My suggestion of another product as well, a new product, one that would be dried and powdered veggies and fruit, just as they are, nothing added and nothing taken away (except the water of course) would be a great addition, not a substitute, and the main point was that people who don’t want to take Huel for whatever reason, and prefer to live on Pizza, hamburgers and fish & chips, could have one cup-a-soup a day to which they could add a measure or two of ‘5-a-day’ powdered veggies, and feel good about having having had their ‘5-a-day’ every day, worry free. Also, those of us on Huel could also have the added benefit of real unadulterated (except for removing the water) fruit and veg every day too.
I got the idea because 4 of my friends don’t like veggies or salads and seldom get around to eating fruit, and they feel bad about it as they know they ‘should’. They are not into having shakes instead of food at all, as they like to eat. I tried to persuade them onto Huel. In a discussion, they all agreed that if there was a powder they could chuck into an instant cup-a-soup for lunch, they would definitely go with that. Or they might throw it into their instant gravy (Bisto). They said they’d be delighted to have an instant lazy way to get those pesky 5-a-day in hassle free.
However, they would only buy it if they recognised all the ingredient ie broccoli, spinach, celery, carrots, runner beans, cauliflower, parsnips etc… etc… However, it would completely pointless if this powder contained potatoes, onions, garlic, mushrooms, tomatoes etc… as they already get tons of those in what they eat every day.
I looked again through the huel.com webpage, and found no such recommendation. And my two registered dieticians made no recommendation against living on Huel either. I live on Huel 100% of the time, no exceptions.
Well no, not really. Firstly these are flakes, and they require a whole lot of hassle to re-hydrate and cook, secondly they contain a huge amount of potato, which makes the whole thing pointless, and it contains onions and garlic, which people get anyway with everything they eat. I was suggesting a powder, and one that has about 15 or 20 different fruits and veg in it, excluding the types people get all the time every day anyway.
Hi JCW, To my mind, about 12 veggies and about 8 fruits would probably cover it, but you are right, probably more veg and less fruit would be even better, especially for those not wanting too many extra sugar calories.
I looked again through the huel.com webpage, and found no such recommendation.
“We don’t believe 100% Huel is the use case.”
And my two registered dieticians made no recommendation against living on Huel either. I live on Huel 100% of the time, no exceptions.
I was speaking about the general population. If you have special dietary needs and are under the care of two dieticians then of course you should listen to them, not me!
Why does everybody keep pointing me towards completely different products from what I am suggesting?
This is a totally different product from the one I am suggesting. I am suggesting real, common, every day veggies everybody knows and would be eating if they bothered to prepare them and cook them. Regular every day normal veggies dried and powdered, and since most veggies are about 80% water, and one serving of fresh veggies is half a cup, your two and half cups of normal, regular, everyday fresh veggies in dried form would be about a quarter of a cup of powder. Nowhere here have I suggested this replace Huel. Nowhere here have I suggested this should be a fortified ‘superfood’ promising the moon nutritionally. In fact I have specifically said NOT to list the nutrients as the point is not the nutrients, but to get two and half cups of veggies and fruit into the body the easiest, laziest way possible - a powder you can throw into anything.
The whole point of me saying this (making this thread) is because while there are thousands of products out there made of veggies and similar stuff, they all add superfood type stuff or extra vitamins or extra something or other to boost them, or they claim to have extracted the good stuff out of this or that. What is needed is a simple powder that brags nothing, adds nothing, takes nothing away but the water and doesn’t extract this and extract that, it is nothing other than your every day veggies in a powder form. With such a product, there would be nothing to ‘debunk’ since the product wouldn’t brag about being anything other other than your daily regular normal veggies in a powder form.
Ingredients: Red cabbage, 5 types of lettuce, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, runner beans, parsnips, brussel sprouts, butternut squash, mangetout, spinach, cucumber, zucchini, apple, grape, pineapple and a few varied berries. All naturally grown and then dried and powdered for your convenience, so you can get you 5 a day by simply adding one measure to an instant cup-a-soup or a smoothie or add to your stew or gravy or Spag Bol sauce. For us Huelers, we can simply throw a measure into our Huel.
Well, the package can clearly say “Fresh is best, but if you can’t prepare yours fresh today, here’s the best alternative.” Also, instead of listing the nutritional values of all those veggies, the package can direct people to one of all the many web sites out there that list the nutritional content of every fruit and veg known to man.
I don’t have special dietary needs. I just get a free private registered dietician advice through my workplace, and free advice from NHS registered dietician once a year thanks to my regular GP.
You’re splitting hairs. It means that Huel was not designed to comprise 100% of your diet. And I believe that was written by the dietician who developed Huel.
I just get a free private registered dietician advice through my workplace, and free advice from NHS registered dietician once a year thanks to my regular GP.
That’s one in the eye for me. But it remains a principle of good nutrition that one should aim for a varied diet, which is something you will never achieve with 100% Huel diet (or 100% Soylent, or whatever). If, for whatever reason, you are unable to achieve that, then 100% Huel might be appropriate, and I think it’s better than any similar products on the market, but don’t kid yourself that it’s the ideal.
Huel was literally designed to comprise 100% of your diet. That’s why they even post all the numbers per 2000kcal, among lots of the other information on the huel webpage and this forum.
Hence me wondering why you think the Huel developers would advise against living on Huel.
I agree. Huel is designed to provide 100% of what we need, but because it is new, it still requires a few willing guinea pigs to live on Huel alone only for 6 months or so, to prove if the formula is correct or not. I know many have tried it for a few months and suffered no ill effects, but I don’t think too many have tried to live on Huel only for a longer time. As far as I understand, the whole point is to have a product that provides 100% of what we need.
Huel was literally designed to comprise 100% of your diet.
The designer of Huel literally says the exact opposite. I shan’t quote him a third time.
Hence me wondering why you think the Huel developers would advise against living on Huel.
Huel is designed, with some precision, to match our nutritional needs as we currently understand them. But our understanding is flawed and incomplete. We know this is so because we discover new things about nutrition all the time, and because old beliefs about nutrition are sometimes overturned. A flawed and incomplete understanding will lead to a flawed and incomplete product.
If you’re not convinced, imagine going back in time to, say, 1996, and think about what a Huel designed then would look like. It would be rather different. Which one do you think would be better: the Huel of 1996 or the Huel of 2016?
Now, ask yourself, will the Huel of 2036 be better then the Huel of 2016? If you say no, you’re effectively saying that we know all there is to know about human nutrition, which is clearly not the case. If you say yes, then you have to accept that there may be problems with the current formulation.
So how do we get round those problems? The obvious answer is to consume, say, 2/3rds Huel, and for the other 1/3rd follow the standard advice of consuming a varied, balanced diet. With any luck, the defects in Huel will be small enough that the remaining 1/3rd can more than make up for it.
Which is not to say that you can’t live on Huel. There are plenty of people living on much worse diets that 100% Huel! But 100% Huel is not the ideal.
You’re missing the point of most meal replacement shakes. The purpose is not to be the optimal, ideal food, but to provide everything you need to survive. The Huel of 1996 would likely be identical to today (minus the addition of lutein, zeaxanthin and lycopene - non-essential phytonutrients). As time goes on, it is likely more phytonutrients will be added, but in terms of the basic macros and micros, changes will be far less frequent, as we do already know how much of those we need.
For many meal replacement shakes – cough Soylent cough – I’d agree, but if you look in detail at Huel’s formulation you’ll find that it goes well beyond providing just the basics. Why, for instance, does it contain MCT powder? Or why the excess of vitamin C? (Hint: it’s something to do with the phytic acid in the oats.)
Actually the reason stated for this is to aid iron absorption, which is inhibited by calcium being present. If you want to deal with phytic acid, it makes a lot more sense to bind your minerals to amino acids instead.