"Forever Living" opinion on HUEL

Nutrition
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Hi all,

I have been a Huel user now for a few months and I’m getting on pretty well with it. A friend of mine has recently joined the Forever Living network and has been trying to sell me some of the powdered stuff. She sent me a message last night (below) and I was wondering if anyone could give me their feedback on this.

Much obliged.

Someone on the forever site is discussing Huel against our shake…

Huel is powdered food & therefore massively processed, which means most the nutrients from the ingredients are depleted. It’s then got a lot of artificially made vitamins pumped in to it to make it “nutritionally complete” - I.e. they try to stick to RDI of certain nutrients and say to you “if you drink this X amount of times a day, you will have Y% of your nutrient intake sorted for you… blah blah”

Also, the fact that the “powdered food” lasts for around 12 months in terms of a use by date, it means it’s also packed full of preservatives, which actually means it’s doing more harm than good as preservative overload can contribute massively to visceral fat, which is serious long-term. Visceral fat is the fat around your organs in simple terms. Not to mention the fact that preservatives have to be used, which in turn also makes the product less nutritionally beneficial.

**What irritates me the most about this company is that they promote REPLACING meals with this drink they produce. If health is of utmost importance, I would stay away from any company that encourages you to skip meals for shakes - absolute nonsense! You cannot get a nutritionally balanced & healthy lifestyle/diet without eating fresh, wholesome food. **

If your friends are asking you what the difference is - it’s massive and it’s simply incomparable to our product. I would ask your friends what attracts them about Huel, and why they are looking in to drinking a shake in the first place.

**If the answer is that they can’t be bothered to cook and want an easy way out, they’re not looking for health they’re looking for convenience, and that’s not your customer. **

If they’re truly interested in health, then explain the above to them.

Also worth noting that our shakes are sourced from ingredients and combined so that there is optimum absorption of nutrients into our bodies too.

I would also recommend getting them to try both and see what they prefer as I’ve heard the Huel ones taste vile!

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I’ll let the better qualified Huelers discuss the substantive nutritional claims, but I would be instantly suspicious of any advice your friend is giving you, since she’s trying to sell you a rival product.

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Hi David, yes, aware that she is trying to sell me her product, but they were not her words, she copied and pasted from some discussion group with someone who is I guess higher up in the Forever World.

I would just like to know how much truth is in these claims.

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Huel have wrote an article on food processing - https://uk.huel.com/pages/food-processing-good-nutrition

You can go round the twist listening to every person who comes along and says this is bad you for and this is bad for you etc. I’ve been using Huel for about half my food for years now, I get on with it fine. There are also people who live off Huel on these forums. You use Huel and get on fine. This person also has a massive conflict of interest by rubbishing one product to sell you theirs. They also want you sell you a powdered product but claim as Huel is powdered it is “massively processed”.

Huel also ran a month long clinical trial, the results of which can be read here.

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Forever products as far as I’m aware are one of those multi-level marketing arrangements, where you earn by selling, and then you oversee others and get a split of their sales etc. It’s not a pyramid scheme, which I think are illegal, but it certainly can be a pressurised business, and I’ve seen people’s Facebook become a bit of a never ending sales pitch. I’ve known people who’ve done it and come out the other side and apologised because they realised they’d been a bit dishonest with their friends as they’d really bought into the mindset. I would therefore be wary.

Also, just read what is in this statement. None of it is factually backed up, just derogatory statements, no indication what ingredients or preservative have a negative effect or how dried powered food is packed with preservatives (I’m sure there are some, but isn’t the whole dry thing why it keeps?). Neither is there anything about what nutrition is degraded or reduced, so it simply has no factual content. Why would their powdered product not fall foul of these concerns?

Their product may be fine, but to try to undermine another without any facts smacks of salesmanship of the worst kind. It seems full of at best unproven assumptions, if not knowingly actual falsehoods.

And if your friend goes along with this statement and doesn’t question it validity or honesty, they may be too far gone to be reason with. For now anyway. I’ve known several people selling these products. Funnily enough, only for a while. None of them… forever.

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What you’re witnessing is a Pyramid Scheme rival panicking about losing their deluded customer base to what they probably know deep down is a legitimate version of the product they make.

Just agree with this friend and let them continue. Same as Herbalife, they’re all morons too.

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I’m no expert too, basically ignorant on the subject, so sorry If I intrude, but usually I am very suspicious of people using the word “artificial” to mark something as “bad”. That’s total nonsense. We may debate on the quality of ingredients used by Huel, and I’m not qualified to do that, but artificial or natural means nothing. :slight_smile:

Also, I don’t find any preservatives in the Huel list of ingredients, correct me if I’m wrong. Since in EU we have very strict law on this topic, I think that means there are no preservatives.

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So what this person is basically saying is powdered foods are bad, therefor don’t buy Huel, buy mine instead? That’s what this sounds like to me.

Also @danosavi yes, by removing water from something and protecting it from air (sealed bags) - shelf life is prolonged by a large marigin from my understanding

I looked this up as I never heard of it before. It looks like another Herbalife. Their powder is soy protein first, then fructose, some other lesser various ingredients and vitamins/minerals. A weight loss product strictly speaking.

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Thanks for all of your feedback on this. I guess this kind of mirrors my own thoughts on it all, I was hoping that someone would be able to specifically deny the accusations levelled at Huel and give some details.

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I’m sure @JamesCollier could smash their product to smithereens, but Huel staff aren’t 24/7 forum users. :slight_smile:

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Hi! Thanks for posting on the forum :slight_smile: Please see some feedback below:

The processing in Huel is really minimal. Unless you are plucking organic veg from the ground and eating it there and then, your food is processed in some way. Cleaning, drying, packaging are all processes. The point is that there is good processing and bad processing, Huel is certainly on the good side. @Coup already posted this article from us, but I’d definitely recommend giving it a read here.

Huel does have synthetic vitamins in absolutely, we are honest about that because we have no problems with it, here is why. Huel is packed full of naturally occurring vitamins too! The natural ingredients that make up the bulk of Huel (oats, pea, brown rice, flaxseed, sunflower seed and MCTs from coconut) are packed full of naturally occurring vitamins and minerals. However, to ensure that Huel is able to provide 100% of your recommended daily amounts for all essential vitamins and minerals, these levels have been topped up by additional forms ,some of which are natural, some synthetic. It is worth noting that there is nothing wrong with consuming these vitamins; many people consume multivitamin tablets every day which are synthetic. We have gone to extreme lengths and expense to make sure that the additional vitamins and minerals are of the highest quality and in the most available format. You can read more on this here.

Huel contains no preservatives. Huel has such a long shelf life because it is in powdered form. It is completely dry and therefore it is not possible for bacteria to grow in it whilst it is sealed as bacteria need moisture.

This is completely incorrect. Don’t get us wrong, we believe a nutritionally complete diet of whole food is the best, but people don’t always have access to a kitchen whilst on the road or the time to buy, prep, cook and clean up, or have the knowledge to ensure they are getting all the essential fatty acids, essential amino acids, or the 26 essential vitamins and minerals in the correct amounts just from whole food.

But honestly, what percentage of the population lives on a whole food diet? A small minority I would guess. Our high streets and supermarkets are full of junk food and low convenience foods (Greggs, Starbucks, Pret, McDonald’s, burger vans, cafes, etc.). The most popular lunch is a sandwich, the most popular snacks are crisps or chocolate, breakfast would be toast, butter and spread. Most of these foods are optimised for taste but have low nutritional value and are more processed than Huel.

We provide a healthy, balanced, nutritionally complete, and convenient alternative.

It sounds like there have been a lot of assumptions here about Huel, so I hope this helps to answer some of your questions. If you have any more, please don’t hesitate to shoot them across.

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Hi Zoe,

Pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Thank you. I have been enjoying Huel for months now, and the main reason was the guilt free enjoyment. Once I got past the first few meals, and realised that the most essential ingredient to enjoying Huel is ice (I cannot emphasise enough how much differnce blasting Huel with a load of ice has made compared to just shaking it). If the guilt free aspect was taken away from this then I’m not sure how much longer I would have used it. As long as I know that this is good for me then I will keep it up.

Thanks again.

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No problem at all. Glad I could help :blush:

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Great info from @ZoeOfficialHuel saving me a job whilst I’m on holiday.

c1998, when I was a dietitian at Northampton General Hospital, my colleagues and I were invited to a Forever Living Products seminar. Against my colleagues’ advice, I went. I’d only been qualifed a few years then, but I was already starting to get vocal, and I queried the basis of some of the claims being made in the seminar - I was literally booed and reprimanded in front of all delegates and told - and I quote - ‘XXXX [seminar speaker] is one the the countries leadning nutritionists, so you have no right to question her’. Quite embarassing.

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We love you James, don’t let the bastards get you down mate :slightly_smiling_face:

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Thanks! But, trust me, they don’t!

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Personally, I can’t say I’ll ever trust someone who’s sales method is denigrating another product instead of telling me why their own is superior. Nothing in the OP’s post says why or how the FL powder is superior to Huel, it just hits a few paranoia keywords.

Also worth noting that our shakes are sourced from ingredients and combined so that there is optimum absorption of nutrients into our bodies too.

What does that even mean?

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Ha yeh, that made me laugh ‘sourced from ingredients’, well I should hope so… :joy:

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Really not a fan of the Daily Fail, but this article came up on a google search, makes for chilling reading! You might want to send it to your friend @Mash :slight_smile:

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Which article? Looks like you forgot to actually paste the link, and I’m curious! :slight_smile: