Product ReviewHi! First time poster here on this subreddit. I figured some might be interested in a personal review of some of the various products available. Feel free to disagree with me or point me at any other products you think might be worth checking out.About MeI'm a 30 year old male software engineer. I've fluctuated in weight from 170-215 over the last few years. I'm awful about getting the right amount of exercise and my wife and I don't really have the time to ensure a healthy meal. We would very often eat out 4-6 times nights a week.I decided it was worth looking into something that would be a healthier alternative than fast food for lunches and landed on Soylent a few years back. The RTD stuff was definitely the easy option so I went that route at first but the cost started to add up fairly quickly. I ended up online and found the Keto Chow recipe and bought all the ingredients to make my own. Turns out the RTD stuff had a way better consistency so I went back to drinking it but only about every few days instead of each day for lunch.My goal now is to find something to drink daily for lunches to avoid eating out while drinking them here and there for dinner but we are also giving the whole meal delivery service thing a shot so that we can enjoy a hot meal we actually chew for dinner. :)I lean towards chocolate flavors but like to have something like banana or strawberry here and there just to mix things up. I've got a sweet tooth so I prefer something sweeter rather than more mild.I do not intend to get into the nutrional value arguments of each as I'm sure people here are capable of doing their own research on that if desired. I'm basing my reviews on the critera below and only that.I do not work for any of these companies and I did my absolute best to stay completely unbiased during this process.The productsPhoto of some of the products here. No, not all products are included. Taking this was a bit of an "after thought" so I had already gotten through a lot of the supply of various ones.Randomly decided to check for alternatives to Soylent and landed on this sub. After a few days of looking around and figuring out some possible alternatives I ordered some sample packs of the following:Soylent RTD (Chocolate, Strawberry).Keto Chow (Strawberry, Natural Strawberry, Vanilla, Cookies & Cream, Chocolate)Super/Keto Fuel (Super: Strawberry, Cinnamon; Keto: Chocolate, Vanilla)Jimmy Joy/Plenny Shake (Strawberry, Chocolate, Vanilla).Sated RTD (Chocolate, Vanilla) - Full disclosure, I didn't actually order this. I was provided one of each flavor for purposed of posting a review. (If you’d like to get the same deal, free Sated product in exchange for an honest review on your social media, sign up here: https://ift.tt/396HL3W am aware that some of these are RTD and some require mixing. I wasn't specifically requiring a RTD though I do favor them as they are.. well.. ready to drink without any work.I wanted to try Huel but some of the comments about consistency put me off. I also was looking to give Hol Food a shot but they happened to run out of samples before I went on my ordering spree.The testingAlright I'm no scientist so this isn't going to be some extremely detailed write up. But, the things I was judging (not necessarily ordered by preference): 1) Cost - Based on single orders, not subscribe and save prices. 2) Ease of mixing - How much equipment it takes, how good instructions were, etc. 3) Taste 4) TextureIn all applicable cases the mixing instructions were followed. If the instructions called for added fat/oil I went with heavy cream as it was the easiest to pick up at a local store.I'd typically mix up 2 meals worth at a time with the intent to drink one the following day for lunch and the 2nd the next day after that for lunch. All were mixed using a blender, poured into mason jars and sealed up until consumption time.Soylent RTDThe tried and true Soylent RTD. I've been drinking this stuff on and off for a few years now. It is sort of my basis for the whole thing.1) Cost: 2/5. The cost is actually what first made me look for alternatives. If you're able to find it on sale (I try to order when it's got a 30% off sale) the cost is alright. Otherwise I find the cost to be rather high at ~3.25 a bottle (or 16.25/day if you only drink it as they recommend drinking 5 a day).2) Ease of mixing: 5/5. What did you expect? It's a ready to drink. It comes in a bottle, you open the bottle and you drink. Easy as that.3) Taste: 4/5. The taste is pretty good. Not super sweet but enough for you to register it as a sweet drink/chocolate flavored. Considering how packed full it is of vitamins though I was surprised at how good it was. I prefer the chocolate/cocoa over the vanilla or strawberry but honestly any of those 3 I'm happy with.4) Texture: 4.5/5. Soylent is smooth. It's very smooth. Somewhere like the consistency of skim milk. No lumps or anything.Notes: Favorite flavors in order - Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry.Total: 15.5/20Keto ChowI tried making my own based on the recipes online a few years back and it wasn't anything spectacular so I almost didn't order this but felt it deserved to be in the running in the end. And boy am I glad.1) Cost: 4.5/5. It costs about $3 per meal but they only tell you to drink 3 of them a day versus the 5 a day of Soylent bringing the cost per day down to $9.2) Ease of mixing: 3/5. It came in a small pack with basic instructions on the back. The first step tells you to go online to look up how much oil/fat to add rather than it being printed on the bag or an instruction sheet included. A bit annoying but after you've mixed one and know the amount to add it isn't so bad. The plus side is the online table gives you info about heavy cream, butter and oils along with giving a calorie target so you can tailor it to yourself very easily.3) Taste: 4/5. The taste of the natural strawberry one was rather 'meh' to me. I actually wasn't looking forward to even trying the other flavors. I'm very glad I did though. The chocolate one is great. Just enough sweetness to it. I had heard people talk about it being like a "Wendy's Frosty" before and I can almost see that from a flavor perspective though I do not think it is near as sweet.4) Texture: 4/5. I ended up putting significantly more water in mine to water it down some as the texture was a bit thick for my liking (the Wendy's Frosty bit is actually more apt here I think). Once I got it to the thickness I liked, the texture is quite great. The powder itself is very fine compared to some of the others on this list and I think that helps get the consistency just right.Notes: Favorite flavors in order- Chocolate, Cookies & Cream, Strawberry, Vanilla, Natural Strawberry (I really didn't like this one. I have no idea why but would not order it ever again.)Total: 15.5/20Super/Keto FuelI believe I found a posting by the founder(?) on reddit about this product and decided to add it to my list.1) Cost: 4/5. They cost ~$2.50 per meal but recommend 4 in a day if you're only consuming their product bringing the cost to ~$10/day. (Note that some flavors do cost more. For instance, Strawberry is actually $3 a meal.)2) Ease of mixing: 3/5. All of the information required was printed right on the outside of the brown sample pouch making it easy enough. Still required me grab the blender for a real good mix.3) Taste: 2.5/5. The taste on these is "alright". I wasn't blown away by any of the flavors I received but none of them were super disappointing either. To be fair to them this was where I got most adventurous and ordered cinnamon mostly due to their sample packs having quite limited availability when I went to order.4) Texture: 3/5. The texture here was also just in the "alright" category. It mixed up fairly well but always seemed to require a good "remix" before actually drinking it the next day where most of the other products seemed to hold together a bit better.Notes: Favorite flavors in order- Keto Fuel Chocolate, Keto Fuel Vanilla, Super Fuel Strawberry, Super Fuel CinnamonTotal: 12.5/20.Jimmy Joy/Plenny ShakeI had heard a lot about these guys on the sub so was excited to get the opportunity to try them. So excited I skipped their "starter box" and just ordered 3 standard sizes packs of 3 different flavors (Strawberry, Chocolate, Vanilla).I know they are currently working on migrating their stock to their 2.1 formula and when I ordered I got the 2.0 formula so keep that in mind.1) Cost: 4.5/5. They come in packs of "5 meals" and if you're only drinking this you're supposed to have all 5 in a day. The packs are $8.50/day or $1.70/meal which makes it the cheapest product on this list (edging out Keto Chow by a few quarters).2) Ease of mixing: 2/5. They tell you to use two scoops per meal. However, they don't actually give you a scoop you apparently have to order one which I did not realize when I placed my order. So I ended up pulling out a kitchen scale and wearing out the 96-100g per meal that way. I found that their mix stuck to the sides of my blender much more than other products and required me to get a spatula to scrape the sides to ensure a decent blend.3) Taste: 2/5. It takes like oatmeal with a sprinkle of the flavors on the bag which I guess makes a bit of sense considering it is made of oats and flaxseed. Blander than it is sweet. If you're a massive oatmeal fan this might be for you but in my case it was hard to enjoy the flavor.4) Texture: 1/5. I guess I'll blame the oats here again as the texture was almost chunky. Chunky might be harsh but it definitely was by no means "smooth". You could feel little chunks of something on your tongue as you drank it and could actually see them within the mix itself. Maybe I've got a shitty blender but the other products definitely didn't have this issue. The texture is super important to be in drinking and I found myself struggling to finish some of my shakes due to this.Notes: Favorite flavors in order- Strawberry, Chocolate, VanillaTotal: 9.5/20.Sated RTDI spotted a reddit post where they offered a sample pack in exchange for a review and figured I'd give it a shot. I was planning on writing a review of all the products anyway so this ended up being a nice "bonus" to find. I do not work for these guys but I was compensated for writing this though I was told (and took the liberty to) supply an honest review so take that for what it is worth.1) Cost: 1/5. It is a whopping $5 per meal and you'll need to drink 5 a day to hit your vitamin intake needs bringing you to $25/day. Nearly $10 more than the drink I was hoping to replace (Soylent RTD).2) Ease of mixing: 5/5. It's ready to drink.3) Taste: 3.5/5. This one is a bit tough. The vanilla one was, in my opinion, rather sickly sweet (which is nuts because as I mentioned above I have a massive sweet tooth). The chocolate on the other hand is pretty good. Seeing as I'd probably be ordering the chocolate 9 times out of 10 for any of these products I used that as the score here. What I will say is I could definitely tell it was heavily sweetened with erythritol. My wife tried them both and didn't notice the taste of the sweetener so much so go for it if you don't notice that.4) Texture: 5/5. This is nice and smoothly consistent like Soylent but it's a thicker consistency. It reminds me of Promise Land chocolate milk (my favorite chocolate milk!) with this nice whole milk style "heft" to it.Notes: I wouldn't recommend the Vanilla to.. well.. anyone. The chocolate however is worth a shot!Total: 14.5/15So what will I drink?Honestly, I'll probably go with Keto Chow for the majority of my meals but keep on hand some Soylent RTD for those days I forgot to or was just too lazy to mix up the Keto Chow. via /r/soylent https://ift.tt/2RVZaXf
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