100% Food Review

100% Food, first launched by Aleh under the Space Nutrition Station? brand after he moved to the states and, in the absence of being able to cook as well as his wife, wanted a way to eat healthily with very limited culinary skills. They’ve been around for a couple of years now and have recently updated with Evergreen effect. In this review we take a look at the newly reformulated Low Carb Raw Soy? and Double Protein Choco Soy? flavours in the (almost) ready to drink 670 Calorie bottles.

What is 100% Food?

100% Food is a nutritionally complete smoothie in a bottle. It’s aim is to be nutritious and delicious in equal measure and is made from seeds and enhanced with Inulin, Vitamin C and Magnesium to help you live without age related diseases. At 670 Calories per shake they make up around 33% of the daily nutrition recommended by the FDA’s 2000 Calorie diet, and is considered to be sufficient to meet the requirements of 98% of healthy individuals in every demographic in the United States. It comes in ready-to-mix bottles and larger economy bags of powder. This 100% Food review covers the ready-to-mix bottled version.

Taste and Texture

The Double Protein Choco Soy flavour tastes, not unsurprisingly, like a chocolate milkshake (something akin to Nesquik) whilst the Low Carb Raw Soy has a neutral vanilla kind of flavour to it. Both are very sweet, but then they will be what with 40g of sugar in each 156g serving. I’m a little on the fence about this there’s no doubt that the flavour is delicious, but the WHO recommend that sugars should be less than 10% of total energy intake per day and if we’re to drink three of these bottles for our daily nutrition then that’s 120g of sugar per day.

That said, the WHO guidance is mainly directed at added sugars, not those that occurring naturally in ingredients. A single apple can contain 10 to 15g of sugars for example and it’s important to take the amount of fibre and protein into account along with sugar itself. Looking at 100% Food? with 10g of fibre and 33g of protein per bottle it’s unlikely that the sugar content in 100% Food is going to cause unhealthy blood sugar spikes, and for sure, I’ve experienced nicely balanced energy levels throughout my time using 100% Food as the main part of my diet.

With my experience of ‘lents I’d say that, perhaps, 100% Food is a little sweeter than I’d have liked but that’s not to say I haven’t enjoyed drinking it (I really have), but it’s definitely on the sweeter end of the spectrum.

Nutritional Values

The 100% Food formula is based on FDA recommended nutrition values for a 2000 Calorie diet and whilst the standard 2000Cal version targets that exactly, the Double Protein and Low Carb tweak things a little to be more specialist.

Double Protein is recommended for building muscle and losing fat with 33g of Protein, 83g carbs and 22g of fat per meal. Fibre comes in at 10g and overall the fat/protein/carb ratio of 30:20:50 makes for a good mix. Vitamins are well balanced and whilst I wonder if the total 2,010 Calories per day (that three bottles provides) is going to be enough for those that are particularly active but overall I can see it yielding results as part of (or in place of) a healthy diet.

Low Carb on the other hand is a different beast. Low carb diets tend to help people lose more weight somewhat faster than low-fat diets and here we see a 20% Carbs, 35% Fat, 45% Protein ratio. Interestingly there’s 50g protein per meal (17g more than in the Double Protein version), 67g of carbs and 22g of fat. Fibre is roughly the same at 9g.

I’m no trained nutritionologist, so these are just my thoughts. As ever it’s important that you do some research before launching into a high % lent diet and where possible professional advice can be much more helpful.

Pricing

When 100% Food reformulated they also raised prices and these ready-to-mix bottles come in at just under $7 a meal that’s still favourable when you compare it to a ‘real? meal. but side-by-side with other lents it looks expensive.

Cost comes down with the larger bags and they’re far from the most expensive lent available, but a few customers aren’t happy with the change.

Final Thoughts

One area I had a problem with initially was texture. 100% Food is seed based and a proportion of that is chia. Chia seeds are fantastic, incredibly nutritious and fairly neutral in taste but given the chance they absorb a lot of water up to 11 times their weight and they do that pretty quickly. I found that if I mixed 100% Food and then left it to sit for more than ten minutes I ended up with a good deal of sludge at the bottom of the bottle. It’s drinkable, but in the end I found that adding more water was the best way to overcome the sludge or of course drinking it quickly after mixing (which isn’t hard at around 500ml per bottle).

Overall I think it’s a brilliant product. I really like the look of the ingredients list and certainly it’s the best tasting lent I’ve tried so far. The bottles are also super convenient to throw in my work bag each morning and they look like a normal drink when I mix it which doesn’t solicit odd comments from co-workers (unlike shakers of mixed powders sometimes get).

Most importantly? My weight has remained stable, energy levels good and my sleep patterns and thoughts have all been clear throughout my use of 100% Food. In short: I’ve felt great and I’ll definitely be ordering more.

You can buy 100% Food direct from Space Nutrient Station or get it on Amazon.

Have you tried 100% Food? I’d love to get your thoughts in the comments or perhaps your review on the product pages.