A few years ago via Hacker News (where else?), I heard about Soylent, the powdered food eerily named after the film. Futuristic dystopia fears aside, the idea of a powdered formula that gives me 100% of everything I’m supposed to put down my gullet that is ready to eat within minutes is quite an appealing one, for the following reasons:

I can worry less about ensuring I eat a balanced diet

I no longer spend 30% of my free time at home cooking

my domestic food waste will be mostly eliminated

my food spend will be dramatically reduced

Soylent isn’t yet available for sale in the UK, so I checked out Joylent, the European (and apparently tastier) cousin.

I’ve been on a hybrid diet of Joylent and “normal” food since the 25th of June, so just over 2 weeks at time of writing. While my observations haven’t been journalled with scientific precision, I have kept most things fairly consistent, and would be open to cycling back on to normal food again just to record the differences.

The other supplements I’ve been consistently taking before and during this “experiment” are creatine (5g/day) and 60g of ON protein powder for powerlifting / muscle mass loss prevention purposes, as I’m trying to get in to shape.

Anyway, on to my personal findings.

How do you know when someone’s taking Joylent? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.

Yup, I turned in to one of those people for the first week, but then quickly came back down to earth, growing tired of the same old questions and comments such as:

won’t you miss the taste of real food?

are you sure that stuff is safe for you?

won’t you be going to the toilet every 30 minutes?

that stuff won’t fill you up!

you’ll miss the satisfaction of cooking real food

how much does it cost?

that’s just weird

For a while, I did debate and engage in discussion quite passionately. Now boredom has set in from the monotony of repeating the same battered points, so I’m keeping my mouth shut to anyone else I meet, and I’m writing this blog post so I can point people to it and explain through the lens of my personal experience if they’re ever interested.

Joylent’s taste vs “real food”

Joylent currently comes in chocolate, banana, strawberry and vanilla flavours — and they’re all pretty tasty to me. If you cycle through them enough, you won’t get bored of the taste, at least speaking after 2 weeks! However, it’s fair to say that they’re all on the sweet side, except the chocolate flavour which is a lot milder. Soylent is supposed to taste much milder, and part of Joylent’s mission is to make the stuff tasty.

The optimum powder:water ratio is down to you, and some people add other things to their shakes. I am not that adventurous yet.

While I have a sweet tooth, walking down Brick Lane does kick off some major curry cravings — but I don’t think that’s really an effect that Joylent alone is having on me.

Joylent’s food safety

Well, the ingredients are on the label and the EU hasn’t banned it after a couple of years of being in business. The majority of Joylent’s purpose is to give you 100% of your RDAs across the board, which is more than can be said of any other food. Some people can eat the same three meals a day and end up with a nutrient deficiency or imbalance which is arguably less healthy than eating something that’s following the guidelines that food regulation authorities put forward.

To my knowledge there haven’t been any scares regarding potentially bad chemicals or compounds inside Joylent. I’ve also not dropped dead yet, so there’s that. There is a good level of scepticism regarding the long term effects of a majority liquid diet, that are yet to be seen. In my view, going the hybrid route is probably a happy medium.

Certainly, the convenience and relative healthiness of Joylent versus a late night double cheeseburger is probably a little safer, long and short term.

Toilet trips

Due to the large amount of fibre in Joylent, which keeps you fuller for longer and does wonders for your digestive system, I felt a little gassy for the first couple of days. However, this eventually passed. I’m sorry if you were there for that.

For the sake of politeness, I shall just say that I am regular, clean as a whistle, and that the ideas about particularly unpleasant trips to the bathroom are misconceptions. In fact, my experience has improved.

However, if you are gluten or lactose intolerant, your mileage may vary.

Satiation

This is probably one of the best aspects of Joylent — the amount of fibre keeps you full for an incredibly long time.

I‘m currently eating at a caloric deficit and occasionally check MyFitnessPal to see that I’ve still got between 300–500 calories to consume on a given day.

For the first few days it was a bit of a stretch, however afterwards my body appeared to adapt. My stomach has also shrunk which means that whenever I do eat solid food, it’s harder to binge eat. Overall, quite satisfying.

Satisfaction of cooking

It’s down to you whatever you do. Personally I find the time saved by drinking Joylent means whenever I do cook a solid meal, I spend more time on preparation and presentation, and generally appreciate it more.

Cost, waste and the environment

This is a large factor for me as I was getting sick of spending £6/day on lunch at work, as well as scrambling every Sunday to go through all the food in my fridge that was going to go off. At scale, it is currently around £1.20/meal, or £3.60/day/human, if you eat a full bag per day. I currently consume less than this and thus it costs less, which means I have more money to spend on travelling and other nice things.

More brilliantly, the fact that this stuff costs so little means that the application of its concept on a global scale could potentially ease world hunger.

Finally, it’s a dry powder that you add water to, so it keeps for months. No more wastage.

“That’s just weird”

Well, perhaps a little eccentric at best, but no less weird than vegetarianism, veganism or paleo. It’s worth noting that there are some crazy diets that are glamorised in magazines that literally advise you to consume nothing but apples for days on end, and society doesn’t seem to have much of a problem with those.

At least this one attempts to be sustainable and fulfilling, and in my view, does a pretty good job.

Would I turn down a meal with my friends to sit at the table, plateless and sad? Probably not. And again, that’s not the point.

Other benefits

The time saving possibilities and adaptability benefits seem to be endless. I’m freeing up about 2.5 hours of my day every day (including washing up time), and can carry a bag of powder and shaker with me anywhere I go — just add water, consume, and move on.

I’ve been able to concentrate on music, weight traning and my career while pushing food as a concern well out of the way, for the time being.

General feelings

It’s hard to really quantify this because I started Joylent along with getting a solid 7.5 hours rest a night (up from 6–7 hours). In the last few months I have reduced dramatically my alcohol intake, increased my training schedule to 4 days a week and added a decent amount of cardio.

After consuming a shake, I feel pretty satisfied and the feeling of hunger subsides like it would with any other square meal.

In terms of physical health, I would say that as a part of a regime that you consistently stick to, it definitely helps — especially if you want an easy and predictable way to enter your calories consumed per day.

As far as powerlifting goes, my strength and energy has increased despite a fairly hefty caloric deficit. I have also lost 3 kilos in about 2 weeks without feeling seriously hungry due to the aforementioned satiation effects. I expect that I will soon plateau and need to increase my caloric intake, but as a tool to help fat loss alongside exercise, I would recommend it.

Final thoughts

My biggest initial gripe was the writing style used on their website, which honestly doesn’t inspire confidence in the company or the product. Compared to Soylent’s to-the-point and reassuring copy, there’s quite a dichotomy.

A quick Google shows that the founder of Joylent used to be a drug dealer. This was a bit of a shock to me at first, but considering the success of his product, I’d say this is an interesting and constructive way to turn things around. I also remembered that the investment arm of a four lettered high street bank launders cocaine money, so got over it and moved on with my life.