Ensure is a weight gain brand, which is also incidentally marketed as a meal replacement for everyone and their dog because why not - of course marketing will never tell anyone, "don't eat this, it's not for you". That's why it's an old people brand, it's for people who can't eat enough solid food to maintain their weight. Just compare the nutritional labels:

Soylent (400 kcal) 21g fat 37g carbs (9g simple sugars, 3g fibers) 20g protein

Ensure (400 kcal) 11g fat 60g carb (?g simple sugars, doesn't say, NO FIBERS) 16g protein

I looked at every single brand of meal replacement shakes I could get my hands on around here at drugstores, I was looking for a cheaper alternative to Soylent and figured one of them would do. You would think someone would be making a meal replacement that's not sugar water garbage already. NOPE. Plus, most of them serve a different goal, either weight gain or weight loss, not just meal replacement.

EDIT: arguably Soylent is sugar water garbage too, it's first ingredients are water and maltodextrin (a sugar), but it's not as bad as the others I've looked at.

Nutrition facts for those interested in comparing:

Soylent - http://files.soylent.com/pdf/soylent-drink-nutrition-facts-e...

Ensure - http://c4.q-assets.com/images/products/p/ab/ab-116_3z.jpg

Ample - https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1096/7494/products/Ample_4...

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1096/7494/products/Ample_I...

Edit: added Ample info.

Ensure, like Slimfast, has much more sugar than Soylent.

Per 2000 calories, Ensure has 135g sugar to Soylent's 45g.

https://ensure.com/nutrition-products/ensure-original#vanill...

http://files.soylent.com/pdf/soylent-drink-nutrition-facts-e...