It's really hard to make a good-tasting drink that can replace a meal.

There are protein-rich shakes like Boost and Ensure, but their high sugar content causes drinkers to crash. Soylent, a favorite among busy Silicon Valley techies, packs 20 grams of protein in each bottle, but tastes bland, like the milk left in the bottom of a bowl of Cheerios.

A new contender, Ample, has entered the meal-replacement space with a promising proposal. It's mostly made of plants, including pumpkin, peas, green banana, cacao, and macadamia nut oil, though it includes a host of other unpronounceable ingredients as well. Each bottle contains 27 grams of protein, 22 grams of fat (for sustained sustenance), and only two grams of sugar.

The drink was created by health-nut Connor Young, who started a CrossFit gym out of college and has arms like a Disney prince. Research and development took place in the kitchen of his hacker house in San Francisco, where techies share tight spaces for little rent.

He admits that it tasted terrible at first.

"The nice thing is, because it's a 50-person hacker house, I had ample chances to get it right," Young tells Tech Insider. "'Here's a Dixie cup filled with unlabeled stuff, what do you think?'"

Transparent packaging lets Ample drinkers see what their food is made from. Melia Robinson

Young sources obscure plant-based ingredients directly from manufacturers, which is why the drink costs a lofty $4.50 for a small and $6 for a large. By comparison, Soylent costs about $2.80 per meal. Young says he has "very high standards" for the ingredients he uses — a typical response from an entrepreneur trying to justify his prices.

Unlike Soylent, Ample arrives as a powder packaged in a clear plastic bottle. Users fill the empty space with water or milk, creating a mixture that looks like soft beach sand, with flecks of green and brown.

This is what Ample mixed with milk looks like when poured into a bowl. Melia Robinson

Young says the bottle's transparent design was intentional.

"It's not a single attribute that makes Ample, Ample," Young says. "It's the combination of 30 ingredients that spans all kingdoms of plant and animal life."

When a sample box from Ample arrived, I was intrigued.

To be frank, I'm a bit of a Soylent fangirl. In February 2016, I fell and broke my jaw in three places, rendering me unable to eat solid foods for six weeks. During that time, Soylent became my go-to food.

My fridge was well stocked with Soylent after my injury. Melia Robinson/Tech Insider

One of my only complaints about Soylent was its weight. It arrives as a pre-mixed, bottled liquid, which is convenient if you're hungry at home or at the office. But if you want to pack a Soylent for a hike or bring a six-pack with you to a family wedding, as I was forced to do after my injury, it's a pain to carry. Plus, it tastes nasty when warm.

Ample, in its powdered, bottled form, is light and still extremely portable.

I filled my first bottle with 2% milk. I shook it like a Shake Weight for about 10 seconds until the powder was well mixed, and took an icy sip.

It did not go well.

No matter how hard I shook, I couldn't dissolve all of the clumps of powder in the milk. They had the texture of the cookie dough bits that come in ice cream, but the taste of fruit-flavored plaster.

Young boasts about the variety of ingredients used, many of which are "non-typical," but that combo might be detrimental. In my first couple of sips, I got hints of sweeter flavors, including tapioca, sweet potato, green banana, and coconut. But the after-taste was what I imagine it'd be like if all those ingredients were chopped up and held together with glue.

As I said, it's hard to make meal-replacement drink that tastes good and is good for you.

But that won't stop Young from trying. Ample has currently raised over $160,000 on crowdfunding site Indiegogo to jump-start production. It expects to ship in September.

Perhaps his backers will help Young perfect the recipe.