Powdered food - the why and the how

Hi everyone, let's talk about food - specifically, powdered food such as Soylent, Huel, Ambronite, Bertrand, Joylent and others.
In the same way that Satoshi's invention of bitcoin kicked off a market for cryptocurrencies (and therefore lead to steem), Rob Rhinehart's invention of Soylent has kicked off a whole market for powdered nutritionally complete foods.

The interesting thing about these foods is that most of them do live up to the marketing and offer complete or mostly complete nutrition (for safety I would advise using a few different products and adding some traditional food just in case - this is also beneficial psychologically as eating the same thing quickly gets boring). It is possible to live off these products, and a lot of people do, though I personally think it makes more sense to replace only 1 or 2 meals a day with a powdered food product.

I titled this article "The why and the how", so let's look at both of these:

Why use powdered food?

Why would you replace your dietary intake, even partially, with a powdered food? For me the answer is obvious: superior nutritional value and convenience. I often mix up a shaker of Huel (or when I can afford it, Bertrand or Ambronite - Ambronite tasting the best) and leave it in the fridge before going to bed. In the morning I drink it down for a nice breakfast loaded with all the good stuff - plenty of protein, B vitamins, the right kind of fat (Huel in particular is loaded with Medium Chain Triglycerides - which are very good for cognitive abilities) and a sane amount of complex carbs that will keep you going.
There is also the question of price and time: it's far quicker to dump some water or milk and some scoops of powder into the blender (or into a blender bottle) and then drink it than it is to cook a full meal that takes into account all the nutritional needs of the human body. Most of us get by with substandard nutrition - each meal is on its own not really providing everything, but overall it's "good enough". Some smarter people take a decent amount of supplements to top up their intake of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals, EPA/DHA from fish oil, and if you're really sensible some phytonutrients and stuff like CoQ10 etc), but few people take an optimised blend of macronutrients on a daily basis.
Quite simply, cooking healthy meals takes time, and it often costs a lot too. A bottle of Huel on the other hand works out to £1.61 per meal, takes about a minute to prepare and contains a nice optimised blend of macro and micro nutrients.
You may notice I mention Huel a lot here - that's simply because it's the cheapest such product available here in the UK and what I tend to use myself, but if you can I recommend using a mix of Huel or Soylent and Ambronite (Ambronite is far more tasty and contains some really awesome phytonutrients but it's pricier).

Ambronite of course is also all organic and natural and all those other buzzwords that appeal to many - ultimately this doesn't really matter, but it does taste good and it does work out to be pretty good nutritionally.

So, with the "Why?" out of the way, let's move on to the "How"

How to start with powdered food

This bit is simple - choose a product, buy a sample of it and stick it in a blender with some ice cubes (trust me on the ice cubes) and the right amount of water, blend it up and drink it.
If you find the taste is not so good, experiment with adding flavours (though I recommend you only do this with a fairly neutral base - soylent and huel both come with fairly neutral flavours). I've found that coffee powder, coco powder and flavoured whey protein (with a reduced amount of Huel to compensate for the extra protein) all work well to add flavour.
Once you've found a product that works for you, add a second if you can afford to - this is important as a precaution against missing any nutrients that are not included if you intend to switch to powdered food full time. You should also take care not to overdose on fat soluble vitamins if you take supplements with these products - this can and will cause you serious health problems so do not take supplements of Vitamin A, E and D if you take all 3 meals a day from a powdered food product.

What to do after you start on your new diet

Once you begin a new diet with large amounts of powdered food there is one very important thing you must do:

You must tell others about it at every opportunity - this is essential.

I'm not sure why, but it must be - because we all do it.