MealSquares vs. Soylent
[epistemic status: anecdotal]
Recently I had a friend bring me MealSquares from the US, since I’m currently living off of a 100% Soylent diet and I like to try alternative nutrition sources. Also, given that MealSquares is strongly in the “whole food” and “no preservatives” camp of nutrition, it juxtaposes nicely against Soylent. Consequently, I went 100% MealSquares for 5 days.
In this article, I’ll compare and contrast the various aspects of Soylent and MealSquares, based off my personal experience. I won’t do a comprehensive nutritional breakdown given I am totally unqualified and I won’t go into great detail about how to include Soylent in your life, given I’ve already made a presentation on that topic.
Visceral Experience
There are a number of side effects that I've experienced from consuming Soylent. Rice protein is brutal on your digestive system, so I have to drink pickle juice to calm my stomach in the afternoon. Even without the rice protein, Soylent frequently gives me acid reflux. Additionally, although Soylent is nutritionally complete, I don’t feel full after drinking it unless I chew on crackers. Finally, I have a continual craving for chocolate, cheese and bread, for reasons I don’t understand.
With MealSquares, I had none of these problems and I had a ton more energy. When I went to work, I practically skipped on the way there. All of my interpersonal interactions felt more meaningful and joyful. I was able to get more done and was happier doing it.
The only down-side to MealSquares was that, during the period I was consuming them, I began needing 9 hours of sleep a night, as opposed to my typical 8. This may be due to external factors, so further investigation is needed.
Convenience
MealSquares have the same convenience as Soylent 2.0, wherein you just throw five of these things in your backpack and you’re good to go for the rest of the day. This seems a bit silly, but it made a considerable difference for me, given I'm still on Soylent 1.4 and I sometimes find the need to refrigerate and mix my Soylent inconvenient.
Taste
I’m on a 100% Soylent diet, because I hate food. It’s a limiting factor to so many things in my life: how much time I have, how long I can work, how well I feel and how much disposable income I have. Also, I can’t taste due to my olfactory bulb being pwned by an infection. Let me explain.
When I was in first year university, I was stricken with extraocular cellulitis, which looks like this:
Basically, an infection that started in my eyebrow, spread over my face and into my olfactory bulb. This knocked out my ability to taste almost completely.
The best analogy for my current sense of taste is televisions. Everyone else has a high definition LCD TV in terms of their taste buds, while I have a fuzzy 4-inch black and white TV set.
Hilariously, because I was eating cafeteria food at the time and was mostly focused on not failing my first semester of engineering, I didn't notice I wasn't enjoying food until I returned home.
MealSquares are currently in beta, mostly because the founders are trying to make the product “as tasty as possible”. Although MealSquares are slightly dry, as long as I had my trusty water bottle with me, I didn't find it bothersome.
MealSquares offer a compelling alternative to Soylent and fascinatingly gave me a lot of anecdotal evidence that “whole food” is important. If I lived in the US, I would definitely recommend switching, if only temporarily, to MealSquares. However, until they exit beta, spread across the US and then consider shipping to Canada, I’ll just have to wait patiently.
