Nutritional Shakes or 'Real' Food?

There has been a lot of buzz recently about nutritional shakes and their advantages. While the majority of nutritionists would say that shakes can't be a long term substitute for real food, we want to make the case - and a genuine one - that shakes can be better than what is these days termed as 'real' food.

Nutritional shakes have exactly what you need

As far as nutrients go, sometimes food is overrated. It does have all the necessary nutrients that we know of, and some extra, but there is just too much other stuff that has to be consumed along with that. For example you'd have to eat two whole chicken breasts to get just 35g of protein. When you add in the hassle of preparation and presentation, you realize that there are many other ways you can be spending your time. Meal-replacement shakes are a great alternative for that, to make life easier for you and also allowing you to eat well.

Not only do nutritional shakes have real proteins, carbs and fat, their proportions are usually modified according to a person's needs, making it much easier to get exactly what you need. For example, for a bodybuilder, a high protein shake will give him or her so much more protein than a meal chock full of eggs and meat. Whereas a person who is on diet can take a low fat or low carb drink, with limited calories, and feel really full without needing anything else.

"Real" food

Although there's so much pressure laid on us to eat real foods, the fact of the matter is that most of what we eat everyday simply doesn't have the nutritional value we require - and most of it can hardly be called real food. Most of our daily diet consists of food stuffed with preservatives, additives and colorings. Even when you're buying fresh fruits and vegetables, you can't be sure that what you're getting is not tainted. The use of pesticides and genetically modified crops have become so prevalent that unless you consume organic all the time, you run the risk of consuming more chemicals than ever before in history, with every bite of 'real' food.

If the Alternative is Fast Food...

Since making real food can be difficult and time consuming, people often take the shortcut of eating fast foods. Now, most people realize that fast foods are not good for you health-wise - the calories, fat and sugar content in them is so high that you're a thousand times better off drinking a shake. But even then, sometimes the need to have something to eat that's convenient makes people turn to the unhealthy option of fast food.

Even those who avoid fast food are sometimes so pressed for time that they give into ordering takeout. But takeout foods are also often full of hidden calories - even if you order a salad. The dressing and those croutons may have more than half of your daily allowance of calories. In both these cases of convenience seeking eaters, meal shakes are the answer because they provide a filling meal, conveniently, that is much healthier than restaurant or fast food.

So keeping all those points together, it becomes obvious that meal shakes are not only as healthy as real food but in some cases can be even healthier.