Meal replacements

[geraldc]

After listening to a podcast about Soylent, and the desire to spend less time preparing food, washing up etc, I decided to give meal replacements a go.  Ordered a couple of kg of Huel, and will give that a go. Will probably only switch out a couple of meals a day, as the other half thinks it's a crazy idea. Arrives tomorrow, should be an interesting couple of weeks.

I like the fact that it's vegan, and the idea of now only eating meat once in a while as a treat is something that really appeals.

[DrMekon]

I lived off Huel for a month or so post RTA (fractured face, jaw, lost teeth, etc). I found adding frozen banana and coffee beans made it more palatable.

[hellymedic]

Good luck geraldc!

I know this isn't for me unless, like DrMekon, there are extenuating circumstances.

I need the mouth feel of eating - tasting & chewing etc and would rather go hungry than ingest a Soylent.

[DrMekon]

Helly - Marion Hetherington is doing some really interesting work on mouthfeel - she was part of a team that did a meta-analysis of chewing on satiety, and she's said to me that she thinks that the effort of crunching some foods increase satiety such that calorie intake could be reduced - she thinks adding whole almonds is a good bet. To that end, she has some work going on measuring the physical properties of foods (shear forces) before embarking on some trials.

[geraldc]

I enjoy food far too much, so going back to food purely as fuel will be interesting. I actually want it to be unpalatable, so when I eat good food I appreciate it more. I grew up with herbal soups, so I'm used to eating foul tasting things.

It's essentially it's porridge with protein powder with added vitamins and nutrients just in a powder form. I can easily spend 2 hrs in an evening, cooking eating and washing up. It will be interesting to see what happens to that time.

[hellymedic]

You will scour the internets for foodie things: recipes, restaurant reviews, supermarket and artisan shops' websites etc.

You won't be bike fettling or working out at the gym.

At best, you will have quality time with your partner.

I suspect you'll be 'eating' vicariously...

[Chris S]

Didn't you used to do fasting, geraldc?

I would have thought eating "normally" (whatever that is for you) interspersed with days of fasting would be more "natural".

[geraldc]

I did alternate day fasting with good success, but it affected the other half's life too much. Too many days where she didn't like the fact she was eating alone, especially when we went out, so I was banned from doing it again.

[Biggsy]

There seems to be increasing evidence suggesting that vitamin supplements don't work.  Certainly you don't get *all* the nutrients of real food from anything but real food, and it's not fully understood what the vital combinations of chemicals are exactly.

[phantasmagoriana]

My partner has some of this (he's one of those people who could go days without eating, then gorge: this makes no sense to me, as I can't even skip breakfast, and spend most of my working day snacking between meals! ). I've tried it, but didn't like it. To me, food in liquid form (unless for medical reasons, obviously) is a wasted opportunity to go some proper eating. I like eating and couldn't give it up; a drink just doesn't feel like a meal. I'd drink it, but I'd want to follow it up with a proper meal...

[hellymedic]

phanta speaks my mind perfectly!
I can go ages without eating, at times but I just like eating nice and proper food.

If I reduce the quantity or frequency of feeds to help keep me trim, so be it. I can accept quality vs quantity.

But a Soylent just would not do it for me.

At all.

[Greenbank]

There seems to be increasing evidence suggesting that vitamin supplements don't work.  Certainly you don't get *all* the nutrients of real food from anything but real food, and it's not fully understood what the vital combinations of chemicals are exactly.

That's the point about these meal replacements such as Huel and Soylent, they're an ongoing development to try and get all the nutrients that you need without requiring real food.

Ingredients are here: https://huel.com/pages/nutritional-information-and-ingredients?#ingredients

Only a small percentage of people use Huel for 100% of their calorific intake. Most replace one or two meals a day with it but still have a normal meal of 'real' food once a day.

The main selling points are cost, simplicity and knowing exactly how many calories you're consuming (so useful for weight loss/gain).

[hellymedic]

I seem to recall that Israelites wandering in the desert and feeding on Manna, which had all the nutrients they needed got BORED and revolted, wanting interesting fresh food, or something...

[geraldc]

Now been doing it for a month and 10 days, replacing 1 or 2 meals a day with Huel.

Some weight loss, but according to my fat scales, reduction in percentage fat.

Luckily no gut issues, but did have a day of headaches, but that was cured by just drinking more liquid.

Discovered that mixing it the day before, and have it sit in the fridge over night does indeed improve texture, so not as "instant" as originally hoped, but 5 mins mixing just before bedtime, makes up 2/3 of the next days meal, so still a win with regards to time.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I can't quite see how these 'meal replacements' work. The first stage of digestion is mixing food with saliva in the process of chewing. If you just glug down a liquid food then you are bypassing that. You are also bypassing the chewing signal that tells the other parts of your digestion to prepare for incoming food.

I strongly suspect that this leads to the feeling of being 'full'; you are ending up with a full stomach in a state not prepared to digest the food. Long term, that will create digestive problems (just as chewing chewing gum can cause problems; it tells your stomach food is incoming but nothing arrives).

[hellymedic]

As someone who goes for oral gratification, I suspect those on liquid meal replacements need to be much more disciplined than other mortals to resist putting things into their mouths.

YMMV

[Legs]

As someone who goes for oral gratification,

[Kenneth Williams]Ooo-errr![/Kenneth Williams]

[closetleftie]

I actually quite like Huel. Does that make me weird? It works as a "brunch" for me on a purely practical level. I feel nauseated if I eat before 0900 or so. So (on a work day anyway) once I get hungry I'm already at work. The choice is then between gulping down some Huel (£1.20or so) and being OK until lunch, or gulping down a sandwich from Costa (getting on for a fiver) and being hungry again soon after. I don't pay much attention to either so the price is the only real difference.

[hellymedic]

I don't think it makes you weird. I appreciate some people can't eat in the morning; I am not one of these!

It does bring home to me how unhealthy many NHS workers' feeding habits can be; insufficient time and space for an uninterrupted healthy meal break entices staff to wolf 'fast' food. This is not a personal criticism; my own chocolate consumption has dropped enormously since I retired...

[velosam]

I like the idea of meal replacements, but I read somewhere ages ago that crunchy foods e.g celery, carrots etc make you feel can more satisfied (which someone above has already mentioned)

[geraldc]

I've now been on it for 3 months, replacing weekday breakfasts and lunches.

Lost 3kg of fat. Will stay on it for the foreseeable future.