I tried my first Huel today (unflavored). So far as I expected, taste similar to porridge. I like it! I’m planning to use it for at least one meal a day (morning or lunch).
I also like the approach of Huel that it tries to use “natural” (better: naturally processed?) ingredients. But I could not find any informations about the vitamines and the other non-“macro” ingredients. Which of them are they synthetic and not identical to the natural one? I read that this can make a big difference how effective the vitamine can be used by the body.
I’d really like to find more information especially about the production process of all the ingredients used in Huel and more information about which ingredients are purposely combined to work well together. I know, this is still a field of research, but it is interesting to know how deep the Huel developers have put thought into this topic.
Sounds like you want to start making your own Huel Sebastian
Ingredient info is over here in loads of detail (Huel give way more info on these than other 'lents) but specific production techniques, that’s going to be Huel IP and likely to be away from curious eyes.
Whats wrong with wanting to know where your food comes from and how it is produced? I think this is the main difference Huel makes from other Lents, that it tries to convince people that all the ingredients are natural. However they haven’t convinced me yet…
There’s lots of info on the internet about natural vs. synthetic vitamins, but I could not find any reliable source, as they were always blog entries on vitamin pill sites or organic nutrition sites. I am very sure that Huel has done their research and have literature lists about this topic, like it is found on the ingredients page. So I just like to know what their result is.
Of course price/effort vs. benefit is always a sensitive topic. Huel could not be that cheap if they would use the top high tech ingredients available on the market. But I’m ok with a response like “we choose this and that because it is the best trade off between bio availability and cost, according to this and that reference”. However, the information on the ingredients page is always like “we chose this, because it is the best.”, which might be true in some cases, but not for all the ingredients. A little bit more honesty would be great!
Nothing at all, I just think it’s very unlikely a company is going to go into the kind of detail you want sadly, but hey… I don’t work at Huel so it’s not my place to say.
Have you had a look at the Soylent DIY site? There’s quite a lot of information on nutrient profiles and various ingredients. It’s US based but might have what you’re looking for.
The majority of the vitamins and minerals come from the 6 main ingredients: oats, flaxseed, pea, rice, sunflower and coconut.
The tiny vitamin and mineral blend (less than 2% of Huel I believe) that’s included is to top up the small amounts of vitamins to ensure Huel reaches 100% of all the vitamins and minerals you need. You can find out which ones these are by looking at the ingredients list (we list all the vitamins/minerals included in the . Some of these are synthetic, such as Ascorbic acid, whilst others are natural like K1.
This is partly based off cost, but more so bio-availability. For example, Folic acid is cheaper than the source of Folate we use, L-methylfolate Calcium (L-methylfolate Calcium is 1000x more expensive!). However, L-methylfolate Calcium is the biologically active version of Folate, so definitely an improvement and worth using.
The short answer is, that it depends on the vitamin/mineral on how bio-available it is. But that’s why we have James Collier BSc (Hons) to help figure this out and ensure Huel is providing what it says it does.
Do you think it might be possible to publish a list similar to the nutrition tables but with information about the ratio of natural/added parts? E.g. Vitamin A: 164mug(98mug nat.) / 100g
This would be really interesting, and increase the trust in Huel as a mostly natural product.
It’s unlikely. It would be giving the recipe away to competitors essentially and just allow us to be cloned over and over.
Plus, ‘natural’ and synthetic doesn’t necessarily determine the quality of the vitamin and mineral source, so it’s just hurting us and potentially misleading people who haven’t read into it deeper.
Nah mate, Huel really doesn’t play the natural angle. The strongest contender for the “all natural” prize is probably ambronite, but other *lents marketed that way include nutburg and bertrand. Huel doesn’t use the word natural, and its minimalist branding don’t imply it either.
I am, actually, working on a couple of articles that would be relevant here and would answer your questions; my workload is quite high and I haven’t been well, that’s why they’re delayed.
Thank you Mr. Collier, I’m looking forward to read your articles! I’d really appreciate if you could post a status update about were we can find these articles when they are released.
