First let me say that I love Huel, even as a kid I wondered if we would have ‘food pills’ in the future that would end world hunger.
However, does anyone else worry that Huel both feeds into and encourages a joyless, corporate, workaholic culture?
I worry that more and more professionals are into huel to ‘save time’ and that foods like this may become the norm. Already our rights as workers are under siege with employers trying to squeeze more and more out of people. Longer hours, poorer pay and less worker protection seem to be on the rise.
My general feeling is that people using Huel are people more in control of their time than the average worker. For me, Huel is a tool to increase freedom. But then again, I seldom found that much joy in workday lunches.
I definitely agree with time saved. If I count the amount of time I spent angsting in supermarkets or local groxery stores over what to buy and eat, cooking times and eating times, I am a lot freer than I was previously, but I have ADD and planning meals has always been a problem for me, so I do two huel meals a day, but I alternate cooked dinners where possible.
Still, I would hate to see an employer get pushy with their workers for wanting to take time and enjoy a proper lunch break. Im self-employed, but I know when I was employed by other companies, I chose places that gave me 45 min to an hour for lunch. The break was vital to my performance.
Only yesterday I referred someone to Huel who is a restaurant manager. He is surrounded by food and cooking but wanted something that is quick to prepare and consume.
Must be difficult being surrounded by (hopefully) delicious food, but not having any time to actually eat it.
Chefs often have trouble eating, actually. Huel makes sense. A weird effect of always being surrounded by food and cooking is that it can completely spoil your appetite! That’s why so many chefs are quite gaunt… well, that and all the coke a lot of them take!
For me I use Huel because being Lactose intolerant it fills the gap at breakfast without the need for Soy, Almond or other “milks” and I’m actually bored with food. Not great food, cooked by a chef or prepared with great ingredients but “lunch” food, or prepacked. Reached an age where I either want something really special or Huel. It’s the perfect filler food. You know what you’re getting, zero effort, saves a bleeding fortune and means our busy family can function without the need to cater for me all the time
I definitely worry that Huel is all a little bit Matrix (“they” are perfecting a complete food to drip feed us as they plug us into the system!), but on the plus side, I feel terrible whenever I throw food away, and all the packaging, which virtually disappears with Huel, and this has definitely helped me cut down on meat which I have always felt I ought to do but never quite managed. Also with huel for lunch i can walk round the park for half an hour rather than walking to Tesco/Sainsbury and back. So I get your concern but I am leaning towards the positive side!
It’s often something thrown at us on social media. Many think that we are facilitating the workaholic environment you describe above, however I truly believe the opposite. No employer is legally going to be allowed to reduce lunch breaks to a level that is unmanageable for the employee, but Huel in this instance is about utilising that lunch break to it’s potential.
When I used to do restaurant or shift work before Huel I used to sit on my 30 minute break scraping the last remaining pieces of couscous from my Tupperwear container that I had prepared the night before or that morning. It just wasn’t the enjoyable and sociable experience that many tell us their lunch break is (have a dig around for any of our Facebook adverts) and at the end of it I was left with 10 minutes to do what I actually wanted to do.
But what if I had that whole 30 minutes to do what I wanted to do, and didn’t just use it to fuel myself for the latter half of the day. I could have gone on a nice walk, met friends, read my book and a plethora of other activities.
What I mean is that Huel doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, about doing unhealthy amounts of work because suits tell you to but about facilitating what you truly want to do. If that’s some lunch time exercise that’s fine. If that’s skipping your lunch break (note, not your lunch!) completely so you can leave work earlier and see you family - that too is great!
I hope this is how we choose to use Huel but everyone is different, heck some people just love their jobs !
