(Not currently, but I still have a few boxes in my kitchen.)
What exactly are Huel and Soylent?
Both brands products are plant-based nutritional beverages suitable for vegans.
Both Huel and Soylent offer regular and high protein versions of their drinks.
Since I follow theprotein recommendations for athletes, I typically go for the higher protein products.
(Ive never tasted the original, lower-protein formulations of either one.)
What kind of weirdos drink this stuff?
Lifehackerfirst covered Soylent back in 2014.
The idea of a shake that could replace your meals was exciting and innovative to a certain tech-bro-adjacent demographic.
Why cook or think about food when you could insteadnotdo those things?
Even before that, there was the 2006 case ofa man who lived on monkey chow for a week.
They are attempting to be a normal-ish meal in liquid form.
Nevertheless, Rhinehart thought Soylent was a cute name for his product.
Huel, founded about a year later, is a contraction of human fuel.
In my house, it lives in a tub that I have labeled gruel.)
What are the macros of Huel and Soylents high protein formulas, and what do they cost?
Both options would give you an enormous amount of protein: 200 grams for Huel, 240 for Soylent.
When I first tried Huel, I sampled a few of the flavors.
The flavoring packets are fine, but I found that the shake powder itself tended to clump up.
I also bought the coffee caramel flavor, which was pretty good, but clumped even worse.
I would describe banana-flavored Huel Black as not bad.
The powder thickens enough to give it a milkshake-like texture.
Its pretty perfectly a neutral sort of flavor.
How does Soylent taste?
Soylents vanilla protein occupies a similar place on the great-to-terrible spectrum.
My teenage son sampled one of the bottles of vanilla; his reaction was wow, itreallytastes like soy.
If you like vanilla-flavored soy milk, this is like a thicker version.
Its not good, its not bad, it just is.
Notably, the Soylent product I tried is a pre-mixed drink, so theres no issue with clumping.
How bad an idea is it to drink shakes instead of eating food?
Look, I think food is a good and important part of our lives.
I also wouldnt encourage anyone to eat a pure-shake diet, even if it might technically not kill you.
Start with Lifehackers guide tohow to feed yourself when you have more important shit to do.
If you want to live on shakes for a week just to see what its likefine.
Humans have done weirder things.
