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PaperclipPerfector  26d ago (text post)   2564 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 26, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Anyone here with experience when it comes to meal-replacements?

I have, on a few occasions, tried various flavors of Huel:

  • It tastes like ass chalk.
  • A single bottle 500ml bottle is only 400 kcal, which is a fucking salad, not a meal as far as I'm concerned.
  • I can get a 12 pack for £42 on Amazon, which comes to a stupidly low 114 kcal/£. And that's just a nominal two days of consumption.

A diet of takeout, even something fancy, will almost certainly beat it on calories per unit of currency. I don't really see the point unless I'm traveling and don't want to deal with a "normal" snack. It's very much not a full meal either way.

Why do I even ask? I'm consumed with exam anxiety, my meds suppress my appetite, and I can't be arsed to cook right now (even if, in all honesty, it won't cut down into study time). Plus a moderate caloric deficit is something I don't mind, from a weight loss perspective, I just don't like getting stiffed on the calories I get. I would be happy getting 1800-2000 a day, which is about what I can reasonably continue for days/weeks without feeling like I'm starving.

In other words, can you think of something superior on metrics such as taste, price per calorie, which I can stock up on?

(Please don't suggest sticks of butter, pemmican or drinking cooking oil. I'm only human. If all else fails, it's McDonald's and their shakes that have calorie densities comparable to nuclear fission)

a stupidly low 114 kcal/£

And how much does real food typically cost, in kcal/GBP?

Uh.. I've been fond of a single meal a day of biryani, which is about £14 and is about 2k calories. That's around 142 kcal/£. It is also nutritionally complete, in the sense that I have had periods of months where that's all I've really eaten, without obviously falling sick.

It's also worth noting that biryani is a lot tastier than Huel. If I was optimizing purely for calories, I'd be eating sticks of butter.

You mean a butter bar?

Deepfried sticks of butter are a form of indignity I wouldn't put past the Scottish. I believe I heard of someone actually make one, though I can't recall how they stopped it becoming oil in the process.

Same way as deepfried ice cream, I think. You cover it in batter and you fry very quickly, before the inside has a chance to melt.

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