Assuming one was eating 100 percent Huel, how does it compare or fit in with the MIND diet?
The MIND diet, shortened from Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay, was created by researchers at Rush University Medical Center and the Harvard School Of Public Health. A hybrid of the popular Mediterranean and the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diets, the researchers studied eating patterns that reduces the risk Alzheimer’s disease, and conducted cognitive tests of 960 adults over the space of nine years, tracking their dietary habits.
The MIND diet encourages high consumption of 10 “brain-healthy” food groups such as green leafy vegetables, other vegetables, nuts, berries, and fish. It limited (note: not banned) consumption of unhealthy food groups like red meats, butter and stick margarine, cheese, sweets, and processed foods. The findings, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, revealed that older adults who adhered strictly to the MIND diet faced a 53% lower risk of Alzheimer’s, and those who followed it moderately saw their risk lower by 35%.
There are quite a few cofounders that are really difficult to account for with these studies - those who had a diet that was more similar to the MIND diet had higher levels of education, were more active and had greater participation in cognitive activities.
Ignoring that, a Huel diet pretty much eliminates all the unhealthy food groups mentioned. Huel also gets a tick for wholegrains. However, olive oil, green leafy vegetables, berries and nuts will be missing from a 100% Huel diet.
If you say how does “100% Huel diet fit with X diet” 99% of the time it’s not going to meet for the criteria for the diet because Huel hasn’t been formulated that way. You could incorporate Huel into a MIND diet though.
I’d be very interested to hear people’s thoughts on this. I’m currently on almost 100% Huel. When I’m not, I usually eat really high amounts of fruit and veg - between 12 and 16 portions a day. I often question the powder vs fresh conundrum, but I feel pretty good in myself, my energy levels are up and I’m sleeping better. I’m four weeks into almost 100% Huel (had one different meal in that time, about seven pieces of fruit as snacks over the month, am still drinking coffee and occasionally blend a banana in my evening Huel) and I’ve lost 7lb - a steady and consistent weight loss.
I guess the reason it is suggested that we eat loads of fruit and veg is to get the nutrients, and Huel has all the essentials in it already.
On the face of it these sound like simple questions but there’s a lot too them.
You’re not missing out on anything on a 100% Huel diet but a simple way to look at it is typical fast food/Western diet < Huel < varied wholefood diet.
Everyone should be trying to eat more fruit and vegetables, there are no real downsides to them. Olive oil is one of the more healthier oils but everything in nutrition is about in relation to what, what are you swapping it with? So if you swap out butter for olive oil, great, if you’re just adding olive oil on top of your diet then it might not be the best thing because of those added calories. “It depends” is my go to answer.
Pretty unimportant. It’s an easy rule of thumb to follow but it breaks down easily when you think that tinned tomatoes, plain yoghurt and ground seeds are all processed. It’s more important to look at overall food and nutrient quality than its level of processing.