Is Soylent A Healthy Meal Replacement Drink?

Protein powders offer an easy way to increase your protein intake. They can be especially useful for athletes and those who have difficulty meeting their protein needs through food sources alone.

However, many protein powders on the market contain animal products, such as whey, which can make it challenging for people following a vegan diet to find suitable plant-based protein supplements.

When you’re busy, eating a healthy, balanced diet can seem difficult. Cooking healthy food can be time-consuming, given that it takes time to plan, shop for, prepare and cook your food.

Depending on your income, tastes and cooking skills, it may also seem expensive, especially if a lot of food goes to waste. In response to these issues, a group of engineers designed Soylent, a meal replacement drink.

Soylent claims to take the hassle out of maintaining a healthy diet by providing you with all the nutrition you need in a drink that’s cheap, tasty and easy to prepare.

What Are Soylent Meal Replacements?

Soylent meal replacements were designed by a group of software engineers. They came up with the idea because they were frustrated by the amount of time they had to spend away from their work to cook and often found themselves reaching for cheap junk food to save time.

They set out to design a solution that solved their problems and provided people with a food source that was healthy, cheap, efficient and accessible. The result was Soylent.

The company claims you can swap your regular meals for Soylent meal replacement drinks and still get all the nutrients you need. Each drink contains a source of fat, carbs, protein and fiber, in addition to a range of micronutrients, in 400 calories.

The drinks themselves come in three different forms:

Soylent drink: These are 14-ounce pre-mixed drinks, designed to replace one meal. Available in original and cacao flavors.
Soylent powder: Can be mixed with water to make a Soylent drink. Each pouch contains enough powder for five drinks. Available in original flavor.
Soylent cafe: These pre-mixed drinks are the same as the Soylent drink, but they contain added caffeine and L-carnitine. Available in coffiest, vanilla and chai flavors.

Drinking five Soylent drinks per day will provide 2,000 calories, around 15 grams of fiber and 100% of the daily recommended amount of essential micronutrients. They cost $1.82–$3.25 USD per serving, with Soylent powder being the cheapest option.

However, there is a large do-it-yourself community linked to Soylent, with many people making their own recipes to improve upon the Soylent formula. If you take this approach, it will change the cost and nutritional makeup of Soylent.

What’s in a Soylent Drink?

Soylent drinks are a mixture of soy protein isolate, high oleic sunflower oil, isomaltulose and essential vitamins and minerals. They’re nut-free, lactose-free and vegan.

Soy Protein

Soy protein isolate is a pure plant protein derived from soybeans. It’s a popular ingredient in the food industry since it’s a cheap, readily digestible source of protein that improves the texture of foods. Soy protein isolate is also a complete protein, meaning it contains all nine essential amino acids that your body needs to function.

It also has a neutral taste, meaning it can be incorporated into foods easily without adding much flavor. Additionally, since it’s plant-based, Soylent drinks are vegan. One 400-calorie drink of Soylent contains 20 grams of protein, making it a high-protein drink.

High Oleic Sunflower Oil

The fat source in Soylent drinks is high oleic sunflower oil. Sunflower oil is usually high in polyunsaturated fats. However, high oleic sunflower oil is derived from sunflower plants that have been bred to have a high concentration of oleic acid, a type of monounsaturated fatty acid.

Using this type of oil makes Soylent high in monounsaturated fats and also free of harmful trans fats. Although Soylent doesn’t make any health claims, using high oleic oils in place of unhealthy oils may help improve some risk factors for heart disease.

Isomaltulose

Isomaltulose is a simple carbohydrate made up of two sugars — glucose and fructose. It’s found naturally in honey, but it can be produced on a commercial scale in large amounts from beet sugars. Isomaltulose is used regularly in the food industry as a replacement for regular table sugar, also known as sucrose.

It’s made up of the same two sugars as table sugar, but they are bonded together differently, so it’s digested more slowly. This means isomaltulose causes blood sugar levels to rise much more slowly than regular sugar does.

Vitamins and Minerals

Soylent is made up of nutrients and not whole foods. The vitamins and minerals essential for good health are added to each Soylent drink, with 20% of the recommended daily value for every nutrient in each serving.

Soylent Ingredient Analysis

Take a closer look at the main components of this complex formula and try to ascertain their relative safety:

Maltodextrin

Maltodextrin is an artificial white powder that acts as a thickener in many processed foods. Although manufacturers enzymatically derive Maltodextrin from various natural starches, as a finished product, Maltodextrin is highly processed.

Additionally, Maltodextrin has a relatively high glycemic index which means that it can easily cause blood sugar levels to spike after its consumption.

Additionally, manufacturers often derive Maltodextrin from genetically modified starches which have been linked to various diseases such as Alzheimer’s, cancer, and antibiotic resistance.

Soy Protein Isolate

Soy protein isolate (SPI) is a highly refined form of soy protein that is made from defatted soy flour. Food manufacturers use soy protein isolate to improve the texture and mouthfeel of various products; in the case of soylent variants, soy protein isolates function as an emulsifier and as a source of protein.

However, concern has been raised about the elevated levels of Isoflavone compounds found in soy protein isolates. Isoflavones are naturally occurring plant phytoestrogens that act in a strikingly similar fashion to human estrogens; incidentally, some hormone-dependent diseases are substantially affected by elevated isoflavone levels.

Additionally, there is evidence to suggest that variations in gastric pH levels due to an inhibitory effect caused by the ingestion of soy protein isolates, cause zinc deficiency.

Sucralose

Soylent and the various soylent variants are marketed as healthy products, in line with dietary guidelines and aimed at improving body functions. However, most of these products contain inordinate amounts of added sugars. Sucralose is an artificial, non-nutritive sweetener used widely by the food industry mainly for its cheap cost.

Synthetic Vitamins

Rounding out the ingredient list of every variation of soylent is a plethora of vitamins and minerals, many of which are synthetic in nature. Manganese sulfate, Dl-alpha-tocopheryl acetate, sodium selenite, are just a few of the many compounds found in soylent products that have been associated with severe adverse side effects.

Because Soylent formulation is not regulated by the FDA, and because DIY has become such an essential part of the Soylent agenda, it is easy to end up ingesting dangerous levels of some of these substances, ultimately leading to hypervitaminosis and intoxication.

Are Liquid Meal Replacements Healthy?

People use Soylent in a variety of ways. Some people drink only Soylent to sustain them during certain periods of time, such as when they’re very busy at work or school.

Others choose to replace occasional meals with the drink when it suits them. Depending on your circumstances, there can be pros and cons to occasionally choosing liquid meals or switching to a liquid diet.

They May Make Your Diet More Nutritious

If you are short on time and often find yourself reaching for junk food, or if you are on a very low-calorie diet, switching to a meal replacement drink could improve your diet quality.

Meal replacement shakes like Soylent contain adequate levels of essential vitamins, minerals and fiber, which many people don’t get enough of. This means that replacing a high-energy, nutrient-poor meal with a meal replacement shake could be better for your health.

However, the nutritional breakdown of meal replacement drinks can vary considerably between brands, and some may be lacking in essential nutrients.

In addition, Soylent drinks and other meal replacements are made up of the “building blocks” of food, but they lack the healthy plant compounds and other components found in whole foods, which may benefit your health.

They May Help You Lose Weight

If you are trying to lose weight, then meal replacements may also be useful. The time it takes to plan, shop for and prepare meals can prevent people from sticking to a diet. Switching regular food for a calorie-restricted liquid meal once or twice a day has been shown to help people lose weight over the short term.

However, studies so far have found mixed results over the long term, so the success of a liquid meal replacement plan probably depends on how well you can stick to it. It’s also worth remembering this general rule: If your goal is to lose weight, you need to consume fewer calories than you burn, even in liquid form.

They May Not Be a Long-Term Solution

Although replacing regular food with meal replacement shakes could improve the quality of your diet and help you lose weight, they may not be effective over the long term. Maintaining weight loss and healthy eating require long-term lifestyle changes that meal replacements don’t fix.

This means that if you switch back to regular eating, you may find yourself back in old patterns of behavior. Additionally, it’s important to consider that whole foods are more than the sum of their parts. They contain many different compounds that may work together to improve health.

Despite ensuring your body doesn’t miss out on any essential nutrients, Soylent lacks important plant compounds, which are beneficial for your health.

Is Soylent Healthy?

A typical soylent ingredient list will read like this: Water, Maltodextrin, Rice Starch, Soy Protein Isolate, High Oleic Algae Oil, Canola Oil, Isomaltulose, Isomaltooligosaccharide, Oat Fiber, and Soy Lecithin, followed by several emulsifiers, various vitamins, and minerals such as potassium chloride, zinc sulfate, and thiamine hydrochloride.

Soylent has been recalled four times in the past 18 months. Unfortunately, regulators have raised concerns about the safety of these products following reports of vomiting, diarrhea, and various other digestive issues amongst users.

Ultimately, this led to Meow Global Networks, Inc, the manufacturer of Soylent, pulling the product from shelves on repeated occasions. After several rounds of testing, laboratories determined that no pathogens or external toxins had been consumed by the sickened individuals and that algae, one of the main components of the soylent formula, had been to blame.

Safety and Side Effects

Soylent meal replacements are generally well tolerated and considered safe. However, it’s important to note that Soylent contains soy protein isolate, so these drinks are not safe for people with a soy allergy.

In addition, a few people have reported experiencing some side effects when they started to drink Soylent, including excessive gas and some bloating.

Others have claimed that the lack of insoluble fiber in Soylent has significantly reduced the frequency of their bowel movements. However, this is all purely anecdotal, and there is currently no evidence to back up this claim.

The drinks’ phytate content is another potential issue that has been raised. Depending on the phytate content of the soy isolate used in manufacturing, the Soylent protein source may reduce iron absorption from the drink.

However, this issue hasn’t been researched, so it’s unclear whether this would be a problem. Some people have also raised concerns over the lead content of Soylent.

Lead is present in many foods because it’s found in soil and plants that have absorbed it. Because of this, it’s commonly present in the food chain.

However, it’s important to note that these concerns were specifically raised in relation to labeling laws in California. Lead levels in Soylent are below the levels deemed safe by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Final Words

Although Soylent claims to contain all the nutrients you need, it hasn’t been tested as a long-term replacement for all food. Thus, its long-term safety is unknown.

That said, if you’re short on time and often find yourself eating junk food, using Soylent as an occasional meal replacement might help keep your diet healthy. Overall, Soylent is a dietary tool that some people might find useful for maintaining a healthy diet.

Ideologically, Soylent is a good idea but, unfortunately, its inventors executed the idea poorly by using unhealthy ingredients to keep manufacturing costs at a minimum. As a result, we have to conclude that Soylent is not a healthy product based on its ingredients.

The good news is that the invention of Soylent and the push of consumers for healthier ingredients has sparked a whole industry of healthy meal replacement drinks, meal delivery services and more.