Jimmy Joy: Plenny Shake

yaraxx99
"First impression, terrible. After a day, eatable."
^{January 29, 2021 @ 09:37}

This was my first try of meal replacement. I planned to replace my dinner with the banana flavor.I was pretty excited when it arrived and started immediately to make a shake. Mixing was pretty easy and I liked the banana smell. Then I took a sip and it was so gritty, I was really disappointed because I planned everything so well, I red all the reviews and I really looked forward to it. I tried another sip but it didn’t help, it was like I was drinking sand with water… I tried to make a new shake with milk and left it in the fridge for a day. This made it better but not amazing. The texture is just not for me. I won’t recommend it and I won’t buy it again.

DirtyUnderwear
"Fine but fell out"
^{November 23, 2019 @ 17:29}

Taste fine, texture is smooth but thick. Not my favorite anymore.

Mosoherz
"Following in the footsteps of Soylent"
^{June 14, 2018 @ 19:41}

I tried this out as an alternative to Soylent, and was happy to see that, despite being shipped from Europe (to the USA), the price was quite reasonable and the quality good. It is very similar to Soylent in terms of content, overall effect on my body, appearance, packaging, and ease of use. It is safe to say that they are a Soylent imitator, right down to their original name (Joylent) – I imagine Soylent’s lawyers pressured them to change that.

It comes in a few different, artificial-tasting flavors which were mediocre but edible. It does help to use an additive or two, like some fruit, to improve the flavor. It has more fiber than Soylent, and the texture can be a little gritty, but this does not ruin things. Overall I would call it a good, well-priced product, and I came close to switching over to it.

Coen_T
"Ideal meal replacement"
^{June 6, 2018 @ 11:55}

Plenny Shakes are an ideal meal replacement. I was skeptical about the product at first but eventually tried it after hearing about positive experiences from my friends.

The shakes have changed a bit over the past years, but the ease of use has stayed the same. I really enjoy having it at home or at work as a snack / back-up meal / breakfast. Especially as breakfast or post-work out it saves me a lot of time, energy and money, and I’ve grown to really enjoy the taste as well.

The texture took me some getting used to, but it fully depends on how you mix the drink, I usually add a little extra powder or water to get it just right.

The only thing I dislike is that I still have to order it, which I’m too lazy to do so I always run out and realize I need it on a weekend. Wider availability in shops would be great, or I just have to start ordering in bulk so I don’t run out!

TangoWhiskey
"Easy. Convenient. Satisfying. Quick. Love it!"
^{June 4, 2018 @ 13:28}

Whether you’re on the go, don’t have time to make a proper meal, are too hungover to cook something, or simply don’t normally eat breakfast – this is the answer. I decided to try Jimmy Joy as an easy solution to try and quell my everyday struggle in the morning, and it went from occasionally having a shake after waking up to my standard morning routine in no time. It’s so simple and so quick that it still blows my mind. Normally I’m not so hungry in the morning and really can’t be bothered to make myself breakfast, especially since I’m usually running late. This would mean that by the time I would get to work I’d be starving, even grumpier, unable to focus, and generally unpleasant. That is no longer an issue. Since Jimmy Joy entered my life I’ve become much more effective in the morning and never struggle anymore with my usual start-of-the-day mentality because everything is better when you have a full belly. In addition I find Jimmy Joy extremely suitable for long work-outs, treating hangovers, and super handy for roadtrips and such. I simply cannot do without anymore.

maarten87
"ok solution in stressful times"
^{January 20, 2018 @ 12:22}

taste isnt’ great but still much better than a premixed drink i’ve tried before (saturo). couldn’t think about substituting many meals during the week with this – but it’s still a decent solution for me when i’ve got a stressful day

wpjessie
"Excellent nutrition, OK taste, terrible texture"
^{August 29, 2017 @ 16:20}

Although I greatly prefer Plenny Shake for the cost, quality ingredients, macronutrient split, and variety of flavors, the only thing keeping me from really enjoying it is the texture. I’m a big fan of Soylent’s texture: no settling and super smooth. The Plenny Shake just doesn’t come close at all.

fernly
"My video review of Plenny Shake"
^{August 26, 2017 @ 20:25}

You can view my tasting and description of PlennyShake here:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZBbKNWXefJw

440_Hz
"My main meal replacement solution. Love it!"
^{August 24, 2017 @ 22:12}

After my disappointment with Soylent 1.8, I came to Jimmy joy Plenny Shake. I fell in love with my first sip. The taste is fantastic, honestly. Plus, I have fun mixing flavors together — all the fruits complement each other. The powder does not dissolve completely and the shake has solid grains in it, but this is not something I personally mind. About 1/3 of my calories come from Plenny Shake and I couldn’t be happier with it. And, you can’t beat the price.

Rawrkanos
"Makes a fantastic bar(the second tastiest) and a good shake."
^{August 24, 2017 @ 10:16}

Plenny has been around for ages so there’s not much more to say about it, but I do enjoy it. 125grams of water per bag makes bars. Thanks to the flavors used in Plenny, the taste really shines through.

spicyramyun
^{December 10, 2016 @ 05:25}

The Joylent powder offerings are an excellent introduction to the offerings of meal replacements. Not only are there multiple flavors to choose from the prices are very reasonable. Recently, they have established an on shore presence to help expedite some of their shipping due to the popularity of the product in the states.

Previously, I tried it for one off days where I just made a pouch for the day or split it and used it for individual meal replacements.

I am currently in a 12 day on 2 day off 100% replacement trial. I am using Chocolate, Banana, Vanilla and Strawberry.

Chocolate: It has a light presence of chocolate almost as if you took a weaker vanilla and added some cocoa to it.

Strawberry: Probably the weakest flavor option because it doesn’t actually really remind me of strawberry. It doesn’t have an off taste or leave a weird aftertaste though like some artificial strawberry flavored items.

Vanilla: A strong contender for best taste. I have seen people compare it to cake batter in flavor and you can definitely get a bit of that from it. One of the strongest options.

Banana: If you like banana this is a great options. It is more adaptable when it comes to low to no calorie additions of flavor enhancement. Add a little dark cocoa powder and you have a tasty chocolate banana. If you add in some cinnamon you get closer to a banana bread.

One thing I love about the Joylent preparation is that if you are blending it with water around 150F/66C it blends fantastically and after you let it cool overnight in the fridge the shake it thickens up quite a bit leaving you VERY satiated.

I have prepared the shakes using a shaker bottle as well as a pitcher with a stick blender. They both turn out fine but for ease of prep and time savings the stick blender is the best option without a doubt.

Icy-Elemental
"Nice, pleasant flavours"
^{November 21, 2016 @ 18:36}

Joylent was my first experience with a -lent product. When I first tried it, I was pleasantly surprised by the taste (my first bag was limited edition apple flavour, which I later grew to greatly dislike), although the texture was a little too gritty for my liking. The reason I grew to dislike apple was because of a rather unpleasant aftertaste that would occasionally come through very powerfully – I am not sure what to put this down to, but it completely turned me off apple and is one of the reasons I ended out stopping purchases from them (as I associated this aftertaste with other flavours unfortunately). For the intents of this review, and so as not to unfairly knock Joylent down on points on this site, I am going to limit the impact the aftertaste of apple had on my rating of aftertaste, and also take account of the other flavours which, for the most part, were pleasant.

My favourite flavour was banana, closely followed by mango. Somewhere in the middle were strawberry and vanilla, followed by chocolate. Apple comes last, purely due to my later experiences with it. A very nice mix I found to make chocolate more enjoyable was to mix it with banana, in a 50/50 ratio. This created a very pleasant choco-banana flavour, which I would place higher than banana in terms of pleasantness.

Joylent was reasonably easy to mix in a shaker, though on occasion I did have to use a spoon to stop some powder sticking to the bottom of the shaker, and it wasn’t rare to find unmixed lumps in the shake – though perhaps this was due to my shaking technique.

I am left in a slightly difficult position when ranking ‘serving fills you up’, because whilst Joylent is perfectly satiating, I actually found it to be *too* filling for me most of the time. Now I know my required Caloric intake isn’t significantly less than what is contained in a bag (in fact it is slightly more, at ~2200), but there were many days when I couldn’t finish three shakes. This would, perhaps, have been ideal for weight loss then, but that wasn’t what I was after at the time. This situation led me to be concerned about losing out on nutrition, and is what led me to eventually turn to DIY. As a result of this, I am forced to mark Joylent down on this category, though to reiterate, this isn’t because it fails to be filling – it is, in fact, the opposite.

In terms of value for money, Joylent is an interesting one. On the one hand, it is the second cheapest commercial -lent available in large purchase sizes (second only to very large purchases of Nano), and the cheapest in small to medium purchases. However with that said, some of the ingredients they have chosen to use seem to be chosen specifically because they are cheap, and not because they provide quality nutrition. As an example of this, despite just barely making the 375mg EU RDA (which is itself lower than any of the US recommendations), the main source (other than oats) of this is magnesium oxide, a form that is very cheap to produce, but also not particularly bioavailable. This, combined with the fact maltodextrin is so prominent in the ingredients list (which led to me experiencing moderate energy crashes) means I can not give a fantastic score for this attribute, despite it being so cheap. With that said, they still provide a very good product at a very reasonable price, hence my rating of 8/11 for this attribute.

REVIGOR
"Texture, flavor, fills you up"
^{November 20, 2016 @ 20:08}

This is one of the cheaper options, but regardless, it’s an amazing option. There’s no need to use a blender, just mix it in the included Blender Bottle, leave it overnight in the fridge, and the texture will be nice and thick, which I find very enjoyable. I tried Banana, Strawberry, and Chocolate flavors, but I like Banana the most, even though they’re all great. What got me into this product, was the amount of calories per serving it contained, which is essential for my high-calorie diet.

tppp
"First experience of lents, loved it."
^{November 19, 2016 @ 21:43}

Joylent was my first real discovery in terms of future food so they’ll always have a special (well deserved) place in my heart – though my first order wasn’t as seamless as I’d have liked it and took aaaaaages to arrive thankfully things have got much quicker, but if the shakes hadn’t been absolutely amazing for that first order then I’d have written them off and stuck with eating the same damn sandwich every day at work.

Luckily, they were amazing.

The packaging is brilliant, colourful and fun with three meals per bag, or one day’s ‘food’. The bags open via a little pull seal which reveal a resealable tab that actually reseals(!) once you’ve taken a portion out.

I’ve tried all their flavours except mango but for me the best by far is the cappuccino ‘wake up’, but for this review I guess the vanilla would win (strawberry is lovely but I found the chocolate to be disappointing). The flavours are all subtle, which is great because I was drinking it every day and if it had been as sickly sweet as protein shakes I’d have given up quickly.

There’s a kind of gritty/oaty texture to joylent that makes it feel a lot more substantial than I was expecting and as my first foray into future foods it kind of surprised me. The thickness really makes it feel like a meal though, and it’s really filling… so much so that I usually use more water to thin it down a bit.

I had a bit of trouble mixing it at first, which I found odd but after a few days I started using a blender to mix up batches and then let them sit in the fridge overnight. Great for grabbing on the morning dash out of the house and blending seems to make for a much more enjoyable drink (no matter how hard and long I shake the bottle I just can’t get it to the same consistency) and it also means I can add a banana or some strawberries or whatever to vary the flavour a little. I’ve noticed it separates out a bit if it’s left for too long, but it seems fine for 24 hours.

I’ve long since abandoned breakfast in favour of an extra ten minutes in bed, so joylent has really changed the makeup of my day and I’m not snacking and grazing on crap during mornings in the office as much these days, and my usual crap lunch time sandwich has been supplanted by joylent too. It’s a small change but it’s made a huge difference to my diet and the way that I feel because I’ve got loads more energy.

Folk in the office think I’m mad, but I feel healthier and I’m getting better quality food, so I’m happy and for those days where I just don’t have any time to waste, it’s perfect.