Depends on your goals. For me, I'm trying to keep my carb intake to below 20g/day. Which is REALLY hard. There is a meal replacement drink called Sated that is nutritionally balanced, as well as being extremely low carb. I find that eating something crunchy/salty along with it, will make me feel full and ... sated ... for many hours. So I'll have a piece of celery, or a "meat stick" (I get landjager from my butcher), or a carrot along with the drink. Also, drink the drink slowly over about 15-20 minutes. Take little sips. That works very well for me, to keep my calories down (CICO) and my carbs down (Keto).
Thanks for the link! It looks like an interesting alternative to the oat-based product I'm using right now. Any idea why the crunchy/salty side helps? I've definitely munched celery before to feel full. Your response also has me thinking I should be really intentional about taking my time with the drink, so I'll definitely give that a try too!
I think the crunchy/salty thing is just the animal brain. Things that go crunch tend to be more calorie-laden, so I expect the animal brain learned to associate crunch with "nutritional value". The nutrient-rich marrow is inside the bones, and leaves have little caloric benefit... so "crunchy = keeps me alive/makes me full". (Maybe. Not a biologist.) Americans are so programmed to eat fast... and that is not good. You can easily overeat if you just jam food into your pie hole. But if you take time with it, the body begins working on the first bites, and processing the food right away. Then you reach satiation earlier; aka, before you eat more than you need to. The biggest thing for me on Keto is that my portion size has dropped to hummingbird levels... and I'm a 230lb dude. But by eating slow, I take in far fewer calories, but don't feel hungry or cheated.