How healthy is such a meal replacement?
Meal replacement products are often not a complete substitute.
Meal replacements are an alternative to industrially produced ready meals, which often rely heavily on flavor enhancers such as glutamate. However, it is important to remember that you should not rely exclusively on meal replacements. A balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle are the foundation on which you can build with meal replacements. Always talk to your doctor about this.
Losing weight with meal replacements
Meal replacement drinks are suitable for losing weight. Each bottle always contains the same number of calories, so you can easily manage your daily energy balance. It is important to note that meal replacements should not be used as the sole source of nutrition for longer than 3 weeks without medical supervision.
It has also been shown that the choice of food, whether liquid or solid, can have a significant impact on energy intake[4]. So it makes a difference whether you eat solid food and consume an over-sugared drink or opt for a meal replacement that contains everything you need.
With normal solid food, it's also easy to eat an extra portion or an unhealthy dessert when you're really hungry. This is where substitute meals come in very handy. On the one hand, they fill you up faster and on the other, you know how many calories you have just eaten and when you should stop.
- He will refer you to a suitable specialist (e.g. a dentist, psychologist, nutritionist, gastroenterologist, etc.).
- They will inform you about your malnutrition and give you tips for everyday life that you can use to treat your malnutrition yourself.
- They will give you an injection to counteract the current nutrient deficiency and give you tips on how to avoid such a deficiency in the future.
Get an overview of your current nutritional profile
Various apps and platforms such as Cronometer allow you to log your meals over several days. From this, you can then see which nutrients you may be consuming too little or even too much of. This allows you to increase your nutritional awareness and find out which foods you can supplement your current diet with particularly well.
Gain weight with meal replacements
Is your goal to gain weight with meal replacements? Meal replacement drinks can also help you with this task.
In this case, however, you should consider them less as a replacement for a meal and more as a supplement to your normal daily meals. Because as we know, body weight increases in the long term as long as there is a calorie surplus.[3]
Make your own meal replacements
By now you've probably wondered whether you could simply make a meal replacement yourself, whether it's a shake or a bar. To be completely honest: Of course you can make your own "meal replacement". However, this will of course not be a meal replacement in the legal sense.
For that, you need to be pretty well versed in the various micro- and macronutrients and their composition in different foods. For example, 100 g of an apple contains an average of 2.4 g of fiber, 0.12 mg of iron and 0.04 mg of zinc.[4]
If you try to replicate the complex interplay of ingredients in a substitute meal - which has taken some manufacturers years to develop - in normal household use, you will quickly reach your limits. Although there are already some recipes online, the cost-benefit factor (in our opinion) is still not worth it.
