I went vegan two years ago and have been struggling to keep up with my calorie intake. I’m hardly eating 1000 calories a day and I have a plethora of health problems, especially a lack of energy.
I’ve decided to try a 100% Huel diet as it’s cheaper, more efficient and above all else, I can actually track what I’m eating every single day.
I’ll be eating four 3-scoop shakes a day but want to be sure that I’m getting all my vitamins.
Can someone here confirm that there is enough D3, K2, B12 etc in Huel? The B12 in Huel is Cyanocobalamin, not Methylcobalamin, which is better. Should I continue to supplement Methylcobalamin B12?
Also, there’s 25ug of Vitamin K2 but LIVESTRONG recommend 120ug a day.
Most of the vitamins in Huel seem to be of artificial origin. Is this a problem? I want to be sure that I’m doing all I can in terms of nutrition to ensure my health improves.
I have to say, besides the above, I’m quite impressed with the nutritional content of Huel. I went through a list of common vitamins and minerals to supplement on a vegan diet, and was happy to see that Huel contains almost all of them including Iodine, Selenium, and Omega-3!
If you’re only eating 1000 calories a day you’re not going to get sufficient anything, with or without Huel. Why are you eating so little? That’s not going to do you any favours
Edit: Ah bad reading… I get you. Yeah, on 3 x 4 scoops you’ll be around 1800 cals of Huel which is more than likely sufficient to make you start feeling better. Maybe hit 2000 cals for the sake of hitting the 100% RDAs.
Glad you re-read and understood haha. The fact that I’m struggling to consume my RDA of calories is the main reason I’m trying Huel. I suppose I technically have a eating disorder but it’s mostly just laziness. I live alone and eating 2k calories on a plant based diet requires a lot of cooking.
I love being vegan but right now I can’t afford to eat out and don’t want to cook. I’d still be deficient, even if I weren’t vegan, and i’m vegan for ethical reasons and wouldn’t go back unless it was going to kill me. I used to love cooking but doing it two to three times a day is too much for me, and I often found myself losing my appetite after standing over the stove for 45 minutes cooking.
Huel is great and I don’t plan on using it forever. Just long enough to get myself back on track with my eating habits.
The cyanocobalamin vs methylcobalamin debate has come up many times before - methly- isn’t liscenced for food fortification in the EU so we couldn’t use it if we wanted to. However, it falls off quickly over shelf-life (which may be the reason that it’s not allowed). Serum uptake of methyl- indicates that it is the better bioavailable form, but it has been indicated that cyano- has better cellular activity.
K2 - the amount on Livestrong assumes a suboptimal intake of vitamin K; Huel is rich in K1 reducing the requirement for K2.
Thanks for explaining that to me James. So just to clarify, you wouldn’t recommend supplementing B12 while using Huel as 100% of my diet (3 scoops, 4 times a day)?
I’m currently supplementing D3 (3000mg / day) as recent blood results showed that I was deficient. I believe I’m probably close to the upper tolerable limit so I won’t do this for more than a few weeks, just long enough to get my D3 levels back up.
And the upper limit depends on the person, however the very top is about 10,000 IU’s.
I’ve been taking 10,000 IU’s for about 2 years now, I’m always within range when I test, in fact I’ve got a test coming up, so I’ll let you know if you want?
That’s the dose that puts me within an optimal range 24/7. So why do? Vitamin D isn’t exactly expensive, besides having decent levels are strongly associated with a myriad of health benefits.
I had a vitamin D test recently (before the heatwave) and my levels were low and I was advised by the health professional connected to the company to take a 12 week course of 25μg/1000iu per day.
