Has anyone given Huel to their children? I’m good in terms of making sure my 5 year old has plenty of fruit/veg/lean meat etc but she asked me about my breakfast (huel) the other day and it crossed my mind that a shake with a sweet flavouring may actually be better for her than commercial cereal.
But for some weird reason it feels wrong to give a kid a liquid meal?? Anyone else feel like this? Almost as if I wouldn’t be feeding her properly…even though I know huel is great stuff.
Nutrionally I presume there’s nothing in huel that could harm a child?? Macros would be the same ratio just smaller quantities?
My kids love it, but I won’t go further than letting them have a sip of mine from time to time.
I know Huel is better than what I used to eat and I’m pretty sure it’s great for them, but growing bones and all that, I don’t mind experimenting with myself, but not my kids.
Besides, can you imagine the conversation with the school if you sent them in with shakes for lunch lol?
My daughters (6 and 9 yo) are eating Vanilla Huel as a meal replacement 1 time pro week (sometimes 2 times/week), and it’s fine, they like it. I prepare for them a shake of 400 kcal.
I have absolutely no moral issues at all with that. Actually, I have more moral issues when they eat other things, or ready meals ! Huel is much better than french fries with ketchup, or pasta/butter, or pizzas…
Hi all, so we generally say Huel is not suitable for children under 15 years old because children have different nutritional requirements to adults. However, this is really applied if you are thinking of replacing their diet 100% with Huel. However, if you are using it as a replacement for unhealthy snacks but still giving them other nutritious meals then that could be fine. This is something we are constantly reviewing. Adolescents of 15 to 18 years may include Huel as part of a balanced diet that includes a variety of other foods.
Hi I was also wondering if it would be safe to give my 2 year old occasionally ( twice a week sometimes less ) as sometimes he plain refuses to chew then chokes and then vomits. I was wondering if on these occasions it would be OK to give him huel as he loves the taste of the unsweetened version and will happily drink his meal. I’m not replacing his meals with it its only when he feels he can’t eat but can drink. And I know huel has all the nutrients he would need.
I’ve got a terribly underweight 14 yr old. He has autism and has always been skinny/underweight. For breakfast I feed him a smoothie of peanut butter, a raw egg, 250 ml full fat milk, a banana, cocoa powder and maple syrup. He necks that down and I’m sure its contributed to a 4kg weight gain in 6 months. I don’t see it any differently than giving Huel (except that my smoothie has a heck of a lot more calories!).
The only issue I can see is that most children need high calorie dense foods and I’m not convinced that Huel is. Given my DS issues I’d hate to replace an 800 calorie smoothie with a 400 calorie Huel breakfast.
But, yeah, its gotta be better than a bowl of cocoa pops
slight necromancy on the thread, but my 1 year old goes mental for huel, loves eating it with daddy.
I have a lovely pic of her sitting next to me with huel in a beaker and me with the huel cup, unfortunately I didn’t have a top on and that’s not something fit for public consumption
I’ve let my kids have a Huel smoothie a couple of time. 1 scoop Huel, milk, fruit, then blended. They loved it. I wouldn’t let them have it more often than once in a while, but I can’t see an issue with the odd one. It works great in a pinch like you are running behind, you have a lot to do, and you’ve run out of bread, and there isn’t enough cereal for all 5 kids, but oh, look, frozen berries, a full 4pint carton of milk and Huel! Happy fed kids.
As I’m sure anyone following these forums is well aware, the latest version of Huel contains a low dose of fluoride. In low doses, fluoride improves the health of bones and teeth. Too much fluoride leads to fluorosis, which damages bones and teeth. Dental fluorosis tends to occur when teeth are still developing, and children are probably more vulnerable to overdoses of fluoride.
It’s very difficult to calculate total fluoride intake. WHO only seem to provide recommendations for the amount of fluoride that should be present in drinking water. Their recommendation is 1.5 mg per litre of water. Most parts of the UK either have this level naturally or add it to the water. Given that we consume aprox 2.5 litres per day, this gives us about 3.75 mg of fluoride from our water. A day’s worth of Huel contains 3.5mg of fluoride, almost doubling your intake from water. I don’t really want to get into the “is this good for adults?” debate, but it seems like a bad idea for anyone who is still developing teeth.
More than happy to be shown evidence to the contrary.
Our tap water always contains less than 1.5 milligrams per litre
(equivalent to one and a half parts per million) which is the level
considered safe by the World Health Organisation. In most areas it is
much lower than this.
The NHS reckons that about 10% of the population receves water that has had fluoride added;
Around 5.8 million people in England receive fluoridated water. This
means fluoride has been added to bring it up to around 1mg of fluoride
per litre of water, which is a level found to reduce tooth decay levels.
So its not that diffrent from the 2012 map, looking at the map and the numbers from the NHS I would hazard a guess that 15% of England is drinking water with ~1mg/l. Most of the rest have lower levels. Assuming the kid doesn’t drink a lot of tea (which is anouther significan fluoride source) they are probably more at risk of weak teeth from not enough fluoride than fluorisis from too much. Either way, worth knowing what the water in your area is like.
