Does your body properly intake the nutritional contents of Huel?

Hi,

My friend who is a doctor was quite sceptical of Huel. He claimed that the process of eating “normal food” stimulate hormones such as Ghrelin which regulate your metabolic enzymes.

Therefore he said consumption of liquid food such as Huel won’t be properly absorbed by the body due to your body “not expecting” food to digest.

I can sort of link this the dreaded Huel excrement, which suggests to me that Huel nutrition has been left over and is not being properly digested.

When I get the chance I will ask him some further questions, however I was wondering if you could add to the conversation.

This looks like one for @JamesCollier

Firstly Huel is not a liquid, it is solid food (oats, flaxseed, pea, etc) which have been milled into a powder/flour to dramatically increase the shelf life and to make it simple to combine all the ingredients together into a single product, without the need for prepping or cooking. Humans have been turning food in flour for 30,000 years http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101018/full/news.2010.549.html .

There has been concern that peristalsis could get ‘lazy’ without “solid food” to digest. However, this issue has been researched extensively in respect of long term eternally tube fed patients who consume proprietary liquid diets through a feeding tube. It’s been found that with the addition of soluble and insoluble fibre that this is not an issue and normal stools are formed.

The fibre in Huel is from natural ingredients and Huel provides more than most modern solid diets (140% of the RDA of fibre in 2000 cals of Huel). So there will be no ‘laziness’ in the digestive system. Fibre acts like a sponge, so it’s important to consume lots of water when using Huel. The Huel formula has been designed to maintain optimum digestive system health.

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The short answer is yes, your body does take in nutrients from Huel!

Mine certainly does!

As Julian

The hormones ghrelin and leptin work a little more complex that how your friend stated: they control appetite too. The presence of food in the stomach regulates them. Huel is food; it’s food in powdered form. Like Julian says, it’s the fibres that keep the gut motility working. Fibre combined with water, helps things move along.

If your doctor friend has any concerns, he’s welcome to contact me directly on james@huel.com

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