Ensure and Boost are nutritional supplements formulated to help individuals meet their dietary needs when consuming enough solid foods is challenging. This is often the case for children, older adults, or individuals at risk of malnutrition, such as those with cancer or eating or digestive disorders. Both Ensure and Boost provide a diverse range of products in multiple forms and flavors, including snack bars, puddings, powders, and ready-to-drink shakes. This article provides a detailed comparison of the nutritional differences and similarities between Ensure and Boost shakes to help you determine which one is better.
Understanding Ensure
Abbott Nutrition launched Ensure, its first ready-to-drink shake, in 1973, which later became the name of its nutritional supplement line. Ensure now offers over 10 different gluten-free shakes. Most are certified kosher, halal, or both, meaning they adhere to Jewish and Islamic dietary practices.
Ensure shakes can be divided into the following categories:
- Complete, balanced nutrition: Designed to help maintain or gain weight, this category includes Ensure Original and Ensure Plus.
- Advanced nutrition: Ensure Enlive is designed to support muscle, bone, heart, immune, and digestive health in one shake.
- Targeted nutrition: This category includes Ensure Light, a low-calorie shake, and products designed to help build muscle, such as Ensure Max Protein, Ensure High Protein, and Ensure Plant-Based Protein.
- Specialty therapeutic nutrition: This category includes Ensure Surgery, Ensure Pre-Surgery, and Ensure Compact, designed to support health before and after surgery.
Understanding Boost
Boost is Nestlé’s nutritional supplement brand created to help people meet their nutritional needs after age 50. Boost now has a wide product range, including 12 drinks to meet various needs. Their ready-to-drink shakes can be categorized as follows:
- Diabetes: Boost Glucose Control and Boost Glucose Control High Protein help avoid blood sugar spikes.
- High calorie: Boost Plus packs the most calories per serving and is part of the brand's oncology nutrition division for people with cancer.
- High protein: Boost High Protein and Boost Max Nutritional Shake are designed to help increase or maintain muscle mass.
- Specialized Nutrition: Boost Original, Boost Mobility, Boost Men, and Boost Women offer targeted nutrition to meet the specific needs of men, women, and people age 50 and older.
Nutritional Comparison
Some of Ensure's and Boost's shakes are designed to help you achieve the same goal. The following table compares the nutritional values of these products for an 8-ounce (236-mL) serving:
Read also: A Guide to Ensure Drinks
Nutritional Values (per 8-ounce serving)
| Nutrient | Ensure Original | Boost Original | Ensure Plus | Boost Plus | Ensure Max Protein | Boost Max Nutritional Shake |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 220 | 240 | 350 | 360 | 150 | 160 |
| Protein (g) | 9 | 10 | 13 | 14 | 30 | 30 |
| Fat (g) | 6 | 7 | 11 | 14 | 1.5 | 1.5 |
| Carbs (g) | 30 | 38 | 50 | 44 | 4 | 5 |
| Fiber (g) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| Sugar (g) | 12 | 20 | 16 | 21 | 1 | 1 |
As you can see, most products that serve the same purpose are nutritionally similar and can likely be used interchangeably. For example, both Original shakes provide virtually the same amount of protein, fiber, and fat, with the main difference being Boost's additional 8 grams of carbs. The same goes for both Plus shakes, where the major difference is the extra 6 grams of carbs in Ensure's version. As for both brand's high protein products, Ensure Max Protein and Boost Max provide virtually the same amount of nutrients. However, Boost's High Protein shake packs a significantly higher number of calories and more carbs and sugar than the Ensure counterpart.
Both brands cover over 20 vitamins and minerals per shake. Most also provide over 20% of the Recommended Daily Intake (RDI), considered a high percentage. Still, in some cases, you may find differences in micronutrient quantities of up to 60%. Micronutrients, often referred to as vitamins and minerals, play a crucial role in maintaining good health, performing various roles in the body, including hormone production and assuring adequate growth and development. Micronutrient deficiencies can cause your health to significantly deteriorate, as well as even disease. People with malnutrition are at a higher risk of lacking both macro- and micronutrients.
Both brands offer an additional set of shakes that target very particular but completely different needs. As such, they have quite specific nutritional compositions. These include Ensure’s Surgery, Pre-Surgery, and Compact shakes, as well as Boost’s Glucose Control, Mobility, Men, and Women shakes.
Choosing the Right Shake for Your Needs
Both brands design their shakes to help you reach your nutritional needs. However, some shakes may be better than others when you have a specific goal in mind.
Best Shake for Protein
Protein is one of the three macronutrients, along with fats and carbs. They provide your body with energy and possess specific functions. For instance, proteins are the building blocks of the body, and as such, they help build muscle. Its RDI is 0.36 grams per pound (0.8 grams per kg) of body weight. Nevertheless, research suggests that higher protein intakes of up to 1 gram per pound (2.4 grams per kg) of body weight may help you gain muscle, lose weight, or even achieve both when combined with resistance training.
Read also: Can Ensure Help You Lose Weight?
Both Ensure and Boost shakes may help you increase your daily protein intake. Adding their products to your diet may provide you an additional 9-30 grams of protein, depending on which shake you choose. If you’re looking to significantly increase your protein intake without increasing your carb and fat intakes, either Ensure Max Protein or Boost Max may be your best choice.
Best Shake for Weight Gain
If you’re looking to gain weight, you need to create a daily calorie surplus, which is achieved by consuming more calories than your body burns. To do so healthily, you should increase your overall macronutrient intake - carbs, proteins, and fats. While binging on refined carbs and sugary foods will also lead to weight gain, doing so will be detrimental to your health in the long run. The number of extra calories you need to gain weight depends on your age, sex, height, current weight, and physical activity levels.
For a healthy weight gain of 1-2 pounds (0.5-1 kg) per week, consume an additional 500 calories per day. Still, most of Ensure and Boost shakes may help you reach your increased calorie and nutrient needs, with both brands’ Plus options and Ensure’s Enlive shake being the most nutrient-dense choices. Note that you’ll be able to achieve a calorie surplus more easily if you consume them with your meals or as a snack instead of drinking them as a meal replacement.
Best Shake for Diabetes
Diabetes is characterized by constantly high blood sugar levels, and it affects 1 in every 4 people over 65 years old in the United States. Boost offers two ready-to-drink shakes explicitly designed to produce a lower blood sugar response in people with diabetes - Boost Glucose Control and Boost Glucose Control High Protein. The first packs 16 grams of carbs, of which 4 grams are from added sugars, while the second provides just 4 grams of carbs with no added sugars - and a higher protein content. As for Ensure, the brand doesn’t have shakes specifically designed for people with diabetes. However, Abbott Nutrition has an additional product line called Glucerna for those who need to manage their blood sugar levels.
Best Shake for Older Adults
Older adults are at risk of malnutrition, which might be caused or worsened by poor appetite, chewing problems, dry mouth, and a decline in sense of smell, among other things. Therefore, a common strategy to improve their nutritional status is to provide them with small, tasty, nutrient- and protein-rich meals. As nutritional supplements specially designed for adults, both Ensure and Boost may help cover older adults’ increased nutritional needs. Deciding which shake is best depends on a person’s particular needs. If the intention is to obtain as many calories and nutrients as possible, Ensure Enlive and Boost Plus may be the best options.
Read also: Risks of Ensure Diets
Best Shake for Children
Both Ensure and Boost products are intended and designed for adults. In fact, Abbott Nutrition has other product lines intended for infants, kids, and teens - including EleCare, Similac, and Pediasure. The same goes for Nestlé, which has the following brands intended for children: Alfamino, Althéra, Alfaré, Garden of Life, Modulen, Peptamen, and Vitaflo. Therefore, it’s best to look for an alternative among those brands to find a product that fits your child’s needs.
Potential Side Effects and Precautions
Ensure and Boost shakes may cause side effects, such as constipation, nausea, and flatulence. However, user reports indicate that most of them go away when consumed consistently. Other reported side effects include muscle cramps, irregular heartbeat, and shortness of breath. When it comes to the use of common blood-thinning drugs like Warfarin among older adults, it would be best to avoid either brands’ products, as most of them pack over 20% of the RDI for vitamin K. High doses of vitamin K may cause drug-food interactions that decrease Warfarin’s ability to prevent the formation of blood clots. Lastly, most of Ensure’s and Boost’s products are a good choice for people with lactose intolerance. However, they’re not safe for those with galactosemia, a genetic disorder characterized by the inability to convert galactose into glucose. Both brands’ products are also safe for pregnant and breastfeeding women.
The Role of Nutritional Drinks in a Balanced Diet
Supplemental nutrition shakes and drinks can be helpful for people who struggle with a loss of appetite, have difficulty chewing, have trouble preparing balanced meals, or are recovering from surgery or an illness. But these nutrition shakes aren't magic bullets for nutrition. The danger is that people see a lot of minerals and vitamins and think more is better. If you use the drinks as meal substitutes that might be okay. It's not okay to eat a full meal and then drink a supplement, unless the goal is to gain weight or stop weight loss.
Supplemental nutrition drinks provide a healthy balance of protein, carbohydrate, and fat. Shakes, such as Boost or Ensure, are intended for oral consumption and are formulated to help you meet general nutrition goals such as increased calories and protein. Some nutrition shakes are designed to be compatible with health conditions such as diabetes (Glucerna). Formulas are designed for more specific disease states such as cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and later-stage kidney disease. These drinks can be consumed orally but aren't designed to taste good and are often used in feeding tubes.
You don't need a doctor's okay to try a nutrition shake, but it's a good idea to ask your doctor if any of the ingredients will interfere with your medications. Supplemental nutrition shakes contain more than just healthy ingredients. You may be getting more sugar than any of the other ingredients. But if you can't eat and that's the only food that's palatable, it's better to get the calories. In that case, substituting one meal a day with a drink won't hurt. However, people who can still eat may be risking too many extra calories by consuming the nutrition drinks. Equally concerning is that nutrition in a can isn't the same as nutrition from food. A potentially healthier option is a shake or fruit smoothie that is food-based and found in the refrigerated section of the grocery store. These tend to have minimum added sugars and are less processed, and they should not contain excessive amounts of vitamins and minerals, herbs, or other unnecessary supplemental ingredients.
No matter which drink you choose, look at the ingredients. Ideally the first few ingredients should be fruit or forms of protein (such as milk). If sugar is the first or second ingredient, there's probably a healthier option. Equally important are the calories. If you're replacing a meal, look for about 400 calories per serving.
Ensure as a Meal Replacement for Weight Loss
In one small study, researchers had participants try a diet featuring two meal replacement shakes per day along with one whole food meal and three to five whole food snacks, totaling 1,200 to 1,600 calories daily. Participants were overweight or had obesity and lost an average of about 6.5 pounds during the 60-day study. The meal replacement they drank had 240 calories, 9 g fat, 24 g carbohydrates, 8 g fiber, and 20 g protein per serving. It had no sugar, as it was sweetened with monk fruit. Participants didn’t report a significant increase in hunger during the trial despite reducing the number of calories they consumed.
While Ensure Max Protein contains a somewhat similar macronutrient profile with 30 g protein, 1 g sugar, and 4 g fiber, it only has 150 calories. It also hasn’t been studied in a clinical trial to determine whether people would lose weight or feel satiated as the participants in the study did. Talk to your doctor if you’re planning to replace meals with a shake like Ensure.