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Thank you - I was under the impression that Soylent was significantly cheaper than Ensure, but after doing some napkin math it seems to be roughly equivalent (p

by sirsar 11y ago

Thank you - I was under the impression that Soylent was significantly cheaper than Ensure, but after doing some napkin math it seems to be roughly equivalent (powder form) or actually more expensive (bottled form) per calorie.

dajohnson89 11y ago
Ensure and Soylent have radically different purposes. Ensure is meant for weight loss. Soylent is meant for nutritional sustenance.
- harryjo 11y ago
  Ensure is not meant for weight loss. Ensure is liquid food for people who can't eat.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- geofft 11y ago
  Are you thinking of Slim-Fast? From https://ensure.ca/en/faq https://ensure.ca/en/faq : 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.
  - aianus 11y ago
    Ensure is inferior to Soylent in a few ways: - 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.
    - geofft 11y ago
      Excess vitamin C is certainly not harmful; nobody worries about drinking two glasses of orange juice (or even just one, and picking up more vitamin C from other sources), at least not because of its vitamin content. Orders of magnitude more vitamin C might be problematic, but 400% just isn't a problem. 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.

by sirsar 11y ago

dajohnson89 11y ago

Ensure and Soylent have radically different purposes. Ensure is meant for weight loss. Soylent is meant for nutritional sustenance.

harryjo 11y ago
Ensure is not meant for weight loss. Ensure is liquid food for people who can't eat.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
geofft 11y ago
Are you thinking of Slim-Fast? From https://ensure.ca/en/faq https://ensure.ca/en/faq : 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.
- aianus 11y ago
  Ensure is inferior to Soylent in a few ways: - 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.
  - geofft 11y ago
    Excess vitamin C is certainly not harmful; nobody worries about drinking two glasses of orange juice (or even just one, and picking up more vitamin C from other sources), at least not because of its vitamin content. Orders of magnitude more vitamin C might be problematic, but 400% just isn't a problem. 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.