When standard Huel is left in the fridge it generally improves over a few hours, but gradually gets thicker and by the next day has the consistency of set concrete.
RTD Huel has a shelf life of 6 months, so what stops RTD Huel from becoming thick in the bottle? I can’t see any strange additives that would be stopping it going thick, but surely it can’t just be that Huel are using standard powder?
There must be a secret ingredient or process at work.
I want to try RTD but am a bit suspicious that there must be something that might make it inferior.
Huel RTD is a different formula all together from the powder. It is based on the same core ingredients but is made in a completely different way. The nutrition is also different, and yes very slightly inferior, as are the bars, as certain compromises have to be made to create a bar or a liquid.
The powder has the superior nutritional profile over all the other products. The idea is to use powder for the majority of your nutrition and the bars are more for healthy snacks and the RTD for when you can’t access water or a fridge so making or storing your powdered huel isn’t possible.
Check out some of the articles on RTD on the main website.
Personally I’ve found them handy for taking on day long hikes. But I use the powder for every day.
Oh and it’s not that RTD has any additives to stop it thickening - it’s that the powder contains gums which allows it to mix with water (without it, it would be like trying to drink a bucket of sand).
The gums do make it thicker as well if you leave it for a few hours. Mine never goes like concrete though unless I add plant milk (which also contains gums so makes it doubly thick)
I’ve asked some of the more technical Hueligans here to come back to you on this. However, I’m not sure if it is time or the temperature that is the factor that makes Huel thicker. I think ambient temperature RTD is thinner than cold RTD.
In terms of RTD being inferior. If you’re talking nutritionally, yes we believe the Powder is better nutritionally than the RTD. The RTD is by no means bad nutritionally, in fact it’s awesome, but a powder product is far simpler to produce, so we have far more control over the nutritional profile. Here’s a link to an old thread you might find interesting.
Huel RTD is just the ingredients labelled. The temperature merely makes it appear a little thicker from the fridge. Only the gellan gum will influence thickness.