[jgrahamc]

I've heard that claim repeatedly, but Abbott disagrees with you and everyone else who says it. Look at Ensure Complete: http://ensure.com/products/ensure-complete-shakes

"Ensure Complete, one simple choice for 4-in-1 nutrition. Each delicious shake provides balanced nutrition and targeted muscle, heart, immune, and bone health benefits. It’s a simple choice to get the right nutrients in the right amounts to help you stay strong. Take charge of your health and your nutrition with Ensure Complete!"

From their FAQ: http://ensure.ca/en/faq/

"For how long can I use Ensure? Ensure products deliver complete and balanced nutrition that is always beneficial. There is no time limit to using Ensure products. In fact, long-term use is encouraged if you’re at a nutritional risk (for example, if you’re an older adult)."

"Can Ensure replace a meal? Yes. Ensure products are complete and balanced, when used in appropriate amounts they can be used to replace meals."

[fc2]

Didn't know about Ensure Complete and it seems that you are right, it looks pretty complete. The problem though is the variance in the DV% of different nutrients. For instance, if I wanted to get 100% of sodium from Ensure then I would have to intake 3500 calories and 260% protein, and I haven't heard too many great things about having too much protein. The DV% of most micros is not listed so there may be a lot of problems like this.

[fingerprinter]

Where does one get the DV% that one needs? And are those % about surviving or thriving? There is literally no definitive place to get such information that is actually backed by science and data.

For instance, that 260% protein you cited is about half the protein I take in a day.

Also, FYI, the danger in taking in too much protein is very much overblown. I doubt you could actually consume enough protein to make it a problem unless you had a medical problem with your kidneys already.

[beagle3]

Do you know how Abbott (or others) deal with nutrients that block each other's absorption? e.g. Iron and some vitamins, copper and zinc?

[thewordis]

I tried using a week's worth of Ensure Complete as a meal replacement. It didn't provide satiation.

[asdasf]

No, they don't disagree at all. They say you can replace A MEAL with ensure. Not all of your food consumption period. There is a big difference. They only ever talk about using ensure as a supplement to your diet, not a replacement for it. If you want to live on ensure you need to drink 5 ensure completes per day, plus consume some extra calories, possibly some extra protein, some salt and a few vitamins. But they explicitly recommend that you do not exceed four servings per day: http://ensure.com/nutrition-faq

[jgrahamc]

They say not to have more than 4 servings of _Ensure High Protein_ because of the protein content. I am not talking about that product.

In the FAQ I pointed to they say that Ensure is safe for long term use, is complete, and they answer a question about how many servings a day are necessary for meet your needs.