Introduction to meal replacements

Meal replacements are intended as a substitute for solid food, usually containing controlled quantities of calories as well as nutrients and necessary vitamins and minerals. Along with the nutrition benefits, meal replacements can help you save time and money, becoming a popular alternative for busy people looking for convenient and healthy meals.

vybey delivers balanced and convenient meals, no contracts, delivered quickly when you need it. You can be assured that vybey is arguably the best meal replacement shake available in Australia and New Zealand due to its premium ingredient offering.

Under The Microscope: vybey¹ and Soylent²

There are many products available on the market who claim to be the best meal replacement shake, making it difficult to know which meal shake is best for you. Today, we are going to compare the vybey chocolate salted caramel meal shake to Soylent’s Cacoa. Soylent, one of the US market-leaders in the meal replacement industry, is going under the microscope - head-to-head with vybey - to help you make the best decision.

A lot of people in Australia attempt to find Soylent; however, at the time of writing this article, Soylent is not yet available in Australia. Based on the below analysis and customer feedback, one can conclude that vybey is the next best alternative to Soylent in Australia. The main reason being vybey's premium macronutrient ingredient composition. 

After diving deep into the nutritional information of both the vybey chocolate salted caramel meal shake and Soylent, the main takeaways are:

• vybey can be considered as a 100% nutritional meal. Soylent's claims are arguable due to high amounts of added sugar;
• Soylent has added 15g of sugar to their product as per nutritional panel;
• vybey contains premium ingredients including nootropics and probiotics compared with Soylent’s more basic nutritional profile; 
• Soylent has a significantly lower levels protein than vybey; 
• vybey contains more fibre than Soylent's offering;
• Our vybey shake includes a range of organic ingredients while Soylent does not; and
• Soylent contains artificial flavours and sweeteners while vybey contains only natural sweeteners and flavours. 

Comparing the nutritional values of vybey vs Soylent in the above table, it can be concluded that Soylent offers a significant amount of added sugar compared to vybey. This is actually really surprising from such a respected brand. This level of added sugar is arguably unhealthy and infers that their baseline product without sugar is not tasty! However, we will leave that to you to determine.

Further, the level of fats in Soylent at 22g per 100g is also significant. This comes from their second highest ingredient, canola oil. vybey includes a lower level of essential fats with coconut fat oil for essential omega 3 and 6 inclusions.

The products may look the same claiming to be a ‘complete meal’ and can be used for the same purpose however, certain premium ingredients included in vybey suggest that they are in fact very different!

Let us switch on the microscope a bit further for you…

Protein Comparison

As shown in the table below, vybey runs ahead with the protein title per 100g. At vybey, we knew our vybers wanted more protein for optimum recovery and premium quality. This is what we gave them in the form of high end pea protein, organic brown rice protein and the new faba bean protein. Such proteins have been very well received across the vybey community across Australia and more recently Europe.

Probiotics Comparison

Compared to vybey, there is a lack of probiotics (in particular Bacillus Coagulans) in Soylent powder. The Soylent cacoa powder has does not contain any probiotics compared to vybey’s 1billion cfu.

Probiotics are a healthy form of bacteria that improve gut health and digestion³. Our internal health is just as important as our external appearance and for this reason, we’ve ensured vybey has as many unique benefits as possible to offer a premium product. These additional premium ingredients arguably set vybey far ahead of local and global meal replacements in Australia & Europe/UK.

Nootropics Comparison

At vybey, along with the 26 different vitamins and minerals within our complete meal powder, we have included the Lion’s Mane nootropic. To our knowledge we are the only meal shake brand in the world that includes this premium ingredient in our products. Lion’s Mane is an edible and naturally occurring medicinal mushroom. Lion’s Mane has been shown to benefit the brain, heart, and gut⁴ and even ranks fourth for the highest antioxidant level among 14 different species of mushroom ⁵. The positive effects on the brain can include:

• Mental wellbeing
• Mood in relation to motivation
• Concentration and attention
• Increase blood flow around the brain
• Improves transmission of nerve impulses

These innovative food ingredients have been added to vybey to help our vybers to perform at their highest level.

Organic and Premium Ingredients

Furthermore, vybey has numerous organic ingredients including coconut flour, flaxseed flour, brown rice protein and cocoa powder. Again, highlighting the premium and healthy ingredients of vybey’s meal replacement shake. Soylent have only included cocoa in their meal shakes but none are organic. Organic foods often have more beneficial nutrients, such as antioxidants, than their conventionally grown counterparts and people with allergies to foods, chemicals, or preservatives may find their symptoms lessen or go away when they eat only organic foods⁵. We want what’s best for our vybers and incorporating organic foods are a great way to give our customers that extra 1%.

Conclusion

The primary objective of the vybey and Soylent shakes is to offer nutritionally complete meals and it can be said that both products achieve this. However, choosing an option that contains natural ingredients and a healthy dose of probiotics, organic, and premium ingredients such as Lion’s Mane nootropic will help contribute to achieving optimal performance, greater nutritional benefits and ultimately better health. Soylent arguably has too much added sugar making their product offering less appealing to the more health conscious consumers. In Australia, it can be argued that Soylent may not be as well received due to the high sugar content. 

In addition, many of our customers who were previously based in the US now opt for vybey as they deem us as the Soylent equivalent in Australia. We are honoured for this comparison and are proud to serve them & provide world class products. Nevertheless, based on the information in this article, we believe we can surpass Soylent in terms of quality & taste. 

Next steps?!

Start your vybey journey today! A great way to kick off the journey is to go for our Starter Packs. This allows you to test out all of our flavours and decide which one is your favourite. 

Please let us know your thoughts on our article by sending a message to hello@vybey.com.au – We would love to hear from you!

References

1. VYBEY, 2022. Nutritional Information. [online]. vybey. Available from https://vybey.com.au/pages/copy-of-nutritional-information
   
   
2. SOYLENT, 2022. The Soylent Powder [online] Available from: https://soylent.com/products/powder-cacao
   
   
3. Gammone, M. A., Riccioni, G., Parrinello, G., & D'Orazio, N, 2018. Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids: Benefits and Endpoints in Sport. Nutrients. [online] 11(1), pp. 46. Available from: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/11/1/46 
   
   
4. Mori, K., Inatomi, S., Ouchi, K., Azumi, Y., Tuchida, T., 2008. Improving Effects of the Mushroom Yamabushitake (Hericium Erinaceus) On Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial. Phytotherapy Research. [online]. 23(3), pp. 367-372. Available from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ptr.2634
   
   
5. Lai, P., 2013. Neurotrophic Properties of the Lion's Mane Medicinal Mushroom, Hericium erinaceus (Higher Basidiomycetes) from Malaysia. International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms. [online]. 15(6), pp. 539-554. Available from https://www.dl.begellhouse.com/journals/708ae68d64b17c52,034eeb045436a171,750a15ad12ae25e9.html/