Not true for me. The time I save in the morning I spend on journal writing and meditation. The time I save during my breaks and lunch time I use for exercise, either going out for walks or doing things like pressups, etc. As for watching TV, yes, I can happily sit in front of Netflix in the evening, but I usually eat my evening meal while watching something anyway, so “normal” meals definitely don’t get in the way of watching TV.
During the day time, I like how I can just conveniently sip away on Huel while I’m working. Then when it comes to break time I don’t even have to think about food at all. But then I can still enjoy a nice evening meal. The best of both worlds in my opinion.
As a bonus, my body seems to have the easiest time digesting Huel. I struggle digesting some other foods, but Huel goes through so easily most of the time.
It is mainly an electrolyte thing to be fair, though this is something that would very possibly be missing from a multivitamin + solid food diet, especially in optimal quantities. The main issue with multivitamins is the effect of stuff like phytic acid and other antinutrients, which can be solved either with a higher dose or by binding the micronutrient to an amino acid. Most multivitamin and mineral supplements, unfortunately, use quite poorly absorbed forms of the micronutrients, so these wouldn’t be as good as more well designed meal replacements.
Ok, so how would you be supplementing them? This becomes an issue of bioavailability and timing, and my suspicion is the forms in Huel are more bioavailable than the ones you’d supplement. Taste of those electrolytes is also a large issue, as you’re going to struggle to just dissolve them in water and drink. And if you’re mixing them in some sort of protein shake, and consuming twice per day like you would have to to ensure absorption, well… you’re kind of looking at a complete food, minus a few ingredients.
Phytic acid wouldn’t affect supplements more than food, but the point is good meal replacements like Huel account for this somewhat by increasing dosage, whilst typical multivitamin and mineral supplements don’t. Optimally you’d use a bunch of chelated minerals to maximise their absorption, as phytic acid wouldn’t affect that.
Well, magnesium is the best example here. The most common magnesium supplement is magnesium oxide, as it contains the most elemental magnesium per gram. Despite that though, it has only a 4% bioavailability: “Results indicated relatively poor bioavailability of magnesium oxide (fractional absorption 4 per cent)” - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11794633
You’ll notice that in a lot of multivitamins and minerals, the forms (especially of the minerals used) are often inorganic eg zinc oxide (49.9% bioavailability - http://www.harnisch.com/en/wellness-foods-supplements/news/newsdetails/bioavailability-of-zinc-citrate-is-comparable-to-that-from-zinc-gluconate-and-higher-than-from-zinc-oxide/ ). You’ll see in that same article that the two organic forms tested (citrate and gluconate) have bioavailabilities of 61.3% and 60.9% respectively - this trait of organic forms being absorbed better applies to other minerals too, so if you decide to use supplements, be sure to get a good one that uses organic forms. Even within organic forms though, there can be wide variance, as can be seen from this paper: “Bis-glycinate administration was safe and well tolerated and bis-glycinate significantly increased the oral bioavailability of zinc (+43.4%) compared with the gluconate”. Taking the first paper’s 60.9% absorption for gluconate, and adding an extra 43.4% for the bisglycinate form gives an overall absorption of 87.3306% for zinc bisglycinate, 75% greater than the inorganic oxide form.
Even if the forms in a MVM aren’t perfectly bioavailable:
Nor are the forms in foods
You have nutrients from food too
Perfection isn’t necessary
I also take magnesium citrate with my multivitamin and mineral.
Nutrients aren’t perfectly balanced in Huel either. Consider zinc, only slightly over the NRV but probably poorly bioavailable.[1] Consider manganese and iron which, in a 2,400kcal diet, are over their upper tolerable limits.
A lot of your points are valid. My biggest criticism of multivitamins other than what I mentioned in my last post is more a criticism with the way they are often taken as opposed to the contents themselves - it is vital to take them with food, or a lot of the micronutrients won’t be absorbed as well.
While perfection isn’t necessary to survive, it does help a lot with thriving.
Magnesium citrate is a very good option, though I personally prefer magnesium bisglycinate. What dose is the supplement you’re taking in?
Whilst zinc in grains is fairly poorly absorbed, absorption is increased both by high protein content and high iron content, of which Huel has both.
Regarding upper limits of iron and manganese for a 2400kcal diet, there are a few issues with this. Firstly, the UTLs are based on a 2000kcal diet. Secondly, and specific to manganese, there has never been a single case of manganese overdose from food alone. All overdoses have been due to either inhalation in an industrial sense, or due to manganese dissolved into water in extremely high amounts. Regarding iron, the iron in Huel is all non-haem iron, which is less bioavailable than haem iron which is what I believe the UTL is based on (though don’t quote me on that). The needs for iron, however, are one of the ones that scale with a higher caloric intake, so it isn’t an issue either way.
I continue to be impressed by your knowledge on this topic. Even as someone who has read a lot about nutrition, I continue to learn new things from you, and for that I am grateful.
@XXX - I think we need to see what you mean by ‘semi-healthy diet’. I don’t like the word ‘healthy’ in respect of nutritional intake anyway.
In my considerable observation, you also couldn’t be more wrong in the types of people consuming Huel. ‘Nerds’ are a a small amount. Most are busy people from different backgrounds consuming Huel a couple of times a day. Maybe your observations are skewed because the ‘nerdy’ types you describe are the ones more likely to post on a discussion forum.
Also, Huel is a lot more than some milled food with vits and mins chucked in, which would fit your analogy of a sandwich and a vitamin supplement. What about the choice of our 6 main ingredients? The ratios of our macronutrients chosen in the proportions for good reason? And the source of some of the vits and mins in the blend?
Complete foods aren’t for all, of course, but they are for many and many people still haven’t heard about Huel. We live in a different society than we did 30 years ago. Things move quicker now and people do have less time. It’s wrong and I don’t like it, but it is the way of life and Huel fits in well for many.
I acknowledge I’m biased, but I am also a great love of optimum nutrition.
@JamesCollier Certainly the people on this forum largely fit into my categories, like you say. Out of my real life friends, only the nerdy ones are interested in complete foods. But sure, it’s anecdotal.
The ratio of your macros unbalance the micros somewhat though. And I’m not sure 150g protein is better than 80g. I definitely see positives: healthy fats, low glycemic index, plenty of fibre.
That’s because it absolutely is. The Upper Tolerable Limits are defined as the level of chronic daily intake at which no health issues will arise for almost all (97.5%) of the population. There is absolutely no issue eating just below - or even at - the upper tolerable limit for every single day of your life for the vast majority of people. This is even more true of manganese where the UTL of 11mg is questionable at best, as no toxicity reports from diet alone have ever been reported.
Yes vitamin C affects iron absorption by increasing it. Calcium (which Huel also has plenty of) decreases it. The reason for high vitamin C (other than antioxidant benefits) is to improve iron absorption so the high calcium absorption doesn’t inhibit it.
Yeah, perhaps a healthy diet would be sufficient, but a hell of a lot of people aren’t getting one, especially not one as good as Huel or certain other brands. It’s also more expensive, more time consuming and less convenient than a meal replacement shake.
I’m sure they try, but I’m not sure you can properly account for very long-term intakes. “Discernible” in medium-term studies doesn’t mean no long-term effect.
Here’s a study I dug up for you regarding magnesium oxide versus bisglycinate:
We can nit-pick all day but I think my claims largely stand!
They do take very large modifications in that document when they are unsure - in one case, they made the UTL 1% of the amount in which a study showed no effects, because they used a factor of 10 for a longer-term ingestion, and also a factor of 10 for the sample size. I guess we can debate whether that’s enough, but my suspcicion (along with the dieticians working for the EFSA) is that it definitely is.
Regarding the study, it seems counter-intuitive to compare results for someone with some of their bowel removed to a typical person. This meta-analysis compares various bioavailabilities of magnesium, and a little way in there is a nice table for easy comparison. Two of those studies have the following summary:
“Poor bioavailability of Mg oxide (4%) and a significantly higher bioavailability of Mg chloride, Mg 1-lactate & Mg aspartate (9-11%)”.
“Mg Oxide showed significantly lower absorption rates the Mgl-aspartate”.
"In its evaluation in 2005, the AFC Panel concluded that in humans the bioavailability of magnesium from magnesium L-aspartate was similar to that from other organic magnesium salts and the more soluble inorganic magnesium salts (EFSA, 2005a). Overall, it was concluded that organic salts of magnesium have the greatest water solubility and demonstrate a greater oral absorption and bioavailability compared to less soluble magnesium preparations such as magnesium oxide, magnesium hydroxide, magnesium carbonate and magnesium sulphate. "
The stable isotope method used in the study I cited is supposed to be most reliable (so I have heard).
But anyway, from the paper you linked (section 3.1):
The bioavailability of magnesium from ten organic and inorganic salts, including magnesium
aspartate, was assessed in rats using a stable isotope approach (Coudray et al., 2005). Ten
groups of eight male magnesium-depleted Wistar rats (6 weeks old) were fed for two weeks a
diet containing 550 magnesium/kg (target magnesium level of 600 mg/kg diet) either as
aspartate, oxide, chloride, sulphate, carbonate, acetate, pidolate, citrate, gluconate or lactate
salt. After 10 days of treatment the animals received, by gavage, a dose of 1.8 mg of 26Mg as
MgCl2 (showing the stable isotopes 24Mg = 2.33 %, 25Mg = 1.28 %, 26Mg = 96.38 %) . The
magnesium isotope ratios were determined in faeces and urine collected for 4 consecutive
days. Magnesium levels were also determined in plasma, bones and erythrocytes of the
animals. Magnesium was found to be bioavailable from all sources tested. Overall, magnesium absorption and retention values ranged from 51 to 67 % and from 39 to 49 %,
respectively. Magnesium gluconate showed the highest magnesium absorption and retention
values (approximately 67 and 49 %, respectively), followed by magnesium aspartate
(approximately 60 % and 47 %, respectively) and magnesium lactate (approximately 59 %
and 48 %, respectively). In general, magnesium from organic magnesium salts was slightly
more bioavailable than magnesium from inorganic salts in this study.
So bioavailibility didn’t vary much at all and seems far higher than 4%. Like I said, I do take magnesium citrate because I think it’s one of the best choices but I’m far less sure of your claim magnesium oxide is almost useless.
The difference between 51% and 67% is still very large, but again, that’s one study. This one shows a fractional absorption of oxide of 4%. Absorption of oxide is affected hugely by stomach acidity, as it must be reacted to form magnesium hydroxide for any to be used. This study even shows magnesium oxide to be no better than a placebo. Another study showing an organic form, citrate, has a far higher bioavailability than oxide.
Bioavailability varies from source to source, but when any reputable study is finding an absorption of 4%, that’s really not good. That, combined with oxide’s laxative effects, makes me view it very negatively. Chelated versions have other benefits too in many cases, due to what happens to the bound amino acid after it and the mineral are separated. Glycine, which is in mineral bisglycinates, can be very beneficial for sleep and muscle relaxation.
What I’m finding strange in all of this is how you called complete food enthusiasts ‘nerds’, yet you’re the one persisting in a debate about the absorption of micronutrients and the potential dangers of Manganese?!
