Hey guys - been using Huel for something like 4/5 months now, just had my first shipment of the new v.2.0 and wanted to share my thoughts!
First, I really appreciate the sodium addition. I often found myself with salt cravings even after a meal of Huel and would often have some crisps or a few salted peanuts.
Taste wise, it’s actually more different to v1.2 than I expected, but not in a good or a bad way, just different. I think it’s going to take me a few days to get used to it.
Perhaps it’s just me but it also seems to blend in the shaker a lot better as well.
Bear in mind the salt in Huel v2.0 is at a level that is widely recognised to be harmful to health and exceeds the recommended upper maxima of the EU, the WHO, the NHS, Blood Pressure UK, British Heart Foundation, among others.
So while Huel v1.2 + one pack of crisps a day might have been an optimal salt intake for you, it is likely you are getting far far more than that with v2.0.
I would usually have 3 two scoop Huel shakes a day (this is just a lunch replacement). I am not sure the exact salt content in v1.2 but I think switching to v2.0 would be something like the equivalent of having three packets of ready salted crisps a day extra (or more). My 6 scoop Huel lunch has the same salt as 6 packets of crips! And that would be just my lunch! If you have Huel for breakfast or otherwise use more obviously it will be even more salt.
I just want to try to get across the scale of the levels we are talking about. Yes, for many people on a high Huel diet there was not enough salt in the last one, but that could be rectified by adding a pinch, or as you say having a few nuts. Every scoop of Huel v2.0 has the same salt as a packet of walkers crisps. It think that goes way beyond the kind of supplementary salt people were taking with v1.2.
A scoop is 38g, a pack is 35g. Each scoop of Huel has the same salt as a pack of crips. 6 scoops a day = salt from 6 packs of crips. Its quite a lot I think!
So the change from v1.2 to v2.0 for anyone having say 4+ scoops a day is the equivalent of several packs of crisps supplemental salt - much more than one pack, or a handful of nuts.
Here is another way of thinking about it using the per 2000 calories Huel uses.
2000 kcal Huel v2.0 = 6.4g salt.
2000 kcal of Walkers Ready Salted = 5.4g salt. (11.7 packs at 171 kcal per pack * 0.46g salt)
If you ask someone what would be wrong with a diet consisting purely of Walkers Ready Salted Crisps I think most peoples first answer would be that would be too much salt. Huel v2.0 is nearly 20% saltier than that!
Huel - 18% saltier than Walkers Ready Salted!
For a 2000kcal user on Huel v1.2 the salt was 3.4g a day (I found this figure posted on the forum). This is below the recommended value of 3.75g a day
Supplementing 1 pack of crips results in something just below 4g a day. Very reasonable. Safely below the thresholds suggested by WHO (5g) and the EU (6g).
Switching to v2.0 results in 6.4g a day, the equivalent of supplementing v1.2 with the salt from 6 and a half packs of crips!
For me the real problem is that I thought Huel was carefully designed by knowledgable nutritionists. If they mistook max salt for recommended salt when reducing salt is the single most well known and universally accepted dietary health intervention you wonder how much you can trust them for anything else? The EU numbers were explicit renamed a few years ago (from “Guideline Daily Amounts” to “Reference Intake”) to avoid exactly this mistake.
How can you describe doubling the salt content of Huel to now be nearly 20% higher than salted crisps as the addition of “a tiny amount”.
Never mind the flouride thing which I to my ming has less serious health consequences but seems an equally bizarre decision (it only has benefit topically applied to teeth - there is no dietary benefit to ingesting SF).
I realise I might be coming across as a bit of an internet crazy person but my IBS is back with a vengence and I really miss Huel v1.2 which was working so well for me.
Really disappointed that there is now so much salt in Huel! It’s making me reconsider if this is really the product I want to take! I’m cabin crew and was replacing my meals onboard with Huel, but with this amount of sodium I really don’t think it’s any healthier! Very disappointing and I’ve recommended this product to so many colleagues!