5 a day shortcut powder

Hi folks

I haven’t read the whole of this thread, but I have some points.

Firstly though, @Pitarou can you let me know where I said ‘the exact opposite’ to ‘Huel was literally designed to comprise 100% of your diet’. This will enable me to see where you’re coming from and respond appropriately.

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Hello Terriann

This is the closest thing I could find, is this what you were looking for? It’s 100% dried fruit without any added extras.

Arctic power berries

http://www.arcticpowerberries.com

Hope this helps :slight_smile:

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Very good find. In addition to this, I think most freeze-dried fruit powder may be what OP is looking for. So in addition to that, these may be beneficial:

http://www.bulkpowders.co.uk/complete-fruits.html - a mix of 10 different freeze-dried fruit powders, with each 5g serving counting as two of your five a day, and containing only 1.6g of sugar.

http://www.bulkpowders.co.uk/complete-greens.html - a mix of 24 “nutrient dense, super green foods”, with each 9g serving apparently equal to five of your five a day. This one has some more ‘super food’ stuff than desired, such as spirulina and chlorella, but overall it looks like a pretty strong product, and contains only 1.5g of sugar.

https://www.theproteinworks.com/super-reds - a mix of “13 nutrient-dense superfruits”, No mention of how many of your five a day it is, but based on the 10g serving size (relative to the bulkpowders complete fruits 5g serving size), I would assume 3 or 4. A 10g serving has 2.2g of sugar.

This web page also has a vast selection of different freeze-dried fruit and vegetable powders (and I can verify that at the very least, strawberry, cherry and banana are all very pleasant). Again, it doesn’t say how many of your five a day it is, but it’s definitely going to count for some, and you can mix and match the flavours you like. This page has a few more fruit powders from the same site.

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How to use Huel: Step 2 - What percentage of your diet will be Huel?

We don’t believe 100% Huel is the use case.

You’ve found some great products, in your opinion does Huel benefit from adding any of these sorts of products besides from flavouring?

Do you still need your five a day if your on 100% Huel?

I’m very new to Huel so very interested to know if you use any products in conjunction with Huel, besides products used for fitness activities.

I actually mix my own shakes instead of using Huel because I’m able to tailor them more personally. I am, however, fond of phytonutrients, and having found these products for this thread, I’m not investigating them more thoroughly and am tempted to include them in my diet. I need to compare the various options though, and ensure the carbs aren’t too high (I’m doing a ketogenic diet), but yeah, I think they could well be beneficial, and are extremely unlikely to be harmful.

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I can understand adding them to your homemade shakes because your shakes could missing something but given that Huel is meant to contain everything your body needs is spending an extra £5 £10 £15 necessary if you are on 100% Huel.

Is there ingredients or nutrients in Huel which you believe is low or completely lacking?

My shakes follow a similar ethos to Huel in that they provide at least 100% of the RDA for every micronutrient (and often more). I also use forms of these micros that I feel are optimal, so my reason for this isn’t to top up my shakes with anything that isn’t in them but is in Huel.

However I’m quite convinced of the benefits of some phytonutrients, and whilst my shakes (and Huel) already contain some, I see no harm in adding some fruit and vegetable extracts to ensure I’m getting a good mix. It may not be necessary, but the cost is not too great, and my family often worry about me not getting enough fruit and veg.

After some research, I have determined (based on the ingredients) that I am going to try, for a trial period, three mixes: two fruit mixes and one veg. They are as follows:

Super Reds from The Protein Works.
Nutri Purples from MyProtein.
Complete Greens from Bulk Powders.

The reason for the two different fruit powder options is because they both offer several unique fruits, and don’t have too much overlap. However I may drop the Nutri Purples, as the only unique fruits it is providing are blackberry, blackcurrant, elderberry and dragon fruit (at the cost of £0.27/day).

Taking into account discount codes (assuming 25% for MyProtein and The Protein Works and 20% for Bulk Powders), this brings the cost down to £1.04 per day and provides 40 unique fruit/veg/greens. If I notice a difference in energy levels or health, I’ll report back.

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Sounds very cheap and worth it when you put it like that, I really don’t have a clue about healthy eating so am hoping having huel and using this form will mean I don’t really have to worry.

What’s you opinion on adding peanut butter to huel?

Would it ruin the healthiness of huel?

The peanut butter I’ve found has not palm oil which I’m guessing is good?

Thank you IcyElemental. It’s good to know we can get at least some fruits and veg in a powdered form, natural just as they exist without anything added. :smile:

Hi RyanC, I’ve been on Huel for many months now, and I have been in peak health on it, and because of it, without fruit and veg.

I have fruit and veg on the rare occasion, but Huel seems to feed me completely and totally and my health is drastically improved since I swapped from veg, meat, fruit, nuts and muesli to having Huel instead. This is my personal experience and may not be everyone’s experience.

My main reason for wanting the veg powder was not for me but for foodie friends I have who don’t get around to having their veggies and feel bad about it, and said they would love to have an instant powder containing every veg. My personal interest in possibly adding veggie powder would be purely a ‘just in case’ there is some or other something nutritional scientists haven’t found yet that it turns out we need.

I’m sorry to say you were wrong there. You misquoted. Julian simply mentioned that "We don’t believe 100% of Huel only is the common use case of Huel, meaning - it seems that most people are not on 100% Huel only. Julian did NOT say Huel does not recommend 100% use.

Thank you for explaining, terriann. I think JamesCollier himself is about to say something on the matter.

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I’m a big fan of peanut butter nutritionally speaking. The only important thing would be to make sure you’re not having too much and exceeding your desired caloric intake, as it’s quite energy dense.

@Pitarou - I read it how @terriann reads it, too… ie. 100% Huel is not the typical useage, but there’s no reason why you can’t or shouldn’t go 100% - hence the following excerpts from “Step 2” that you referenced:

This is entirely up to you and your personal circumstances. Most people will use it for one or two meals a day, but you can use it for just an occasional snack, pre or post workout, and a tiny percentage go 100%.

We recommend that when you start Huel, you first try replacing 1 meal with Huel, and then after a while (approx. 3-5 days) you could progress to replacing 2 of your daily meals (and then 3, 4, etc. if you want to go 100% Huel). This will allow your body to slowly adjust to Huel.

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Regarding the 5-a-day issue, the advice is kind of arbitrary and nutrients vary considerably between different fruits and vegetables and also due to transportation and storage. It’s just a scheme to try to get people to eat more fruit and veg to try to make the population as a whole healthier overall, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that if you eat your 5-a-day then you’re going to be in perfect health.

A person could eat their 5-a-day and still not get their 5-a-day, if you know what I mean?

Heck, someone could eat 10-a-day, but if it’s been transported a long way and been stored for a while, who knows what nutrients are still left in that fruit and veg.

This article suggests that frozen vegetables could actually be more nutritious than “fresh” vegetables because they get frozen immediately after being picked, so retain more of their nutrients:

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Thanks for the clarification.

Let’s me clear up the confusion here. Huel has been designed so that it can comprise 100% of your diet. The statement you’ve highlighted says that we don’t actually feel most people will actually use it 100%. Of course, many do and many feel great. But the vast majority use Huel for 1, 2 or 3 meals per day or in various other regimens.

A lot of what’s in Huel, eg the 26 essential vitamins and minerals, phytonutrients, insoluble and soluble fibres, etc is also found in fruit and veg. The 5 a day message is to get people to eat more fruit and veg that they’re missing out on from eating a poor diet. The more recent 10 a day message is from looking at numerous studies and seen a correlation between mortality / morbidity and intake. However, it is merel indicative - there could be other lifestyle factors that also have a positive effect on health. My colleague, Claire, makes some really good points in her article here.

Greens and reds powders - I’m not convinced. I’ve never seen one brand who state the micronutrients in their products.

The claim that a product can be one or two of your ‘5 a day’ is a claim that needs to be validated by the appropriate departments so Huel cannot make that claim. However, Huel is based on natural ingredients and it does contain all 26 essential vits and mins, phytonutrients, soluble fibre, insoluble fibre, amino acids, essential fats and more and is certainly far, far better than the type of diets most westerners are consuming.

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Thank you for clarifying.

@rikefrejut: I stand corrected. Thank you for the discussion.

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Thank you so very much to you and Julian for Huel. It has totally changed my life and definitely gives me ALL the nutrients my body needs, and I’m certain of that only because I have been in peak health since I started on Huel, healthier than I’ve been for 20 years, and I have never, ever eaten junk food, take outs, foods made with flour, condiments, snacks and sweets. I’ve always eaten real foods only like fruits, veg, meat, fish, nuts, muesli and dairy products, yet god only knows why I was so unhealthy all the time. Maybe because I don’t eat enough. I was a vegetarian once for 15 years, and then I was VERY unhealthy and sickly, and my health improved a lot once I included meat and fish, but I still suffered a bit of ill health, anemia and malnutrition. Huel keeps me in peak health, and I only eat 2 bags a month. Thanks for a brilliant, amazing product.

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While it doesn’t show the exact quantities of micronutrients, this greens product does state what micronutrients are present and from which ingredients in their description section. It also states the amount of each ingredient present, so in theory it would be easy enough to find the average micronutrient content for each ingredient and multiply by the serving size to work out an approximation of the amounts.

Their fruits powder doesn’t contain such in-depth information, but does contain the exact amount of each fruit powder present, so a similar method could be used for calculating nutrient values as with the greens product.

I do agree though that a lot of the options on the market are fairly terrible.