The Rising Trend of Meal Replacement Drinks
Why eat your meal when you can drink it? One of the fastest-growing trends today is the meal replacement drink, a nutritional liquid that provides the same calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals as a regular, balanced meal. These drinks make proper nutrition a breeze with an ideal balance of nutrients counted out for you and perfect portions pre-measured, packaged, and ready to drink, even on the go.
We’ve come a long way since the days when meal replacements drinks were primarily weight-loss supplements designed to replace one or two meals each day in a range of basic flavors such as vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. You can still find replacement drinks in these classic flavors, but today’s natural flavor ingredients, such as vanilla absolute natural, chocolate extract natural, and strawberry furanone natural, can provide richer and more authentic flavors for these drinks and many others.
Besides their flavor, meal replacement drinks are serving purposes beyond standing in for food for busy consumers. They can also be functional holistic health solutions, promising benefits such as encouraging the body’s natural healing and repair abilities, promoting alkalinity, boosting energy, detoxifying the tissues, improving brain focus and health, supporting proper gut health, and managing inflammation.
Meal replacement drinks are available to suit a wide variety of individual needs. Some help kids to get the nutrition that they need with extra protein, calcium, vitamin C, and zinc. Others target breastfeeding moms with banana flowers to help support healthy lactation. There are also meal replacement drinks that promise positive aging solutions for the over-55 crowd with essential added nutrients such as protein and calcium.
The keto movement is growing fast, and manufacturers of meal replacement drinks have responded. Keto replacement drinks offer easy-to-understand macros to deliver the ultimate convenience for people adhering to this lifestyle.
Finally, fermented beverages are more popular than ever, and we’re seeing meal replacement drinks pop up even in this category–a particularly interesting one because of all the flavor possibilities within these smoothie-and-kombucha concoctions, from guava and citrus to apples and greens to berries and ginger.
If you’re in the beverage market and looking for something new to add to your lineup, now is the perfect time to experiment with new flavors and types of meal replacement drinks, which are quickly becoming as popular as modern consumers are busy.