I just started drinking Huel this week and I really like the convenience, but only three days into it, I started getting these bizarre dizzy spells that involve uncontrollable sobbing, and bad spikes in my depression. (And yes, I went to the doctor and they didn’t find anything wrong with my blood work)
I didn’t realize that the vanilla flavor (the one I am drinking) has both artificial sweetener and flavoring, both of which I generally avoid at all costs, and have for most of my life. I’m worried that the sudden dramatic increase in these things is messing with my body. I’d like to simply exchange the vanilla for the unsweetened flavor.
Has anyone else had a reaction like this, and if so how did you progress?
Hi, I’m quite interested to read this experience of yours as I have been having terrible mood swings and anxiety attacks that definitely coincide with starting having Huel. I suffer from anxiety generally but I don’t usually have severe mood swings even when Aunt Flo is visiting. I haven’t ever heard anything about sweeteners or flavourings contributing to mood swings but it would definitely make sense for me if that’s the case. Like you I generally steer clear of artificial sweeteners simply because I don’t like the taste. I have got the unsweetened packs coming tomorrow and sold my other vanilla pack so I’ll be really interested to see if the mood swings die back down. I think you can return unopened packs but I found it easier to sell it on.
you say you’ve just started Huel but what’s been the actual change in your diet? i.e. have you just replaced 1 or 2 meals or are you going “100% Huel” - and are you dramatically lowering your caloric intake, i.e. aiming for weight loss, or are you sticking to about the same number of calories as your previous diet.
I’m not a nutritionist, but I imagine any of these things would probably have more of an effect right now while you’re getting used to changing the way you eat, than the mere presence of artificial sweeteners. Not that I’m discounting the idea outright
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one! I stopped drinking it and within 48 hours my energy levels and depression went back to normal (and oh my god, the sweet relief of going from very depressed to totally totally normal )
My guess is that the stevia had something to do with it, because I read that it has a bunch of other known side effects. None involving depression or fainting, but the fact that it does weird stuff makes me very suspicious of it, especially considering that there have been no other dramatic differences in my life.
I contacted Huel and they’re sending me two bags of unsweetened also, and I’m giving the vanilla flavor to a friend who is much less sensitive to artificial stuff than me.
I started replacing 1 to 2 meals per day, drinking between 2 and 5 scoops (I’m small and don’t eat enough as is, so that was plenty). I was actually increasing my caloric intake because I often forget to eat meals, so nutrition-wise I was doing better off than normal! That’s why I’m so suspicious of the sucralose and stevia, because while the diet was different, I was still getting the quantity of nutrients I needed.
Maybe also worth noting that I did experience some bad bloating and gas the first day, which is common, and subsided after day 1.
I have not tried vanilla, I went with U/U from the start, because I have trouble with Sucralose.
Not scientific, but anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that Sucralose triggers increases in my own depression. Perhaps you have the same problem?
I’m not a doctor, I can’t swear this is a thing, I can’t even swear it’s a thing for me, but it sure seems to be a pattern in me, have some Splenda/Sucralose, have a depressive episode later that day or the next day.
Glad to see I´m not the only one. I thought I was going a bit nuts when I suddenly got all dizzy and fuzzy ind the head shortly after eating. I didn´t know that I can´t eat Sucralose but I´m a sensitive and have a few other food allergies. So it makes perfect sense. And what you guys describes is excactly what I experienced.
I will tried out the unsweetend Huel because I really like that I can get a healthy good meal so easy.
This was an extremely scary experience and could have killed me if I had one of these dizzy spells while driving. I also want you to understand a little something about depression: depression makes it really really difficult to take care of yourself. The worse your depression gets, the harder it is to find the energy to feed yourself, let alone cook meals. Huel offers an easy alternative to cooking that gets me the nutrients I need. As I became more depressed (due to the artificial sweeteners in Huel) I started relying on Huel more. If I hadn’t realized that it was the cause, I would have continued to use it more and more, and maybe would have started relying on it entirely for food, since it offered such an easy solution to my depression-reduced energy. It would have been a horrible downward spiral.
This scares me a lot, and makes me worry about who it has affected that looked for info and found none—because there weren’t any posts about this until I made this one. I also worry about other people with mental health issues that might encounter the same thing, and not be as observant as me. Are you going to be making goth jokes if someone takes their life because of their Huel-fueld depression?
Hold on a second. You make absurd claims how Huel fuels depression and could cause people to commit suicide. Do you have anything substantial to back these claims up? I’ve googled around for it and seen nothing supporting your claim what so ever. If it was true, it would be known and I doubt sucralose would be allowed further.
I’ve never heard of sucralose causing depression personally, but since reading this have started researching it. I’m assuming you avoid all artificial sweetners in and food or drink you have? I have personal experience of depression myself and Huel has done nothing but made me feel good, my son having recently had a psychotic break and depression also does well on Huel - his mental health problems were actually caused by being anemic and an extremely low vit d levels and since being put on ‘loading doses’ of the vits in question by his GP he is more or less back to himself. Just trying to give another experience of depression and huel on here.
I’ve been looking myself since coming across this thread as I do fab on Huel, this below was what I found so far but I get the impression if not sensitive to it then you would need to consume an awful lot of it to have the effects listed but I’m no expert lol
Were you in a large caloric deficit when you experienced said depression?
During extreme cuts I get very down in the dumps, wondering if that could be responsible?
I’ve used Huel for the last 3 years and would quite honestly say (purely coincidentally) they’ve been the most lucrative, productive and happiest years of my life. I don’t think I’ve experienced depression once even using Huel around 320 days of the year for at least 1500 calories a day.
I don’t think Sucralose causes depression in a lot of people. For me, all I said was that I seem to have noticed a correlation between intake of it and ME getting depressed. I’m not saying that extends to anyone else.
My own depression is very odd, very treatment-resistant, and doesn’t seem to follow the patterns that are common to most depressions, so using me as a metric for anyone else is probably not a high success prospect.
Nothing about this thread is scientific, and there is nothing here that says “if you eat Huel/sucralose/stevia you will get depression”. The value is that there is some president that (at least a couple people) stopping flavored Huel stopped their symptoms.
Calm down and leave the thread if you don’t want to be a part of a constructive conversation.
Can you not drink 8 oz of Coca Cola Zero in the name of science? That’s the same amount of sucralose as there is in 400-500 kcal of Huel. (ie about 30 mg)
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there’s always one
but I get the impression if not sensitive to it then you would need to consume an awful lot of it to have the effects listed but I’m no expert lol