Mealshakes

I commute approximately three hours in total per day, to and from work. It’s exhausting, it lowers my morale, impedes my life in general and if I didn’t love my job I would not be able to stand it. One thing I’ve done to increase my free time is ”optimizing” my dinners by replacing them with mealshakes.

The first time I heard about mealshakes was from the podcaster Fredrik Björeman and just a little bit later from a couple of friends of mine. They had all tried some type of mealshake in one form or another. Mealshakes is basically what is sounds like; a water and powder based shake that replaces one of your daily meals. Every bag is supposed to contain all every day proteins, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that the body need.

So far I’ve only tried Queal, and being on my third order so far you dont have to make huge assumptions to guess that I’m a satisfied customer. Since I’ve mostly used the shakes to replace my dinners, I haven’t eaten only shakes for a longer period than at most a couple of days but overall I feel satisfied after every meal. It’s an odd feeling at first, drinking a shake which is more than 50% water and still feeling full, but something I’ve quickly grown to really enjoy.

The only big complaint I have about Queal is that their shaker is, to be honest, pretty horrible.

• The screw on cap is hollow, which means powder gets stuck and is hard to wash.
• When opening the cap after shaking there is some sort of pressure that, sometimes, makes the shake splash a bit when opening.
• The rubber sealing comes off if you tighten the lid to hard, which both makes it keen on leaking and harder to wash.
• And finally a personal complaint; I think I would enjoy drinking it more if the opening was a bit wider than it is today.

I’m not the only one that have complained about this and I’ve read somewhere that they in fact are working on a new version of the shaker. Other than that I am satisfied with the taste, feel and overall “fullness”-feeling of drinking Queal.

Breakfast

In my latest order I also ordered some Wunderbars from Queal which I’ve been eating as a breakfast replacement. I can’t say that I’m as satisfied with them as I am with the shakes, but they’re okay. The bars have an extremely compact feel to them and I don’t think I’ve ever chewed anything as much as I do these bars. They have two tastes; vanilla and choco-hazelnut. I can’t put my finger on what it is exacly but I really can’t stand the vanilla taste. I’m not sure if it tastes too artificial for me or if it’s something else. The choco-hazelnut on the other hand is clearly the winner of the two and the one I will order more of if I keep going.

Results?

Since I started drinking the shakes I’ve felt a definitive increase in motivation and energy when I get home. It’s hard to say if this is because the energy isn’t spent shoping for and cooking food or because the shakes themself have actually increased my energy, but I can say that I’ve been more productive than in a long time. A lot of side projects that previously lived their lives on the to-do list graveyard now actually gets some love.

I’m sure I’ll get back to you about how this turns out in the long run.

Last update: September 05, 2017