Excruciating cluster Migraine headaches and severe eye pain which only started after using huel chocolate flavour. I didn’t make the link until tonight by looking back on my Samsung health and my medical records and bingo they coincide. I have been suffering for over a month and I have been begging my doctors for help (I’m on all sorts of medication now) and I’ve been to see a specialist ophthalmologist. I am now waiting to see a neurologist but with the coronavirus being around goodness knows when that will be, thats how bad I’ve been. I believe it to be the Huel but I will have to double check by testing it myself. I am going to completely come off it then go back on once my symptoms have cleared. I will then give you an update. I went on this Huel product after watching ‘Trust me I’m a doctor’ on tv in February 2020
I get migraines too but have never suffered with them as a result of reaction to Huel’s ingredients – I can’t immediately see anything in the ingredients that would trigger such a severe migraine either – assuming chocolate isn’t one of your triggers – the only other thing I can think of is perhaps your blood sugar changing causing the migraine.
What percentage of your diet were you using Huel for if you don’t mind me asking?
It could be sucralose, it can cause a bunch of issues in people.
The only sucralose I have eaten in decades is in the Huel chocolate, I don’t drink sodas or eat other things where it is typically found. I get awful, painful bloating, cramps and noxious gas that has left me in cold sweats, gawking as I smelled it.
Only on chocolate Huel days (otherwise it’s UU) , it was easy to deduce. With three bags of it, I tried to lower the percentage… even 20g results in discomfort and the same volume of potent gas.
I only have 200kcal every day for breakfast
hmm possibly – it’s true that Sucralose can cause gastro intestinal issues but is pretty rare as a migraine trigger - but not unheard of.
It states that it contains sucralose but it’s way down on the list so I imagine there is not very much but it doesn’t state how much! I’ve never had a problem eating chocolate or sugar products before now
Point to note: my banana flavoured hule also contains sucralose however my BLACK chocolate version doesn’t contain sucralose- so I could give that a try to test your theory, once my cluster headache has gone that is, thanks Indigo
Im addicted to refined sugars, I don’t do diet foods or fake sugars. Just the real stuff for me. Hence why it was easy to narrow down.
When they do a gluten free black without sucralose I’ll try it.
Jay - Black is GF already and uses Stevia instead of Sucralose.
How didn’t not know this??
Thank you!
Edit to add, black isn’t in UU yet, thats why I had in my brain ‘not for me’.
Just to let you know sucrolose and stevia are migraine triggers any time I have these I have a migraine these were confirmed by my doctor. I wish they would have the option to just add sugar. I cannot stomach the unflavoured one no matter what I add to it.
Unfortunately huel has lost a customer because of using these ingredients also my brother had to stop buying huel because they were giving him headache aswell
The amount of sugar you would need to add to achieve the same effect achieved by the sucralose would be huge and it would make the product unhealthy and unviable.
Whilst it’s unfortunate the sweeteners have had this effect on you and others, it doesn’t effect the majority of people in this way.
Huel do sell the unsweetened version of the product which you can then flavour and sweeten with sugar if you want.
People complain about sweeteners, but it’s not until you try the unsweetened version you realise how important they are to make food enjoyable.
Hey Jay, I would reitterate what Coup has said here. We absolutely do offer the option you are after. Our Unflavoured & Unsweetened version is exactly what you want (we have this in v3.0, Black Edition and Complete Protien) and you can add as much sugar as you like - although you would need to add a fair amount. But do give it a go, you can blend it up with fruit and any other stuff you would like.
In addition, our Bars do not include artificial or natural sweetener, they’re sweetened with coconut sugar.
Hope this helps and you have another go with our unsweetened products
You don’t offered flavoured huel without sweeteners, which is what I want. I don’t want to add anything I want to be able to buy a flavoured packet like everyone else
Also coup I think it affects more people than they are aware, I would have never known that sweeteners trigger migraines had I not been forced to keep a food diary.
They eat or drink something it gives them a headache they don’t assume its the sweetener in the huel forum alone many people have said they get headaches
I understand, unfortunately there is more to it from a food science perspective than that. Just purely adding flavour, without sweetener is like adding herbs to a stew without salt. The sweetener acts like a flavour enhancer and brings out the flavouring more. Unlike the stew analogy, if you keep adding flavouring you end up with something the new product development team call flavour burn. It basically just doesn’t work like that.
Creating a version of Huel with just sugar/sugar alternatives in doesn’t sit right with us either, since it would diminish our nutrition credentials. So many foods are high in sugar, it’s almost impossible to get away from, but adding some to your Huel is easy.
You can have stew without salt!
I’m not saying you can’t, but the point is you need to add more flavours. And taking it back to Huel and flavouring, by adding more and more flavour you create a horrible effect called flavour burn.
Histamine intolerance could also be a problem - the tolerable threshold is different for different kinds of people, so it is often diagnosed relatively late. Huel contains almost no histamine, sure, but this particular flavour acts as a histamine liberator (via thyramine and phenyethylamine).
Doing a test whether this is the case is easy - just take some antihistamine (like loratadine or cetirizine); if this does not help you can rule out a histamine intolerance. If it does help you have found the problem.
Sorry this is incorrect. The idea of “histamine liberators” hasn’t been proved scientifically in humans and even then the amounts found in the flavourings used in Huel are minimal.