Schmoylent versus DIYS

Current Recipe

I'm one week in and here's the recipe that has resulted out of a lot of tinkering. When I make this, I put the Pre-cooked Masa (PAN) in my food blender first to further chop the bits down (to reduce grit) and when I add water, I boil it in my kettle and add about a cup to my pitcher before adding my dry ingredients. Then I stir the nonsense out of it, add more boiling water gradually, and use my immersion blender until my hand nearly falls off. Then I let it sit overnight in my fridge and, after a lot of vigorous shaking, it gets poured into my glass travel bottles and kept chilled until it is drunk.

The Xanthan gum does wonders for texture. I tried 1/2 tsp (as that is the suggested serving size) for my whole 2L pitcher of mix and that was, rather shockingly, too much. It's thick. Seriously think, guys. Like a milkshake that I wanted to attempt to chew. I had issues pouring it. 1/4 tsp (about 1g) is PLENTY. I legitimately do not have to shake it after it's put into the smaller travel bottles- I simply do so out of habit and of residual fear from my days of chocolate ocean sand mix. 

Also, I added the peanut butter powder to taste (which came out to about 22g but I may lower it later) and I reduced the cocoa powder so that I could at least taste the peanut butter powder a bit. Now it's lovely and I enjoy drinking it. Really. It's lovely. My friends tried it and couldn't seem to get past the little bits of grit left over but they SERIOUSLY have no idea how gritty it used to be and simply do not appreciate my efforts. Silly heathens. 

My numbers are going down and I've bounced back from the tiredness that resulted from my calorie drop. I continue to nibble on things like carrots and cucumbers and tomatoes (and I split a granola bar with my coworker yesterday and it was heavenly) so I'm not gripped by my need to chew like I was before but I feel like I could be doing better at sticking to just my DIYS. 

Also, I did a successful social outing with friends this past weekend! It was just bowling at a posh alley with some, admittedly, great smelling food and extensive drinks but I survived! I tanked a 12oz bottle on the way there and sipped on another bottle during the game and I felt no need to get dinner with my group. The urge to order something was there out of habit (not hunger) so my iced tea went a long, long way for me that night. I did, on the other hand, have to avoid the bar area where the food was served because I actually found myself drooling a little bit. Grease. Smells. Wonderful. Now. I don't want to put it in my mouth but it really does smell amazing. 

So! On to the business of the day!

Shelby (my husband) ordered some People Fuel Plus (a variant of Schmoylent by Axcho) about a week/week and a half ago and I wanted to give you a better update since it arrived last night and we've mixed some up.

We received two boxes of 15 bags each and they very helpfully included instructions for mixing. My husband's pitchers and bottles arrive later today so we took this as a good omen and I graciously loaned him the use of my extra pitcher until his arrives.

Taking a closer look at the mix, his mix looked REALLY different than mine. You might notice the speckles on his bag- those turned out to be Chia seeds. Whole seeds. I am interested to see him down those.

This mix reeked pleasantly of cinnamon and it really caught my attention coming out of the box. I checked out the ingredients again and noticed that, while most of the main nutrients are identical to what I put in my recipe, the Axcho version has a few alterations that I will be looking into- most notably, the multivitamin powder. I have bolded the ingredients that are not exactly in my DIYS mix.

Included in the People Fuel Plus (PFP) mix:
Masa Harina (Corn), Whey Protein Isolate (Milk), Chia Seeds, Psyllium Husk Powder, Potassium Citrate, Iodized Salt, Calcium Citrate, Choline Bitartrate, Multivitamin Powder, Saigon Cinnamon, Stevia Powder, Xanthan Gum

Notice that there are a lot of equivalencies here. Psyllium Husk Powder instead of rice flour. Saigon cinnamon instead of cocoa or peanut butter for flavoring. Stevia powder instead of splenda blends. I use an actual multivitamin instead of powder but I went ahead and highlighted that as a difference as well. The recipes are clearly similar so there is a lot of hope for people who don't like certain recipes but want to tinker with their own tastes in mind. The description for this mix says "Tastes like Cheerios or corn tortillas" and, while that does not appeal to me as a desirable everyday taste, my husband was ecstatic. He made sure to mention that he would take a savory flavor over a sweet flavor any day of the week.

Don't worry. He ate his words later.

Here goes the first blend...

And then it turned into grits. 

The cinnamon smell went away as soon as we started to mix the stuff up with the spoon and it stayed away. After blending, the mix smelled like corn (that's the Masa/PAN for you!) and it held the consistency of very dense grits. The recommended 6 cups of water topped the pitcher after we finished and it stayed ridiculously thick; I'd love to know how much Xanthan gum they used in this to get it that seriously thick. 

The picture you see above during the mixing process is exactly how thick it was this morning after sitting all night. Shelby "poured" a cup for breakfast and had to break out a spoon to try to eat it. He then put it back into the fridge and vowed to tinker with it tonight. It's probably edible but only just. 

I didn't have the courage to try it. I'll keep you posted.