The Unabaker Studies Nutritional Supplementation
By George Mahaffey
Sitting in his chair one morning pondering the worsening predicament he was facing, The Unabaker determined to design a nutritional supplement that would rival the gold standard, Ensure. Made by Abbott Laboratories, it’s sold world wide in a variety of formulations using the same types of, if not the same specific ingredients. The ingredients in the formula he ultimately concocted correspond to the ones in Ensure Gold available in Thailand, differing only in the specific selections within types. The Unabaker is not a nutritionist, but he has been known for writing useful, delicious recipes which various persons and places encouraged via transfers of their fortunes to his. Despite the nutritional studies deficit in his bona fides, the amount of time spent studying the whys and wherefores of the Abbot Laboratories formula has made him reasonably confident that his own formulation holds water by comparison, and is superior in some respects. In any case, this is merely a report on The Unabaker’s project and study, and his bespoke formulation. I do not advise anyone else to follow his personal beta testing example, although, he is confident that you’d be fine if you did.1
As for safety, any specific contraindications or restrictions that apply for consuming Ensure Gold, likewise apply to The Unabaker’s formulation. Legal counsel to Abbott Laboratories has dutifully noted such caveats on its website. Ensure Gold is considered a “standard” dietary supplement formula that can also be used by persons using a stomach feeding tube when no specific dietary, health or digestive system problems rule that out. The ingredients found in Ensure are not exotic. They are common foodstuffs, vitamins, minerals. That being said, there are some ingredients in that formula that could possibly make it inappropriate for a particular individual’s use in the same way that Peanut Butter is safe to eat…unless you have specific allergies or medical conditions. The link below discusses this thoroughly, but for a normally healthy person, consuming either Ensure or The Unabaker’s formulation is safe. If you are unsure, don’t Ensure, or ingest his substitute. A full discussion of Ensure Gold, how it is used and why, plus how it works, and what sorts of restrictions apply for Diabetics, allergy sufferers, gluten sensitives, and others can be found here:
https://pillintrip.com/medicine/ensure-gold
More information about using Ensure or The Unabaker’s formulation for persons using a stomach feeding tube is available here:
https://oralcancerfoundation.org/nutrition/commercial-formulas-feeding-tube/
The full text of this study can also be found on The Unabaker Speaks blog at:
https://www.theunabakerspeaks.com/
Since many terms used in this report may be foreign to a reader, a glossary can be found at the end of each chapter for quick reference. Note that members of the glossary are underlined in the text.
The entire report will be published here in series, chapter by chapter as they are edited. There are nine chapters plus several appendixes with added miscellaneous notes on particular aspects of the study. Chapter 1 is somewhat longer than the rest.
Introduction
At some point in life you or someone you know may depend on something akin to Ensure either as supplement to other foods, or as a complete meal replacement regimen made necessary due to illness, or swallowing disability. Since The Unabaker requires such supplementation, and as a professional recipe writer, it seemed natural and sensible to explore making his own. The goal for this project consisted of analyzing the Ensure Gold ingredients list and nutritional profile, research what the ingredients are, what they do, and then:
Create a bespoke formulation using the same or equivalent ingredients, locally sourced, that provide a similar nutritional profile and energy value per serving. It should be significantly less expensive than Ensure, and be simple to make using basic kitchen utensils.
These notes record The Unabaker’s study and efforts to create a supplement akin to the Ensure Gold formula that is marketed in Thailand, the choice of ingredients used by Abbot Laboratories to formulate it, and regarding the nutritional and recipe cost rationale for why each specific ingredient is used.
The Ensure formula is not strict. It varies from market to market regionally. The ingredients list is comprised of foodstuffs, all of which are well-known to food manufacturers, sports nutritionists, and athletes, most of which can be interchanged with a similar type. In addition, the ingredients list includes multiple vitamins and minerals. There are no Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API). Different saccharides, different oils, and different proteins are used by Abbott Labs in different regional formulations that reflect local product, local tastes, cost effectiveness, regulatory requirements, or special dietary requirements (e.g. vegan or allergy related). If you want to avoid wading through the full report, and just find out the composition of the formulation The Unabaker developed, comparing it to Ensure, then study the images of the Ensure formula that follow in Chapter 1, Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4. Compare it to the one that The Unabaker designed, also in Table 1, and note The Unabaker’s formula development process from version v1 to v2 in Table 3, and again from v2 to v3 in Table 4.
To understand what are the differences between Ensure Gold and The Unabaker’s formula, and to understand what rationale attended for changing some of the ingredients from the specifics of the Abbott Labs formula, and also the changes made to some of the ratios of ingredients used, then reading the notes in Chapter 1 that follow the Tables is recommended and interesting. Reading subsequent chapters is more illuminating. As those chapters are finalized, they’ll become available in installments if interested, and as they are posted to The Unabaker Speaks blog. I think reading about sugars and proteins is interesting. Each is dealt with in dedicated chapters. Included in subsequent chapters and appendixes are many useful links to studies and websites that get into details, doing so more succinctly and authoritatively than could The Unabaker. You will note in later chapters some informative commentary in bullet point style, but most of the verbiage consists of excerpts quoted from these other authoritative sources.
A comparative analysis of the Ensure Gold and The Unabaker’s formula, i.e. the nutritional profiles, and importantly, the costs to produce each formula will be part of these notes, but a close examination of the Tables gives a fairly good overview. The explanation of the Ensure ingredient list, item by item, and the nutritional or cost related rationale for each might prove to be interesting, and these same considerations apply to the ingredients shared by The Unabaker’s formulation. Chapters 3 and 4 deal with this. When writing a recipe it’s usually done with the total recipe cost in mind. Illustrations showing the recipe cost calculations for The Unabaker’s Bespoke Formula v3, and a short discussion of how it compares to Ensure Gold follow in Tables 5 and 6.
The precise nutritional profile for both Ensure Gold and The Unabaker v1 formulation, his first stab at it, are illustrated in Table 1. Of particular interest to Unabaker was the role of proteins, how they function in the body, and of sugars, specifically Glucose, the singular nutrient without which all of life cannot persist. Does it intrigue you to know that plants are directly or indirectly the source of energy for all other life, or make you wonder how they do that? This little report documents The Unabaker’s study, and how it became increasingly more detailed, interesting, and educational. Perhaps you will find it to be as well. I will begin The Unabaker’s story at the end.
To avoid bogging down a reader with too much detail Chapter 1 summarizes sixty pages of notes. Therefore, Chapter 1 is a few pages than the others. The follow up chapters treat specific parts in more depth, but do so more concisely. If you manage to read through Chapter 1, then forging ahead to the other chapters isn’t painful, and might be mildly entertaining. The choice is left for the reader to make.
Chapter 1
The End Point First
Some questions immediately occurred to Unabaker; many others along the way.
- What must a nutritional supplement/full meal replacement formula accomplish for the user?
- What is the rationale for the ingredient choices used by Abbott Labs?
- What is the nutritional nature of each ingredient, i.e. carbohydrate, fat, protein, mineral, or vitamin?
- What does each ingredient do in the formula? What’s its function?
- How do we calculate the caloric (energy) values of each ingredient used?
- How are these nutrients used by the body?
- What are the uptake pathways to the bloodstream?
- How do nutrients get past the blood brain barrier?
- What is the blood brain barrier?
- What is metabolism?
- What is the metabolic process?
- What is the function of different proteins in that process?
The Unabaker was sure he could re-formulate what Abbott Laboratories designed, but to understand the rationale for the Ensure formula in terms of why they chose the ingredients they chose meant that he needed to learn about each ingredient. What is this? What are its properties? Are there comparable alternatives that add to the formula what the chosen one adds, and if so, does it function the same way when added to the formula? The research began.
The Ensure Gold ingredients list had to be scrutinized. In general, he understood that the analysis of the Ensure ingredients list boils down to a few focus points. A meal supplement or replacement formula must provide all the basic nutrition the body normally gets from eating a wide variety of food. It must supply enough energy value measured in calories (I will use these terms interchangeably) to power the body, maintain metabolic processes, and must contain a spectrum of essential vitamins and minerals to insure proper bodily function and health. Hopefully, the formulation has a delightful, or at very least, acceptable organoleptic profile (looks not unappealing, and doesn’t taste bad). Of course, formulating the product affordably is always relevant. It should also be something the average human can do without perplexity, or expensive tools.
The Unabaker soon discovered that the Ensure formulation changes according to the market where it’s sold; likely as subject to different regulatory requirements in various countries. This makes definitive statements about the Ensure Gold ingredient composition, and the ratios of each ingredient to the whole formula not possible, and likely unnecessary. There’s no specific magic to many of them because alternate ingredient options can be found in different regional formulations. The ingredients list is generally some combination of starches, sugars, fat, proteins, vitamins and minerals. Specifically, sugars might include Corn Syrup, Corn Starch, Maltodextrin, Fructose, or Sucrose (or some of each). Fat content will be supplied by a neutral flavored oil that might be either Corn, Safflower, Soybean, or Canola oil. The protein source will most often be the two milk proteins, Casein and Whey. Casein is usually added in the form of Sodium Caseinate, sometimes Calcium Caseinate, Whey is in the form of Whey Protein Concentrate. Whey Protein Concentrate is different from Whey Protein Isolate. Concentrate sounds like its stronger, but it actually has a lower percentage of Whey Protein than does Whey Protein Isolate. Ensure uses the Concentrate, The Unabaker opted for Isolate. Research was required to learn how much protein is in Whey Concentrate, and how much in Whey Isolate. Just because a label says it’s Whey Protein doesn’t mean the powder inside is 100% protein. There’s almost always other elements in the powder, and different brands use different other elements to make up their version of the product.
Unabaker learned that this applies to all the other ingredients as well. He had to examine constituent parts of the ingredients to see what’s there. Scan the Nutritional Facts profile for the Ensure Gold formula and The Unabaker’s formula in Table 1, and you can see that several ingredients that are nominally carbohydrate or nominally protein have a breakdown into Fat content, Carb Content and Protein Content. Even vegetable oil has sub attributes, essential fatty acids that matter. Powder implies dry doesn’t it? Despite being in powder form there’s always yet a margin of water as well. And, how is veg oil into a powder form. The answer to that is quite interesting, and detailed in a later chapter. Obviously, liquid oil is not simply added to the mix. The takeaway is that a product package’s front label says it’s Product X, but then the ingredient list on the back says, there are traces of Y and Z mixed in; flavorings for example, sometimes binders. This was important because it seemed desirable to get the percentages correct; comparing as accurately as possible the nutritional profile of Ensure to The Unabaker’s formulation. Would it disqualify The Unabaker’s formulation if percentages of fats, carbs, and protein were a little different? No, but the point was to be as rigorous as possible, and dial in a formulation to mimic Ensure Gold. This meant studying what various sources claim that breakdown is, and then for The Unabaker to embed calculating formulae into his spreadsheet table to express this as numeric values. Bearing in mind that from day-to-day the amount of formula to mix up can change, being able to re-scale a formula to match circumstance is part of what makes The Unabaker’s Formula Writer unique. If there’s a need to re-scale the yield, the spreadsheet re-calculates weights of ingredients, caloric values, and the grams of fats, carbs and protein for each ingredient accordingly…once a new value for Total Formula Weight is entered.
In any event, The Unabaker understood that a nutritional supplement formula is not the same as making a vaccine. It’s an edible foodstuff made using basic ingredients. Getting the various nutritional profile percentages that apply to various ingredients spot on was not going to happen because different nutritional website resources did not agree about the ratios of the three primary nutrient categories for any of the ingredients. Different brands of the ingredient use different formulations to make their Whey Protein or their Maltodextrin for example. Sometimes website resources agree; another source reports it differently. Unabaker resolved the obscurity by simply using the value that was reported by at least two different resources, or by stipulating a value that seemed to be in the middle if there was zero agreement. Obviously this impacts the exactitude of the total nutritional profile for The Unabaker’s formula, but in such marginal fashion that it’s not critical.
Besides Whey Protein Concentrate and Sodium Caseinate, the Ensure ingredients label might also list only Soy Protein Isolate if it’s a specific concoction intended for those who either demur, or cannot consume dairy. On the other hand, some regional iterations of Ensure Gold used Casein, Whey and Soy Protein in combo. Such is the case in Thailand. There will also feature a list of vitamins and minerals content that The Unabaker didn’t bother to verify if it’s the same from the various region to region formulations. He assumed it was so, because humans require the same vits & mins. In any case, the total amount of vitamins/minerals is a very small fraction of the total formula.
The front labels of current formulations for Ensure prominently tout the inclusion of HMB 2 in the form of CaHMB since it has been shown (in similar fashion to Casein) to have beneficial muscle building/repair effects during times of fasting, aka sleeping.
Without going into more detail at this point, about his Ensure studies, what emerged wasn’t a big surprise. One glance at any Ensure formulation’s Nutrition Facts label makes the basics pretty clear. There’s a separate discussion in a later chapter regarding how to read and understand the Nutrition Facts label, but those labels always boil down to a report on calories, fats, carbs, proteins, and a few auxiliary things that some humans have to take care to moderate; fiber, cholesterol, Sodium and Potassium.
The bullet-pointed questions above required answers. The primary roles that Glucose, protein, and fat play seemed central. All carbohydrates breakdown to Glucose, protein is fundamental to the metabolic process, lean body mass development and maintenance. Fat, besides its obvious energy value, also supports cell growth, helps to absorb fat soluble vitamins, protects organs, is involved in hormone production and maintaining proper cholesterol levels. The Unabaker' research began by studying the basics; proteins, carbs, fats, and then, along the byways to HMB.
Studying about proteins was interesting, and led to other studies about types of proteins, and what they do. What difference does this protein or that one make? How are they made bioavailable? What is “bioavailability”? Which proteins are used in a powdered nutritional supplement mix, and why? How much of each? Why are proteins the fundaments of the metabolic process? And more…
The role played by fats was much more clear cut. Fats are the most calorically dense of the three main categories 3, thus they can help to build the total energy value of a formula. Fat also enhances the “mouthfeel” of the drink. What is not so clear cut is information regarding EFAs, essential fatty acids. Besides the energy value contributed, gaining an understanding of EFAs, how they vary in different oils, whether plant or marine sourced versions, has been a heavily focused aspect of nutritional studies. There are two primary types, Alpha-Linolenic Acid, aka Omega-3, and Linolenic Acid, aka Omega-6. The ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 matters. The Unabaker settle upon Canola oil because it has a favorable ratio, and a neutral flavor.
Unabaker actually spent more time pondering EFAs than necessary (for the purpose of writing a formula), and looking for a source that told him what is the EFA Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio in the Ensure Gold Thailand formulation. He considered it relevant to his own being developed. Ultimately, he arrived at the conclusion; there is widespread disagreement about these, not about if they are actually essential, but regarding how much the body needs (studies indicate, it depends), what is a deficiency & how to spot symptoms of such (unknown), and if using an EFA supplement (usually in form of some fish oil) has only benefits, no deficits (it might not). There are studies that indicate benefits, there are others that implicate deficit effects upon LDL Cholesterol (for one type of EFA).
Nutritional Studies, and the resources that discuss it seems not just complex, but unresolved, yet often carry advisories. For every touted proclamation there are doubts, and contra studies that support the doubt. This report will discuss The Unabaker’s meditations on Essential Fatty Acids later on, but ultimately what was most relevant was this: there was no resource that could specify what EFA ingredients (and their ratios one to the other) prevail in the oils used in Ensure Gold formulation in Thailand. However, digging further, Unabaker unearthed that Abbott Labs lists such data among the Nutritional Facts for Ensure Gold sold in other regional formulations. The Unabaker is an experienced extrapolator. Since all the different regional formulations use similar fats to the Thai iteration, an assumption was made. The data must generally apply to Ensure Gold Thailand, and since The Unabaker’s formulation uses one of those very same oils, it likely applies to his own formula. The feeling began to emerge that EFA content in the formula is probably not critical. If you are very concerned, Unabaker advises you to buy a fish oil supplement. He was however, unmoved to do it himself. When all sources come to some agreement about their vital necessity, and as for how much, and of which ones you need to not die, then he will be all ears I’m sure. Meanwhile…
The study of carbohydrates, on the other hand, was educational. Of course, The Unabaker understood that all carbs come from plants alone, whereas proteins and fats are derived from both animals and plants. About carbohydrates beyond that basic, his understanding ground to a halt. How vital to life forms are carbohydrates? What if you don’t ingest them? All carbs breakdown to Glucose, and that particular substance is the absolutely fundamental thing that all life forms (including plants) require to remain ontologically relevant. So, if plants are the singular source for all life forms, then how do Plants get their Glucose? Plants have leaves, they create Glucose through Photosynthesis; sunlight, Carbon Dioxide, and H2O produce Glucose, and Oxygen. Sapiens have no leaves, but they do have livers. The body can produce the Glucose it needs via Glucogenesis, and livers are useful for that process. That’s why carb free diets, or periods of fasting aren’t certainly deadly.
The Unabaker’s prior studies about Electrolytes and Energy Drinks (see The Unabiker channel on YouTube) gave him a basic understanding of Sports Nutrition regarding the different uptake pathways taken by different sugars to get into the bloodstream. Glucose itself has many different uptake pathways. In a later chapter this will be discussed more, including a chart that shows the variety of ways, but no matter the pathway, Glucose is a direct hit to the blood sugar level. Glucose is also brain food; the primary fuel for the brain. About 60% of what is ingested eventually goes through the blood-brain barrier. Glucose is fast acting. Since it’s a monosaccharide it doesn’t require digestion. What the body can process goes right into the bloodstream, while excess gets stored in the liver for later use. Since the Ensure Gold formula uses various sugars (carbohydrates), and since you must eat the stuff, taste matters. Therefore, studying the various sweetness levels of the possible sugars that The Unabaker might use became necessary. This led to unearthing the concept of the Dextrose Equivalent value. Although it does not directly correlate to the sweetness of each sugar type, it is useful data. DE is an interesting data point for which food manufacturers refer when they produce the various sugars used to make food products. Some interesting notes about this appear in a subsequent chapter.
Let’s now give attention to the main features of this report. Examine the images below in Tables 1 and 2. On the left side in Table 1 is the actual Ensure Gold formula sold in Thailand side by side with The Unabaker’s Bespoke Formula, labeled v1 on the right. V1 is the first iteration in the formula development process that The Unabaker designed. You can see the ingredients list for both, the ingredient percentages of the total formula, as well as, the derived gram weights for each ingredient 4. A Nutritional Facts profile for each formula is shown in Table 1 as well. Note the likeness between Ensure and The Unabaker’s formation in these regards. It’s virtually identical.
Besides its component ingredients, such a formula has to achieve a suitable overall caloric (energy) value, and nutritional profile. The Unabaker used his formula writing tool to make sure that the formulation is very similar to Ensure. Abbott Labs had done the science to back up the formulation they market. Unabaker simply used the established data to extrapolate the bespoke formulation.
In addition to the Nutrition Facts label on the back of the product package, there is an Ingredients List side label. The ingredients list label is normally only required by regulatory agencies to list in descending order of prominence the ingredients that they represent as a percentage of the whole, while specifying either the precise percentages, or gram weights for each is not. Companies are naturally reluctant to print the recipe for their product on the can, but luckily for The Unabaker, the Thai government disregards that hesitancy, requiring not just an ingredients list,
but the actual ingredient percentages used as well, i.e. how much of the Total Formula Weight each ingredient represents. What is not given on the Thai label are the precise gram weights of each ingredient to produce the formula. However, by using The Unabaker’s Formula Writing spreadsheet gram weight values of each of the Ensure ingredients were derived 5.
For example, in Table 1 the Total Base Formula Weight (the color filled cell in the upper left of the spreadsheet) for a single portion of Ensure Gold is 60.6 grams. The Ensure label gives the percentages for each. The Unabaker’s Formula Writer spreadsheet uses those percentages to derive the gram weight calculations. The results are displayed in the left side of Table 1 below. On the right side of Table 1 find The Unabaker’s Bespoke Formulation v1. Compare the one to the other to note the changes made to the Ensure ingredients list, and to the Cook’s Percentages. Also note the images of the Ensure Gold Nutrition Facts, and the Ingredients List labels in Table 2. You can see the ingredients list, the gram weights, and the ingredient percentages (Unabaker calls these Cook’s Percentages) in the columns of the left side of the Table 1 image for Ensure Gold. Listed are the ingredients and their percentages in the exact same descending order from greatest to least as shown on the Ensure Gold ingredients list label (see the image on the right in Table 2).
Table 1
Note that The Unabaker’s v1 formulation is almost exactly the same as Ensure Gold with respect to its caloric density per serving, and precisely the same in terms of the overall nutritional profile. Grams of fat, carbs and protein are the same for each.
Table 2
The Google Translator app’s camera feature was used to translate the Thai language in the Ingredients label. That’s why the image looks odd. The Nutrition Facts label was already in English
Table 3
Table 3 illustrates The Unabaker’s formula development process from iteration v1 to iteration v2. Ingredient percentages were adjusted to make the formula less sweet, while retaining the identical nutritional profile.
Table 4
Table 5
Table 5 illustrates the ingredient cost calculations for The Unabaker’s Bespoke Formula v3. Dividing the unit pack size of each ingredient by its price per pack equals the cost per gram in Thai Baht.
Table 6
Table 6 ilustrates the cost of producing the recipe for The Unabaker’s Bespoke Formula v3. After calculating individual ingredient costs, the recipe cost can be calculated. The cost per gram of each ingredient multiplied by number of grams used in the v3 formula for each ingredient equals the extended cost of each ingredient in the formula. The sum of all ingredient extended costs equals the recipe cost,
Compare The Unabaker's v3 formulation to Ensure Gold
149 THB converts to about $4.75 (forex as of December 22, 2025). The v3 formulation’s recipe cost is for a batch size of 320 grams, enough for a day’s full meal replacement. By comparison the cost of a 400 gram can of Ensure Gold in Thailand is about four hundred and twenty-five Thai Baht, about $13.50. One day’s full meal replacement requires the entire can. The reason this holds true is because The Unabaker uses milk to mix the formula, whereas the Ensure Gold mixing instructions calls for water alone. Milk has nutritional value, water has naught.
Ensure Gold costs almost three times that of The Unabaker’s Bespoke Formula v3. Bear in mind also that The Unabaker v3 formulation has greater caloric and nutritional density than the Ensure formulation. If you consumed the same amount of Ensure to provide the same caloric and nutritional value as for v3, then Ensure is likely four times more expensive.
In all other respects the two formulae are functionally the same, i.e. they supply the necessary calories and nutrients to not die, but The Unabaker’s v3 formula is nutritionally more enriched. This level of enrichment may not be required for other users. The Unabaker designed it to be his own bespoke formulation for a specific nutritional rationale: weight gain. Organoleptically, The Unabaker v3 formulation is superior. It looks better in the cup, and tastes better. It has a better “mouthfeel”, and it costs less. The Unabaker’s formula also requires 17 fewer grams of the base powder per serving.
If your interest ends at seeing what hath The Unabaker wrought, or you want to try making the stuff yourself, or to pass it on to someone who might need such a thing, then you can skip the entire lengthy rest of this report, and get back to whatever it is you get back to. If you have been intrigued a bit by this little project, then read on to understand what's needed to write the formulae you see in Tables 1, 3 and 4.
Summary
Ensure Gold isn’t full of critical pharmaceutical stuff. It’s sugar, protein, vegetable oil, fiber, vitamins and minerals. It incorporates specific types of sugars and proteins, but these differ from region to region. What it does add that’s of added benefit for users is the CaHMB ingredient.
Some of the ingredients used in the Ensure Gold formulation are inventory items more common to industrial food processing plants than for the typical home pantry, but by substituting easily procured alternate/equivalent versions a bespoke formulation can be designed. After two stages of formula development and testing The Unabaker came up with the v3 formulation that is superior to Ensure Gold in taste, caloric density, and nutritional profiles for fats, carbs and proteins. It is a bespoke formulation designed to accomplish weight gain as well as meal replacement. By altering some of the ingredient weights it can be reformulated for another bespoke design goal.
Substituting ingredients isn’t a gram per gram done deal. The ingredient proportions (Cook’s Percentages) were modified where necessary. For example Corn Syrup Solids is used at a 49% ratio in Ensure Gold, but cannot simply be replaced by the more widely available Dextrose Monohydrate at that same level of prominence. These two functionally similar forms of Glucose have very different DE values, and levels of sweetness. Dextrose, is about twice the DE value as Corn Syrup Solids. It’s not far off the sweetness of Sucrose. If used at a 49% ratio, it would make for quite a sweet concoction. This was in fact the issue with The Unabaker’s v1 iteration. He had not considered the relative sweetness of CSS vs Dextrose. Despite such workarounds required, by using the unique formula writing spreadsheet tool developed by The Unabaker, the overall Nutritional Facts profile for The Unabaker’s Bespoke Formula was designed in its first, and second iterations to be exactly that of Ensure Gold. That duplication is not critical. Unabaker did it purely as demonstration of the formula designing power of the spreadsheet tool.
The Unabaker Bespoke Powder Formula v3 ingredients list might also include several that may not be in your pantry unless you are an athlete, and concoct your own energy drinks and gels. Those less common ingredients can be readily sourced at a pharmacy or supplements shop, possibly even in better grocery marts with an isle of nutritional supplements, or most certainly online. The remaining ingredients are vitamins and minerals, available as a multivitamin from most supermarkets or pharmacies. If all the necessary inventory is bought in reasonable bulk quantities, a formula can be devised to cost a fraction of Ensure. Measuring and mixing the stuff together is barely more complex than making Kool Aid. Using Ensure Gold as a meal replacement is a relatively expensive proposition by comparison to The Unabaker’s Bespoke Formulation. If interested to know more about The Unabaker’s study project, continue to read below.
Foot notes
1 The only absolute contraindication for consuming Ensure is for Galactosemia sufferers (a rare genetic disorder usually discovered in early infancy) due to the high concentration of dairy protein in most ensure formulations. Galactosemia means you cannot process the sugar Galactose which is present in milk and dairy products, and therefore, in most iterations of Ensure (and in The Unabaker's formulation). Consuming milk can be life threatening for infants and children suffering from Galactosemia. The same restriction therefore applies to The Unabaker’s Bespoke Formula.
2 For a more detailed look at HMB, a separate paper can be found on The Unabaker Speaks website. If you do not know about HMB, and you are a very active athlete, or you are over 40, then I recommend you to read the short report, and though I cannot advise what you ought to do, I can say, if you read the report, you can decide for yourself. In any case, HMB appears as an ingredient in Ensure world wide, and so too The Unabaker’s Bespoke Formula. Millions of Ensure users are consuming it (along with the lone user of The Unabaker’s iteration), and millions more do so for reasons associated with their athletic endeavors, or because they have read about it, and decided for themselves.
3 Understanding how calories are totaled up for a recipe is not difficult. Per gram weight, any type of fat counts as 9 kilocalories; any type of protein or carbohydrate as 4 kcal per gram.
4 Note that the non-color filled, or grey shaded cells (white cells) are for data input in the spreadsheet. Color and grey filled cells contain embedded formulae that do calculations, then report the results within those cells. A detailed look at how The Unabaker’s Formula Writing spreadsheet works can be read about on the blog at www.theunabakerspeaks.com, or on the YouTube channel of the same name. The terms “ratio” and “percentage” are used interchangeably. The spreadsheet is the recipe writing and formula development tool developed by The Unabaker, and used throughout his glorious career (to which acolytes yet burn candles and incense). If you desire to have it and use it, no problem. He can send, and advise. A more detailed discussion of how to write a recipe, and the process of recipe development from the initial idea to an acceptable final iteration is provided in a later chapter.
5 Gram weights for each ingredient can be derived if values for the ingredient percentages, and for yield (Total Formula Weight) are stipulated. The Unabaker’s Formula Writer does so by comparing each of the ingredient percentages of the Total Formula Weight to the Total Formula Weight
total formula weight x an ingredient’s percentage of the total formula weight = the ingredient gram weight
For example, if the Total Formula Weight is 1000 grams, and an ingredient ratio is 3%, then the ingredient weight is 1000 x .03 = 30 grams. It works the other way too. If the weight of an ingredient is known, and the ingredient percentage is not, the spreadsheet can derive the ingredient ratios by dividing the ingredient weight by the Total Formula Weight.
the ingredient gram weight ÷ total formula weight = the ingredient’s percentage of the total formula weight
For instance, if an ingredient weight is 45 grams, and the Total Formula Weight is 1000 grams, then the ingredient ratio is 45 ÷ 1000 = .045, or 4.5%. This is valuable because we encounter recipes written using volumes instead of weights. In this case, one must do tedious and error prone volume to weight conversions for every ingredient. A lamentation explaining this tedious task at greater length can be read on www.theunabakerspeaks.com
Glossary
Organoleptic - Aspects of food, water or other substances that create an individual experience via the senses—including taste, sight, smell, and touch.
Uptake Pathways - Refers to the process by which cells internalize substances from their environment. These pathways allow cells to absorb nutrients, hormones, and other molecules necessary for their function.
Blood BrainBbarrier - Is a highly selective semipermeable border of endothelial cells that regulates the transfer of solutes and chemicals between the circulatory system and the central nervous system, thus protecting the brain from harmful or unwanted substances in the blood. This barrier allows the passage of some small molecules by passive diffusion, as well as the selective and active transport of various nutrients such as Glucose and amino acids that are crucial to neural function.
Metabolic Process - The metabolic processes are the chemical reactions that occur in the body to convert food into energy, and to build or repair tissues. These processes are two sides of the same coin. Catabolism, which breaks down nutrients to release energy, and anabolism, which uses that energy to create larger molecules necessary for growth and repair, in other words to build up.
Caseinate - is a product made from Casein, one of the two proteins found in milk, mostly resulting from large-scale commercial processes. Cheesemaking illustrates this; the separation of curds (Casein) from Whey, the other milk protein. Caseinate is created by dissolving Casein in an alkaline solution that’s made with something like calcium or sodium. For example, Sodium Caseinate is made by neutralizing acid Casein with NaOH. Caseinate is a lot more water-soluble than Casein. It has fantastic foaming, emulsifying, and gelling properties. This means that Caseinates have a lot more uses in the food processing industry than does Casein.
HMB - Beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate is a substance your body produces naturally when it breaks down Leucine, a branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) essential for protein synthesis and muscle repair. The body only produces HMB in small amounts. Many people take it as a dietary supplement to increase their HMB levels. It is particularly useful for athletes and the elderly.
CaHMB - is a form of HMB used most frequently in dietary supplements. Studies indicate positive effects upon muscle recovery (aka the anabolic side of the metabolic coin). It has been shown to have positive effects for elderly persons. More about HMB and CaHMB can be read on The Unabaker Speaks blog website.
Lean Body Mass - LBM is the total weight of your body minus fat mass, including muscles, bones, organs, and body water. It is an important measure for assessing health and metabolism, as it typically comprises 60-90% of total body weight. Exercise tends to be a catalyst for the Catabolic aspect of metabolism; the breakdown of muscle tissue post exercise, and also during times of fasting when enough protein is not being supplied to the muscles. Various dietary supplements such as CaHMB are used by athletes post-exercise to help build up, i.e. the recovery, of LBM. LBM also has implications for the aging process, and the loss of LBM is considered a serious problem for elderly persons.
Bioavailability - Refers to the percentage of a substance, such as a drug or nutrient, that enters the bloodstream, and is available for use by the body after administration. It is influenced by factors like the method of administration, the substance’s chemical properties, and individual variations in metabolism. Different proteins have different degrees of bioavailability. Whey is an almost immediately impactful protein, and therefore used by athletes post exercise.
Essential Fatty Acids - essential fatty acids (EFAs) are types of polyunsaturated fats that the body cannot synthesize on its own. Therefore, they must be obtained through diet. The two primary essential fatty acids for humans are alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), aka Omega-3, and Linolenic Acid (LA), aka Omega-6. Studies indicate that the ratio of the one to the other is important. Good sources of Omega-3, and a good ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 include Canola Oil which is why it is in The Unabaker’s Bespoke Formula.
Glucogenesis - Gluconeogenesis is the human metabolic process that generates glucose from non-carbohydrate sources. This pathway is crucial for maintaining blood sugar levels, especially during fasting, or low-carbohydrate diets. It primarily occurs in the liver. In other words, the body can manufacture Glucose even if no carbohydrates have been ingested.
Monosaccharide - Any of several carbohydrates, that cannot be broken down to simpler sugars by hydrolysis. The simplest forms of sugar. Such is Glucose and Fructose. They are the most basic units of carbohydrates, often called simple sugars. These fundamental molecules serve as foundational components for all more complex carbohydrates. They play a crucial role in biological systems, helping organisms generate energy, and build diverse structures. The most biologically important ones are Glucose, produced by plants during photosynthesis, Fructose, the sweetest form of natural sugar, found in fruits, and Galactose, found in dairy products.
Dextrose Equivalent - Dextrose equivalent (DE) is a measure of the amount of reducing sugars in a carbohydrate product, expressed as a percentage on a dry basis relative to dextrose. It indicates the degree of conversion of starch to dextrose, affecting properties like sweetness, viscosity, and shelf stability.
A Preview Of Chapter 2
How To Analyze The Ensure Gold Formula
The first thing one needs to do when analyzing any recipe is to understand the ingredients, and what is the rationale for each, i.e. what is its function in the formula. What does that ingredient do? Thus, for a general understanding of baking it’s necessary to understand stuff like the nutritional value of each, and how typical bakeshop ingredients function individually, and in combination. For example, fats add creaminess, mouthfeel, richness, moisture, and aids the browning effect (aka Maillard Reaction). Some ingredients are flavor builders. Eggs are a good example. Besides the obvious role in flavor development, eggs add color, texture, moisture, and nutrition, but they also have a crucial structure building role. If whipped to a foam and folded in, it adds volume to the geometric configuration of the baked item, and when it bakes, the structure gels, holding that volume and shape. Eggs build structure even if simply stirred in to a recipe mix. In addition to egg, flour is the other major structural component….I will spare the reader, sending subsequent chapters in separate posts later.
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