You guide to liquid breakfasts after sleeve gastrectomy

No time for breakfast? Liquid breakfasts have long been a popular choice. But which is the best? And are they as nutritious as they claim?

While ideally, you would make breakfast from scratch, products like these can be really helpful if you’re not big on having a solid breakfast or you’re rushed for time and would otherwise eat nothing at all. If you’ve no idea what you could make yourself, check out this post I wrote a little while ago which is packed full of ideas.

To review these liquid breakfasts, I’ve looked at the 10 different brands you can buy in the supermarket. Where possible I’ve chosen the vanilla flavour to compare. I’ve also included a few from the fridge aisle as there are more and more yoghurt drinks coming on the market.  

So let’s take a look…

Nutrition Claims

Liquid breakfasts often come plastered with claims such as ‘high in fibre’, ‘reduced sugar’, ‘source of protein’ or ‘a nutritious way to start the day’. Do me a favour… Ignore them all! Instead of getting sucked in by the claims on the front of the pack, turn the pack over and look at the nutrition information panel on the back.

When I compared the liquid breakfasts, there was quite a variation nutrition, especially when you take serving size into account. The Special K Smoothie and Nutrigrain To Go, as well as the Chobani Oats were all sold in a 140g pouch which was a good serving size for a sleeve, especially early on in your journey (within the first couple of months). The others all had a serving size of ~250ml – the typical ‘popper’ size.

After a sleeve gastrectomy, protein, fibre and calcium should be your focus in a liquid breakfast. Protein and fibre will keep you fuller for longer which will mean less hunger and snacking between meals. Protein content in the liquid breakfasts I looked at varied between 3.3g to 8.6g protein per 100g. Fibre didn’t vary as much and all were quite low (despite the claims!) with between 0.9g and 1.6g per 100g. The other thing to note is that the type of fibre added to products like these, inulin, can quite commonly be a trigger for IBS symptoms so make sure you check the label if you know you are sensitive.

Calcium is really important for bone health, particularly after a sleeve. The amount of calcium in these liquid breakfasts varied a lot with some products having double the others!

It’s also important to look at the sugar content and try to choose one with minimal added sugar (this will bring the kilojoules or calories down too, although this doesn’t need to be your major focus). The amount of sugar also varied a lot between 4g and 11g per 100g, so again, it’s worth checking the label.

So which are the best?

You can download the excel spreadsheet with the full nutrition information but below are the products I compared and the winners in my eyes.

The products I looked at were:

• Up & Go Vanilla
• Up & Go Blends Banana & Cinnamon
• Up & Go Reduced Sugar Vanilla Ice
• Up & Go Protein Energize Vanilla
• Sustagen Ready to Drink Vanilla
• Nutrigrain To Go Vanilla
• Special K Smoothie Mango
• Chobani Oats Banana Maple
• Yopro Vanilla Yoghurt Drink
• Nutriboost Vanilla

And the winners are…

Up & Go Protein Energize

I looked at the four different types of Up & Go and the Protein Energize is definitely the right choice for after a sleeve. Although the Reduced Sugar option sounds like a good idea, it’s got nothing on the Protein Energize in terms of protein content.

A 250ml serve of Up & Go Protein Energize will give you 17.5g protein, the second highest of those I looked at. It’s also got one of the lower sugar contents (with 6g per 100g) and is average in terms of calcium (120mg per 100g or 300mg per serve). This was the best of the bunch that sit on the shelf, so if you want something super easy this should be your pick.

Nutriboost Vanilla

Whilst not technically a liquid breakfast, and found in the fridge rather than on the shelf, I really wanted to compare it to the more traditional liquid breakfasts to see how it fared.

I like this one because it was one of the highest in protein (7g per 100g or 17g per serve) and lowest in sugar (with 5g per 100g). It was average in calcium (with 118mg per 100g) and one serve would give you around one third of your daily calcium needs.

Yopro Vanilla Yoghurt Drink

I’m being a bit naughty by including this one as it’s technically a yoghurt, but there are increasingly burry lines between the yoghurts and liquid breakfasts.

Although slightly (just slightly) lower in calcium with 112mg per 100g, the Yopro Vanilla yoghurt drink had the highest protein content of all the products I looked at with 8.6g per 100g or 22.4g per serve.

This one also has one of the lowest sugar contents with 4g per 100g.

Just make sure you go for the smaller serve size (the 260g) rather than the 350g which is too big for a single meal post-sleeve.

How do I choose myself?

If you’re looking for yourself and wanting to compare the other flavours these are the values I’d look for:

• 250ml or less serve size
• At least 6g protein per 100g
• Less than 6g sugar per 100g
• More than 100mg calcium per 100g

I hope this helps! If you’d like to download the Excel spreadsheet with the nutrition for all the products I looked at, just click here. And if you’d like to download my Label Reading Wallet Card that you can use to help you in all areas of the supermarket, just pop in your email below and I’ll send it to you!