“I’ll go to the store tomorrow.”
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
ETA: And I want to second that about granola bars: they are cookies. Better-tasting than most, and perhaps a bit more healthy, but not nearly as nutritionally valuable as a meal or meal replacement.
I backpack in the woods for up to a week at a time. Bars (like Cliff bars) hold up just fine in a backpack for days on end. Granola bars aren’t as sturdy, but there are plenty of options that are better IMO then Ensure.
Yeah, I just don’t get why Ensure would be chosen over SlimFast. Slimfast tastes SO MUCH better and has about the same shelf-life/storage capacities, I would assume.
Personally, I don’t like granola bars as a quick meal because they don’t fill me up. And they quickly leave me with that nasty sugar crash feeling you get when you’ve only eaten simple carbs all day. At best they tide me over for an hour or two. But then I feel like I ate a candy bar for breakfast and probably feel worse off than I started. Ensure settled my stomach and left me good until lunch time.
And personally, I’m not a big fan of sweets in the morning. Ensure is sweet, but it goes down in seconds. Granola bars are a bunch of chewing something I don’t particularly like for when my goal is just to get something in my stomach. When I eat them in the morning I always feel like I’m choking them down.
The last advantage is that I usually went for the coffee slim-fast, which I imagined had caffeine in it. I could get my coffee fix and breakfast all in one step.
Hell, even today my standard breakfast is a shake made with fruit, milk, instant coffee and oatmeal. It’s healthier than a meal-replacement drink, but the same idea is there- it’s covers all my bases, is quick to eat, doesn’t challenge my stomach and keeps me full until lunch time without a sugar crash.
I have only my experience as a guide. Perhaps your backpacks are sturdier or you are gentler. Regardless, I am perfectly satisfied with my choices in regards to granola bars and Ensure. (Which is too eat neither.) I do have time to eat actual meals at the cafeteria.
Man, your textbooks must be messy!
I’ve never had Ensure, but SlimFast has all the vitamins, nutrients and calories of a full meal and tastes like a milkshake, and it’s available at 7-Eleven and (I’m sure) on most college campuses.
The only problem with SlimFast, for me, is that it’s less filling and less satisfying than a meal of equivalent caloric value, so I just end up feeling hungry sooner, which is very much Not The Point and would probably lead to weight gain. But next winter, when I start doing an intensive two-quarter research project on top of a full-time class schedule and a job, I can see myself starting to use some kind of meal replacement.
I’d guess: easier to eat; less messy; won’t be crushed by your textbooks if you toss your backpack down at an odd angle; won’t be as distracting in class; one or two cans won’t take up as much space as a box of granola bars. Look, I’m not married to the stuff or anything, I’m just saying I could see why another student might prefer this solution over yours.
That’s an intriguing idea. Do you make it yourself? If so, can you share the recipe?
Hostile Dialect,
Hostile Dialect, Narcissist
Well, mine isn’t very good but here is what I do.
[ul]
[li]One banana- this is the only essential party, because it adds body.[/li][li]Whatever fruit I have laying around- today it was kiwis, yesterday strawberries and pineapple. I was on a tangerine kick for a while. I just pick stuff that is in season and easy to peel. [/li][li]Some dairy- It may be milk, yogurt, powdered milk or flavored milk. [/li][li]Some caffeine- If I’ve got instant coffee I use that. If not, I throw in some tea leaves and let the blades cut them up. It doesn’t taste great, but thats not really my goal.[/li][li]Some oatmeal- I use maybe 1/4 a cup and just throw it in raw. It’d probably taste better if I used cooked oatmeal or at least soaked it overnight. But raw is fine for me. [/li][li]Whatever else- if it’s too thick I’ll throw in water, juice, or fruit soda. Now and then I add a shake of cinnamon. [/li][/ul]
I’ve got a magic-bullet style blender, so I just throw stuff in, drink it straight from the cup, rinse it, and get one with my day. It rarely tastes very good, but it doesn’t usually taste bad. Most importantly is I can prepare, eat, and clean up a healthy breakfast in five minutes. In the afternoon I make another one without the caffeine and oatmeal and that actually tastes good. This silly blender has made it so much easier for me to get all the fruit I need.
As an enema?
In all seriousness, I used to drink Boost in college as a meal supplement. Some of the responses here make me wonder if the posters were ever dorm-dwelling college students.
As for where I got the Boost, my parents would gift me with a case of it whenever I saw them.
And as for why a Boost instead of granola bars- have you ever read the nutrition facts on granola bars? They are basically fat and sugar. Boost at least has a high amount of protein and a laundry list of vitamins.
Own one and carry it to class five days a week (or did when I was teaching classes, which I’m not this semester). Although your question is entirely irrelevant, unresponsive and distracting from my point, I’ll show the courtesy of answering your question without snark.
I don’t encourage any sort of eating in my classroom, and I wouldn’t see a real difference between a student gluggling down some liquid or unwrapping a granola bar. Obviously, if crumbing is a problem, choose the bars that are a little tougher than the really crumbly kind. I forget the name but some bars are practically like rocks. Equally obviously, you wouldn’t need to eat them during class–we were talking about students so pressed for time that they need to eat between classes. I think a really indestructible granola bar is easily eaten while walking from class to class, far more so than somethng you need to swig from a carton.
Do you have difficulty swigging from a carton?
While walking rapidly? A little. Also it’s hard getting something capped and de-capped while walking fast, or in the alternative, carrying an open container of liquid. But if I remove a granola bar from wrapper at the end of class A, I can hold it and bite piece off it easily on my way to class B pretty easily.
Ditto. I’d never heard of a product called Ensure, so a little bit of ignorance has been fought.
I have a son in college. I will insure that I find out how this product should be used. I would hate it if he abused it and harmed himself in a way not covered by his health ensurance.
I’m really surprised by this. First, I feel some eating or drinking during class is inevitable. Second, I see a huge difference between the two. Do people taking sips from a water bottle or a coffee cup while you’re teaching bother you?
I’m not saying that eating and drinking doesn’t happen, just that I don’t encourage it. For a long time, like when I was in college, it didn’t happen though, and I managed to survive college by limiting my caloric intake to the 20-odd non-classroom hours in a day.
Farting and pissing is also inevitable. Vomiting also. Nonetheless, if people needs to perform a bodily function other than breathing, I think they could juggle their schedules to do such things in a place other than a classroom.
It’s a matter of respect for your fellow students and respect for your subject. There is no reason, for example, that a federal judge couldn’t eat a Reuben sandwich and drink a nice frosty beer while sitting on the bench, but few do so, because they like to give the impression that they’re focused on the case before them. I try to encourage that illusion too.
Clearly, then, you’ve never used Ensure for off-label purposes. Which is a perfectly valid choice.
I, on the other hand, have been in a position where I felt that was my best option. And I have no problem with my students drinking water or coffee - I’ll even bring in a cup of coffee while I’m teaching, from time to time.
I understand Ensure is an excellent post-workout meal because of the carbohydrate-to-protein ratio - 4:1 is exactly what tired muscles recuperate fastest on.
<golf clap!>
Some more ways in which Ensure was Not Intended to be Used:
for insect repellant
as sacramental wine
to soak your contact lenses
as a stain remover
to top off the fluid in your motorcycle battery
for those overhead projector colored-oil light displays
in Lava Lamps
And I thought this was going to be a 14-page list of ways Ensure was Not Intended to be Used. Nope, an actual discussion on the merits of college students drinking Ensure and oh yeah, a coupla lists. I must say I’m a little disappointed. This must be remedied.
Yet More Ways You Shouldn’t Use Ensure:
Embalming fluid substitute
Chemical depilatory
Window cleaner
Sushi dipping sauce
Pimple remover cream
In a lab demonstration of non-Newtonia fluids
Breast implant filler
Bleach alternative
To replace brushing or flossing.
Ah, for the old days when people didn’t feel the need to constantly hydrate! Somehow I managed to get through four years of college without ever having a drink or a snack during a class. Now it seems people can’t go anywhere without some form of liquid. But I’m sure that’s fodder for an whole 'nother thread…
It was a bit more rhetorical in intent then apparently came across. I feel the attempt at snarklessness was undercut by its mention however.
Let me state for the record that I don’t particularly care about Ensure vs granola bars vs power bars vs chocolate bars. You just seemed a bit agog at the idea of people not eating granola bars for sustenance and I thought you might appreciate an opinion from the street as it were. I am curious, though, What did you do when people ate in your classes?
edit: kittenblue, I don’t usually drink during class. There are water fountains and whatnot that I avail myself of. However, last year I had to take a required First-Year course that was supposed to teach me how to write and think critically. It didn’t because I had the worst teacher I’ve ever had the misfortune to suffer under and I started bringing soda in order to stay awake. So, there’s some advice for professors. If you notice a lot of students sucking down the caffeine, check for boring?