplement to the tube feed, but it's all pretty much the same stuff with the main difference being that DRINK is flavored for oral consumption.
> I don't know if there are health risks to consuming 2.5x above the daily requirements, but it was clearly not designed to be a total meal replacement.
There ain't and it is. How do you think people with jaw/throat issues keep on eating? Larynx cancer is very common, just like many other cancer types directly affecting the mechanical ability to chew/swallow. I've patients living only on that stuff for over 10 years, still living.
Tbh I'm kinda surprised how skeptical you seem of something which has seen decades-long successful medical application [0] and has its roots in NASA research for astronaut nutrition, which rates among the most solid food-science we have.
Fresubin 2Kcal DRINK isn't the only variety, Fresenius has literally dozens of other varieties for the sole purpose of adapting the diet to the patient from low caloric, to fibre, to diabetic, pretty much all the manufacturers do because peoples nutritional needs are individual.
And that's just enteral, going parenteral you can get all your food/water/nutrients from 1-2 infusions per day. Tho the port [1] used for such applications is still a pretty big infection risk.
The main thing is these are meant as a supplement, not for you to live off of, as opposed to Soylent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zAFA-hamZ0
:)
(I can’t drink most diet and protein shakes because they’re so aggressively sweetened that they set off the sensory issues.)
I wouldn't recommend it.
IMO Soylent tastes gross, too. Kind of like soggy cereal.
As someone that doesn't really take pleasure in eating on my own, cooking, cleaning, and even eating is a chore that I'll skip if I'm busy or stressed.
Soylent lets me easily grab something that won't have too strong of a taste and isn't as bad for me as skipping a meal, or eating half a bag of goldfish.
There are striking differences in the macronutrient ratios and in the prices. Soylent (Huel, etc) are much closer to the USDA recommended macro ratios, and have much less sugar. Only Ensure Original is less expensive than Soylent, all the other Ensure products (there are several) are much more expensive per calorie.
[0] http://futurefood.hellobox.co/soylent-is-not-ensure-and-why/...
No, by your numbers, Ensure (pretty much all of the various versions) are closer than any others the center of the USDA ranges.
> Only Ensure Original is less expensive than Soylent
Your own analysis shows all of the Ensure products except High Protein as less expensive than Soylent 2.0, and only Ensure Plus (not Original) is cheaper than Soylent 1.8.
Have you ever eaten anything unhealthy in a pinch? I'm sure Soylent is better than Cheetos in that situation.
Go to the frozen section of the grocery store to see all sorts of, imo, weirder shit that people eat regularly and feed their kids.
Edit: I’m not judging myself, just reporting. I think it probably does the job for people who want it, and doesn’t harm the rest of us.