Soylent vs. Biolent vs. Holfood vs. Joylent
I’ve tried every food replacement that will ship to Canada. Here is a summary of my experiences if you’re ever thinking of going down this path.
Soylent 1.5
Oh Soylent 1.5… You were my first and I’ll never forget you. You showed me what it was to be liberated from food, as well as disturbingly revealing exactly how much I was willing to sacrifice to be liberated from it.
Soylent 1.5 is not a pleasing visceral experience. The rice protein contained in Soylent 1.5 destroyed my digestive system and yet, I continued to consume it for almost a year because the alternative of going back to cooking was just too arduous.
Biolent was the next candidate I tried, since it was cheaper than Soylent. They have low-carb and high-protein versions, but I just got the default. Although the visceral experience was superior to Soylent, I was always continuously hungry, despite chewing on crackers, which usually solved the problem. Mixing Biolent with 50% Soylent seemed to solve the problem and made my partner actually willing to consume Soylent/Biolent for breakfast. Apparently it reminded her of some candy from her childhood in Northern China?
Holfood is basically luxury Soylent. Although it’s more expensive (around 10 dollars a day to Soylent’s 9 dollars a day), it has a superior texture, visceral experience and taste (according to my partner) due to it’s chocolate flavouring. Best of all you can tweak the macronutrient (fat, protein, carbs) ratio and calorie content to your liking. Unfortunately, because of it’s chocolate flavouring it has a higher caffeine content than any of it’s competitors. Thus, due to my extreme sensitivity to any sort of drug, Holfood made my heartbeat race and my head spin.
Soylent 1.6
Getting Soylent 1.6 was like putting on glasses for the first time. It made me realise how bad Soylent 1.5 was for my digestive system, how it always left me hungry and how sensitive it was to not being refrigerated. All of these problems are solved with Soylent 1.6. Too bad everyone around me says it’s the worst tasting Soylent yet.
While living in Japan for 8 months, I did some math and determined that shipping Joylent from Europe was still more affordable than acquiring snacks and sustenance from normal means. I got Joylent Vegan and was pretty disapointed. It was Soylent 1.5 levels of bad for my digestive system, was the grainiest of all the powders and made me super sleepy if I drank too much, too quickly. Worst of all, it never really made me full.
Conclusion
If you can’t taste food or are broke get Soylent. If you don’t want 2000 calories a day and actually care about the sensory experience of what you put in your mouth, get Holfood. If you live somewhere where Soylent doesn’t ship to, you can try Joylent, but you probably won’t be able to live off of it.
