It looks decent… but it’s a bit too expensive for me … If I get peckish I’ll just blast together a half strength shake.
We don’t use the message “everything your body needs and nothing else”, the wrapper is a mock-up was from many moons ago, long before we had this recipe. It does say on the product page “Photography for illustration purposes only.”
It is impossible to bind and make a bar which is edible (moist enough) without using ingredients that the body doesn’t need. I can assure you we tried our best. Everything in the bar is there for a reason. We certainly didn’t there and think lets throw some polydextrose in for fun.
There are three ways to bind and make the bar moist:
- Sugar in it’s many forms
- Soluble fibres - polydextrose, etc
- Fats - sunflower oils, etc
We know the problems with sugar so attempted to keep that down, we used all the fats we could to keep to our macro targets. Which left soluble fibre which seems like a perfect solution and could replace all the sugars but they have a laxative effect, so we can’t use too much.
Powder is always going to superior in terms of ingredients and nutritional but customers demanded a bar so we did our best. We have been working on the bar for over a year. Crazy I know but it has taken an unbelievable amount of work to get to this point.
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@Julian maybe it’s worth considering re-working some of the text on the Huel bar page. I have personally not had an issue understanding what usage case the bar fits into and what extra has had to go into it to make it a bar, but many people are expecting the bar to be simply a solid version of the powder and nothing else. Having read the bar webpage again maybe wording like this is fueling that expectation:
“Huel Bars are our latest iteration of nutritionally complete foods, just in a chewy format”.
Maybe the webpage should make it clearer that it’s a snack or light meal and not a direct replacement for the powder.
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@Coup thank you for the suggestion. Good idea.
The bar is a more convenient version of Huel especially when travelling etc. We expect people to use it for a snack / light meal, emergencies (I will probably leave a couple in the car), when you are out and don’t want to carry a shaker, or when you simply have to grab and go.
The bar wins in terms of convenience and it provide a different experience (you can bite into it) but it will lose against the powder in terms of cost, ingredients and nutritionals, there is no way around that. But compared to the current alternative we believe Huel offer a strong alternative.
E.g. The Huel bar is 11% sugar by weight. Whereas a Nakd bar (Caffe Mocha) is 47% sugar by weight.
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Hi guys
Thanks for the feedback on the bar. We’ve been working on it for months and what we have is something that can work as a bar, ie sticks together and doesn’t fall apart, and has good macronutritional ratios whilst meeting nutritional targets at 2,000kcal and is pleasent to eat.
Yes, they’re higher in sugar than Huel powdered food, but they’re still relatively low sugar, and that is unavoidable in order to make the bar work. Different powdered ingredients absorb moisture differently and to keep this bar vegan (with the associated ecological merits), the ‘wet’ ingredients had to be reasonably high. Soluble fibres are great in moderate amounts, but too high then the bar would cause upset tummies, so we’ve used fibres that break down more slowly as well as in moderate amounts. The fats can’t be too high, so we’ve used some sugar-based liquids at modest levels. But compared to many other bars on the market, the sugars are a lot lower.
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Could you bind the bar with coconut butter?
The fats can’t be too high
Why?
Compare the sugar content and price. This is what you’re competing with Huel and what customers have a choice with. I really love Huel but this for the price, sugar and convenience, to throw in the car, any of the below are things you are competing with.
Always offers available:
Those are cookies, a different type of product, we compare the Huel bar with other bars.
But I will do a little comparison
- none of the above contain all 26 essential vitamins and mineral
- they are not vegan
- contain soy and milk
- there is no info on the omega 3 and 6s
- no info on amount of fibre
- no phytonutrients
- macro split will not be what we believe to be balanced
- nutritional information is very incomplete to say the least
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Because, we have to keep the fat ratios as near to desirable ratios as possible. Also, too much fat affects the texture and flavour.
Will the laxative effect be lower than Twenny Bars? i.e. Will it be safe to eat several of them in one day?
Are they called Twenny bars cos you can eat twenty a day?
20% of daily nutrition 
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Maybe I’m a minority, but I don’t mind more fat and less carbs. I think the texture and flavour would be nice. Coconut butter doesn’t taste bad.
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Looking forward to ordering some as my Xmas pressie to myself. I’m thinking as an after gym snack or when on the road with work. Bound to be better than service station “food”
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If it was me, I’d be pleased to eat something containing a spread of all essential vitamins and minerals; not too high in fats; I’d be lowering my cholesterol from not having meat or dairy in my snack; plus my financial health would benefit from not spending what it costs to get those on-the-road sarnies!
Huel staff: could you make it possible for us to buy the bars in bigger quantities? It seems strange that the biggest order for bars is 32, which only works out to about 8,000 calories, when the smallest order for the powder is 14,000. I know the two products are marketed differently but I’ll be eating these bars two at a time (to more accurately compare to a powdered Huel meal) and probably having a ‘bar meal’ every other day, possibly every evening. If you could offer a 64 bar version I’d be very grateful!
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Cholesterol is ONLY found in animal products … it literally doesn’t exist in plant foods. It’s something used in body tissues. Plant-based foods can include saturated fats, which raise cholesterol levels indirectly, but direct cholesterol intake becomes zero on a vegan diet.
Sources:
http://www.nutritionmd.org/nutrition_tips/nutrition_tips_understand_foods/cholesterol_lowering.html
http://nutritionfacts.org/2016/03/22/the-effects-of-dietary-cholesterol-on-blood-cholesterol/
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So this is actually a surprisingly complex topic. It is now thought that saturated fats and dietary cholesterol are not as harmful as previously believed:
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20140320/dietary-fats-q-a
The reason for this is that, whilst we know saturated fats do increase cholesterol, the amount of cholesterol received from dietary sources has basically no effect on blood cholesterol (the risk factor when it comes to heart disease). This is because the amount of cholesterol in our blood is always in an equilibrium to ensure we have enough for our bodily requirements. We need quite a bit, and the liver is able to produce all of it from saturated fat if we have none in our diet. As we increase the amount in our diet (as direct cholesterol), the liver simply converts less saturated fat into cholesterol, and the position of the equilibrium shifts. Up until about 1500mg of cholesterol intake daily (five times the US guideline), this equilibrium simply shifts so the liver produces less from fats. As such, for anything below that amount, there is no correlation between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol in the vast majority of people:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22037012/
With all this said, you are correct that a Huel bar will be a lot more balanced than most other things, and will definitely rank as one of your best options. They are definitely inferior to the powder, but that’s to be expected.
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Fascinating stuff, thank you! Yes, re: my earlier post, this is exactly why I want a 64 bar subscription 
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So does anyone have their Huel bars yet? Mine are due here in about 90mins according to the DPD tracking 
Between 3-4pm 
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