I was actually up for giving this a go until I read the about page where it talks about pink slime and beaver anuses, if you want people to make life style choices this sort of language doesn’t work. I was genuinely interested in this but now it now feels like a vegan PR push and I don’t trust what I’m reading.
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I though pink slime was real?
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I haven’t found anything yet about beaver anuses or pink slime but I’m now motivated to seek those posts out. Might be entertaining.
The forum is full of all sorts of people posting their own views and using their own vocabulary. I doubt every post reflects an accurate or scientific description. I’m sure you can use your own powers of intellect to make an informed choice.
All I can add in my own opinion is that I’m happy with the product and very pleased that it helps me manage a healthier nutrition while away from home living in a truck.
I’m definitely a omnivore and enjoy ALL food. To much food to be honest. And truckstop greasy spoons serving huge man sized portions exacerbate my poor diet.
Huel works well for me. Read info and decide for yourself.
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Appears to be a reference to this
http://huel.com/pages/about-huel
but I must admit it completely passed me by and hasn’t put me off at all.
Wasn’t it Jamie Oliver who exposed pink slime?
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People specifically ask us if a lot of these things are in Huel. It’s useful to have them on the website, as people search them out specifically. Especially about castoreum, I’ve been asked about that a fair few times.
We don’t want to push our ideals on anybody, but we do want to provide as much information as we can on the website.
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I am a vegan and castoreum is something that I am asked about a lot. Good to see it mentioned.
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Just as a remark, that there’s a genuine interest in stuff like this: Castoreum (from beavers) is used as “natural flavouring” to substitute vanilla flavour (see wiki). I find it useful to know that Huel doesn’t use it for their vanilla product.
Sorry to hear, that you feel this way. But I found all official information on the website actually very fact-based and relevant. (And I’m personally nowhere near a vegan lifestyle)
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Playing devil’s advocate here, but I think the problem isn’t so much with whether ‘pink slime’ is a real thing or not - it’s the sensationalist language that’s the issue.
The term ‘pink slime’ is deliberately designed to provoke revulsion, even though the stuff itself is perfectly safe (and, dare I say, nutritious - it’s the coating in breadcrumbs and deep frying that’s the problem). Same goes for calling castoreum ‘beaver anus’ - they’ve used that term in order to make the reader think “Eww! That’s disgusting!”, even though the substance itself is perfectly safe and regularly consumed the world over.
Obviously there are other issues if you’re vegetarian/vegan, but as an omnivore there are no intrinsic problems with eating either of these things. The choice of words gives the impression of an agenda, and it starts to get a bit Food Babe.
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Thanks Arno, this is correct. As a non-vegan (I realise from other forum pieces I’m making myself a target here) but essentially I agree with many principals, I eat a vegan breakfast now everyday which is 33% better than 6 months ago. I’m looking for healthy, sustainable food sources.
Ultimately as a vegan food source which Huel is, the expectation and assumption from everyone reading this is that is does not contain pink slime or beaver anus, so why mention it? If it did how would it be vegan?
The purpose of me reading the information is to acknowledge how it’s a sustainable food source and understand the nutritional value of Huel and whether it’s a food supplement or replacement.
What I’m hopeful is to find a non judgemental approach to a vegan lifestyle so that I can read and make informed decisions about what I eat. (I try to do this with my non-vegan food sources too). This is true of many non vegans and sensational impact related terms that carry judgement are not helpful.
I agree the term ‘pink slime’ is quite an inflammatory term. However, the difficulty is that that’s what it’s known as. People ask do you about pink slime, not lean finely textured beef (which I agree definitely sounds a lot better).
The same with castoreum. @Fredi_Yates people often ask if we put “beaver anus” in Huel, as they see it is vanilla flavour, not that it is vegan, so having a page where people can search for it is useful. It’s better to have it in there than not.
It’s a difficult balance though, so thanks for raising. The whole team, and James especially, do not want to promote bad science or nutrition. So anything like this is good to talk about
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My advice is to try not to get put off by a few words. I appreciate that they are rather extreme terms to use. Ultimately, though, it’s the product itself that matters. As someone who has used Huel since August last year, I highly recommend it. It tastes nice, makes me feel good, and saves a lot of time and hassle.
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Who cares what a few ppl say in a few posts. I’m usually a full-on carnivore btw - although at the moment, due to experimenting with Huel, i’m almost 100% vegan.
Thanks for the positive responses, really making me think seriously about giving this a go. I’ve never attempted any form of meal replacement before so am reading maybe more than most.
Agree with other posters.
I hadn’t read that from the huel site and I think it’s a bit daft but it doesn’t change how I feel about the product or the community here.
Sure the website wording is a bit silly - but the vast majority of the people on here (including myself) seem to be more interested in a healthy lifestyle than anything else (or a combination of factors).
I think the very ‘un internet’ like adult comment you received to your original post says it all.
And I absolutely recommend you try huel as part of your lifestyle - whether or not, like me, you enjoyed a good hunk of beef for dinner or a good old glass of huel.
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I think it is unfortunate PR hype myself.
For instance, “pink slime” is a pejorative term, and unlike what is implied, most people do NOT know what it is. Most people connote “pink slime” as entire animal carcasses thrown in a vat, melted down, strained into a giant vat to form a paste, soaked in ammonia, and then mixed with food coloring to it resembles meat again. So by using the term, I’d argue that Huel is progressing this urban legend.
The list seems someone duplicitous also, “pink slime” (pejoratively) is boneless lean beef trimmings which is treated with small amounts of ammonia hydroxide. So adding “ammonia” later in the list is redundant.
And “beaver anuses”? That’s clearly fear-mongering. Can anyone name another food product that contains beaver anuses? No. Castor sacs are scent glans. Almost all castoreum is used in perfumes. The annual food industry consumption is very low, around 300 pounds, whereas vanillin is over 2.6 million pounds annually. In the words of Snopes, “The publicity afforded castoreum in recent years via alarmist food activists and “Did you know?” social media posts is vastly overblown. The use of castoreum in common food products today is exceedingly rare, in large part because collecting the substance is difficult (and therefore expensive).”
And what is the difference between “added sugar” and “high fructose corn syrup”? The reality is, a sugar is a sugar. They are both the same; HFCS has no differencing health claims/dangers than regular sugar. Even the American Medical Association came to this conclusion: “High-fructose corn syrup does not appear to contribute more to obesity than other caloric sweeteners.” So again, duplicitous to list both.
I read a lot of this page as alarmist, using inflammatory language at the expense of educating, and keeping alive misinformation that shouldn’t be advanced.
All this being said, if Huel thinks this page is good marketing (and ironically, I honestly think it is good marketing aimed at the majority of the population), then keep the page up. But personally, I think it plays to the lowest denominator. And a defining characteristic of the Huel/soylent/powdered food market is that it is based in science, not pseudo-science and advancing fear-mongering.
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If it’s what people are searching Google for, or asking them via email, then they have to put it on their site…
Its hardly like they’ve posted YouTube videos of animals at the slaughter house on the site.
Nobody is asking the company if Huel contains Pink Slime. Or gelatin. (Huel is vegan.)
Nobody is asking the company if Huel contains ammonia. Or carbon monoxide.
Nobody is asking the company if Huel contains beaver anus. Or red dye made from boiled insects.
Worked on me. How the hell did they figure out it tasted like vanilla!?
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Well let’s be honest, with the amount of crap pumped into most ingredients that constitute a typical western diet, you’d be better off washing down beaver anus with a tall glass of pink slime.
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Well, it’s probably quite rare. But there are a lot of strange, curious people in this world, so I wouldn’t rule it out completely.