Hello Huel users! I am completely new to Huel and think about buying it for backpaking and long treks. I am just little bit afraid of the practical way of using it. If I am in the woods for let’s say one week with limited resources of drinkable water, I am afraid that I would need to waste a lot of water just to clean the shaker. How do you do this and how do you store the powder when you are on trek? Is it ok to prepare the Huel in advance? How do you store it in this case? Every gram matters. Would you recommend to use Huel in this situation or not? Thanks for any advice!
I don’t speak from personal experience, but you could decant the Huel into portion sized ziplocks, if you want compact, or just carry a full pouch or two. If you don’t have clean water though it is tricky, that’s how Nestle managed to kill loads of kids.
It’s one of the reasons I never buy their products: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/nestle-baby-milk-scandal-food-industry-standards
You can prepare in advance but if you are backpacking in heat it will soon be horrible. You wouldn’t want to make it up more than a day in advance anyway. You could take pre-bottled but that’s heavy.
Could take some bars as well.
Hi Knut. What would you have been eating/drinking if you take Huel out of the equation?
Hi Bee, I usually eat freeze-dried food. It requires water as well but less than Huel and just for preparing the dish, not for cleaning.
If you’re trekking in the UK (?) I’ve found there is never any shortage of friendly locals who are willing to let me fill my water containers. Some are even happy to let you use their facilities, especially if you don’t have an expectation of it being free and are willing to offer money or your time to chat.
Pros of using powdered Huel on a trek: the powder itself is lightweight and won’t go off if you seal it properly. You don’t need to carry cutlery, other food, or cooking vessels or equipment.
Cons: yes you need plenty water both to drink and to mix the Huel with.
Washing up: if you quarter fill the shaker with water immediately upon finishing it, and shake vigorously, then empty out and wipe with a cloth, it’s pretty much clean and dry and ready for next time. I can’t see this being an issue, but if you want to steralise it as well every couple of days then baby bottle sterilisation tablets will do the job and the bottle does not need to be rinsed again after soaking.
Hey ChristinaT! Sounds good. I live in Sweden and go on treks here as well so usually it is in the wild nature without any people. You can usually take water from river/lake/melt snow to prepare freeze-dried food because you boil it anyway. That menas you need a drinkable water with you just for drinking. The Huel is significantly less expensive than freeze-dried food but yes, it requires lot of water. The cleaning with clothes sounds good. I think I am going to try it for weekend treks and then will see if it is a good replacement for the long ones as well or not
Have you thought of/or can afford something like a Steripen water purifier? Sounds a great asset for hiking in the wild. It doesn’t take a lot of water to mix Huel but it is recommended you drink plenty when you are on Huel. Here is a review of the Steripen Ultra
@knuhol sounds idealic!
To make washing up easier you could use the shaker without the grill - it still mixes ok and the grill is the only bit that is tricky to clean.
Rinsing the shaker immediately is key - if you let the Huel dry it will take a lot of cleaning.
I’d echo @Bee ‘s idea of a travel filter / sterilisation kit - some are a little expensive but worth it.
Agree. So easy if you are able to do that.
Perfect guys thank you a lot for all of these tips! Regarding the water filters I saw them in shop but I was thinking about them more like resque kits instead of regular usage. I will definitely look into some reviews and probably buy one, looks like it is exactly a tool which can solve my problem. Again, thank you very much!
One more question, can you prepare Huel from hot water or do you need to wait until it is cold? Because in this weather, all water supplies are frozen anyway so you need to melt snow and I am usually boiling it to be sure it is drinkable. But it will be probably also cold soon in this weather anyway - I don’t know, I’ve never had a reason to try it
Ideally you want to start with cold water before you add the Huel and shake it. Or maybe warm, but not hot. You can add hot water after you have mixed it.
Yes hot water can cause your shaker to explode scalding Huel everywhere.
But also it kind of cooks and thickens the Huel and I don’t think that’s a good thing. @hunzas Are you speaking from experience here? Sounds like something not to try!
Or you could do a @wildduck
Seems a bit hardcore but I would try it if I was hungry and had limited water!
Not sure what to suggest on the lack of water, however I portion my huel into zipped baggies.
Easier to carry / quicker to use
No, not from personal experience…I’ve read about it from several other people on the forum. The worst that ever happened here was hot asparagus soup in a blender with the lid not on properly. [It wasn’t me BTW.] The kitchen was a mess.
Hope no one was injured
I’ll bet it was a mess! I’m super-careful with my blender lid, particularly when I put the motor on full speed!
You could make your own Huel bar/balls, that way you only need drinkning water, probably less water!
Here is a great receipe:
A home made alternative to Huel bars? Poor mans Huel bar
You don’t have to follow that receipe, if you want to make it cheaper just use dates and a little bit of oats to make it bind together and them form bars or ballz! Add maybe Raisins if you want more texture/fun, they are cheap!
Good luck!!