Soylent: Surviving on high-tech nutritionally complete meal replacement powders

[Dave B]

There's quite a few high-tech nutritionally complete meal replacement powders available now: Soylent (USA) 435kcal/100g Huel (UK) 400kcal/100g Ambronite 420kcal/100g The energy density beats many of the dehydrated backpacking meals available, they don't need hot water, and they're supposed to be a balanced diet on their own… What's the consensus on using these as backpacking food? Changing from a balanced diet to three dehydrated backpacking meals per day played havoc with my digestive system when I did my first multi-day trip last month, so I'm looking for something a bit more healthy / balanced…

[Roger Caffin]

Forgive my very heavy cynicism. High-tech – oh sure. nutritionally complete – oh yeah??? balanced diet – ho ho ho meal replacement powders – chuckle, with very heavy disbelief. Calories they may have. All the minerals, vitamins, oils, fats and other goodies? Most unlikely. And caffeine? (For those who do not know me well enough yet: I contend that the phrase 'instant coffee' is a fraud on the consumer.) Cheers

[monkey]

"Calories they may have. All the minerals, vitamins, oils, fats and other goodies? Most unlikely." Appears nutritionally complete. Nutritional Information and Ingredients

[spelt with a t]

Ha ha ha. Unless you're planning on making nutro-slurries your full-time diet, I can't imagine a sudden switch to them would be any less gastrointestinally disruptive than a sudden switch to dehydrated meals. Possibly more so.

[Dave B]

Hmmm… The problems my gut had on my hike I attributed to a lack of fibre in the dehydrated meals. Huel has a section about fibre: Huel is High in Fibre There has been concern that peristalsis could get ‘lazy’ without solid food to digest. However, this issue has been researched extensively in respect of long term eternally tube fed patients who consume proprietary liquid diets through a feeding tube. It’s been found that with the addition of soluble and insoluble fibre that this is not an issue and normal stools are formed. The fibre in Huel is from natural ingredients and Huel provides more than most modern solid diets. So there will be no ‘laziness’ in the digestive system. Fibre acts like a sponge, so it’s important to consume lots of water when using Huel. The Huel formula has been designed to maintain optimum digestive system health. Moreover, you may well have heard about the beneficial soluble fibre in oats called beta-glucan; well, Huel is loaded with this cholesterol-lowering fibre; ideal for a healthy heart. Perhaps it would fare better?

[spelt with a t]

Do you know how much fiber you normally need? I know there's been discussions among fastpackers/long-distance folks here that consuming too much fiber can easily be a problem. It's one thing to assume a normal amount of calories and get a proportion of fiber with that; when your caloric need increases from exercise and you're mainlining calories, too much fiber can be a problem. Search this subforum; I know there's some long threads on "non-food" food and supplement nutrition and at least one other on Soylent.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

The best fiber comes from whole foods….. Just remember that the fiber that comes in drinks like this can cause cramping and explosive issues until you get used to it.

[Paul Beres]

Just a wild guess based on nothing in particular, but one suspects that nutritionally you won't do significantly worse than eating a bunch of the typical freeze-dried meals, which are generally not very complete nutrition. On the short term of an average backpacking trip you can get away with a lot anyway. Of more concern is digestive tolerance when changing from your usual at-home diet. I'd sure want to try that stuff out at home for a week before I took it on a trip and relied on it. You'd find out not only how your gut tolerates it but how well it seems to fuel you.

[Dave P]

I looked into the product a year ago and there were several analyses by nutritionists with accredited degrees criticizing it. Mostly everyone agrees the science is too incomplete to create a true meal replacement capable of sustaining a person for a long time. And how a person feels on a diet doesn't mean anything. Look at the girl who survived on ramen for a decade before succumbing. I am willing to bet soylent will fall apart once it's being consumed by people who will push the limits. Nothing wrong with soylent, just seems to be another engineer who is seeing patterns way beyond his expertise.

[john hansford]

Seems like this product is akin to vitamin supplements, but with other nutrients and fibre thrown in. Must be more healthy than biscuits, chips and chocolate, which was all I could find in some remote villages in the Pyrenees this summer. Looks like one packet = about 16ozs, which would provide roughly 100% of your daily vitamin and mineral requirements, but only 2000kcals. Top up your calories with whatever else you can find in the shop.

[NFN Scout]

A ways back I got a 2 week batch of one of the DIY Soylent options – and to my total surprise I’m still drinking this for one meal a day a year later. Haven’t used it on the trail yet solely because I am a day hiker munching on almonds/cherries to get up my mountain du jour but plan to try it on some backpacking trips this summer. If you want to try on the trail… it’d be totally ez to add this to your diet for at least 1 meal a day a few weeks out. Also — in most of these they’ve tinkered with the fiber to avoid gastric distress… and in fact I have so much less of it since replacing 1 meal/day with a shake. Look up DIY Soylent for millions of recipes to make your own.

If there’s one thing I learned about (DIY) Soylent… it’s that my experience using it was completely different than I predicted. So I’d take the advice of the prognosticators lightly.

[Matthew / BPL]

I’ve tried Soylent 2.0 and like it. The nutritional profile seems well thought out. I’ve wondered about using Soylent 1.5 (the powdered version) when traveling in the Sierra Nevada and using a bear can. The powder provides 116 calories/ounce which is decent but not ideal. What it does extremely well is pack into a small volume: 500 calories into 135ml.

I wouldn’t try to live off of Soylent exclusively on a 10 day through-hike but I’d definitely rather start my day with it than oatmeal or Probars.

[Billy Ray]

“Soylent: Surviving on high-tech nutritionally complete meal replacement powders”

Personally, my focus for backpacking trip is a little more that just ‘surviving’; I like to actually enjoy my food :)

billy

[Ken Thompson]

Just the thing for filling a bear canister.

[Author]

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