Pesticide-Free Huel?

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43

Yes slightly nitpicking, however maybe I should have been more clear… I didn’t get into my diet/lifestyle and reasons for it as I don’t think it has any relevant value to the original post and frankly I think others would find it boring! I have been extremely ill this year and have had to eliminate certain things from a purely health and self preservation level, because of adverse reactions.

I am currently taking medication that is helping me to recover (wahoo!) but one of the side effects affect my appetite, and make me feel constantly nauseous. This makes it hard for me to eat and get my proper nutrition, so thats why I have been so happy to find Huel. It enables me to get what I need even when I am not able to stomach food as it’s much easier for me to force a drink down, than a plate of food.

In no way was I saying to change Huel, or even agreeing with the original question of wanting a list of pesticides etc.
I agree that with so many companies using the terms ecological, organic and natural, which are not regulated (or are but very loosely) does muddy the waters but on the other hand there are relevant bodies who’s only purpose is to fiercely regulate their ‘label’ or ‘stamp’, which is what the original poster linked to with the Swedish booklet.

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As a plant scientist I can say that you would lose me as a customer if you started spouting all this “natural is better” and “organic” crap. I want science, not scare-mongering. I want the most sustainable, efficient, least-harmful processes used when creating my food, not the most “natural”.

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Our houses and towns are as natural as wasp’s nests, termites’ nests or beaver dams.
By the way, is there any trollicide in Huel? I wish that!

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“Natural” is a very vague term which is often used in marketing but which doesn’t really mean much. The amanita phalloides mushroom is natural, but eating it will kill you.

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I can see where the OP is coming from, but when I buy oats, rice, peas, flaxseed, sunflower seeds and coconut from the supermarket, I would rarely consider this level of scrutiny. I guess the first step would be to get a list of the industry standard accepted levels of acceptable pesticides for each ingredient. I’m assuming that the suppliers of the ingredients used in Huel do conform to recognised standards and that they will be regularly tested to ensure this.

Rather than asking Huel to go through the complication of trying to get the actual details from suppliers, which would involve quite some work, presumably, the findings of which may or may not be reliable, why not simply not trust them at all, and determine what pesticides are actually present?

This would simply involve getting a sample of Huel tested every now and then to see exactly what’s in it, and to check anything that is there (if anything) is well within recommended guidelines. Something like this: http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2009/October/05100901.asp

No idea of the cost involved in this, but the above solution is pretty low-tech, like litmus paper. I’ve seen DIY kits for testing pesticides in water on ebay, which are fairly inexpensive, so presumably there are similar kits for testing food too?

My advice if it really concerns you, test it yourself and if the results indicate a problem, share your findings. If there is a specific problem I’m sure the people at Huel will be straight onto it with a solution, identifying the ingredient in question. Until then, I’m pretty sure they are providing the same food quality that I might expect from my local supermarket that I would be eating anyway.

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@HarryTuttle that is a good idea we have considered it.

The issue we will what to test for, the list of pesticides is extensive, here is one list, there are plenty others - http://www.pan-uk.org/archive/Projects/Food/whatpesticides.html

Times this by the 6 main ingredients and it’s a lot of testing. But we will continue to investigate.

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Pretty sure that if they refuse a one-time test for GI levels (which they acknowledge is an important benchmark), Huel isn’t interested in occasional tests for pesticides.

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It depends on how much the tests cost.

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Ric, you’re obviously a very intelligent person. Why don’t calculate an approximate estimate from the known GIs of Huel’s ingredients? Could be a fun project to keep you out of mischief, and also a nice gesture to save the business £3500 during this festive time of giving and joy. :grinning:

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I wasn’t being snarky.

Marcus, you’re obviously a very intelligent person. Why not stop trolling people if you disagree with their post. Could be a fun project to keep you out of mischief, and also a nice gesture. :grinning:

Like you, I clearly support Huel. Just because I’m not a 100% fanboi doesn’t mean you have to reply every time you don’t like my opinion.

If you are so concerned, and you have the know-how, why don’t you calculate an approximate estimate from the known GIs of Huel’s ingredients? Could be a nice gesture to save the business £3500 during this festive time of giving and joy.

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It’s a bit more complicated than doing a calculation. You also need 10 volunteers.

• Testing conducted according to established expert protocol (WHO/FAO 1998)

• Approved by an independent ethics committee

• All testing is carried out by an experienced GI testing team monitored by GI experts and under

medical supervision

• The latest in glucose analysis equipment – in house static glucose analyzer offering a very high

degree of accuracy

• The GI of a product is determined using a minimum of 10 volunteers

• The product is tested in duplicate

• The glucose reference (control) is tested in triplicate and repeated for each set of testing

• If required, testing can be carried out to determine: available carbohydrate content, insulin response

and various other metabolic markers A comprehensive in-house nutrient analysis service, product

reformulation and our ingredients experts back-up the GI testing service

PRICES

£3,500 per product

They also suggest a insulin analysis.

The price for the insulin analysis per product is £9,000. The turnaround time for one product will be 2-3 weeks on top of the weeks needed to carry out the GI testing.

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Your words, not mine.

But I can reply if I have a comment regarding something you’ve said, as anybody can. You’re right, I don’t have to. But I can, and if I want to I will, as do you and anyone else.

But…correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t even drink Huel, because they don’t have it in the USA yet? Sometimes I wonder why you’re here. I’m not saying someone can’t be here if they can’t buy Huel because they live in another country. But…you seem to find so many faults with Huel, it just kind of baffles me why you keep coming here. But maybe I’m missing something, I don’t know. Maybe you can help me out with that? Is it because you want to improve it and you’re trying to help? But…I don’t know…that seems a bit strange from someone who’s never even tried it. If it was me, I’d be more focused on the one that I could actually buy and drink (Soylent) than one I can’t. But maybe that’s just me.

And by the way, that whole “fanboy” thing is rather strange. I just like Huel and want to see the business succeed because I want to keep drinking it. It’s that simple really. But if I don’t like something I say so. Like with the unflavoured Huel, which I thought was horrible and kind of pointless, but that’s just my opinion.

As someone who doesn’t even drink Huel, and who seems to deliberately find fault with so many things Julian says, you seem to fit the criteria of a troll more than me. In my opinion of course, and other may of course disagree. But I think I’ve been quite helpful to lots of people since I’ve been here. I know you have been helpful to people too, and that deserves to be acknowledged. But you said that word, not me.

But I may actually do the calculation. I was thinking that when I made that last post. It is just the kind of thing I would do actually.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year :grinning:

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I like Huel. You are correct; I only don’t drink it because it isn’t available in the United States.

I don’t find fault with so many things Julian says. I take issue with him bashing competition, because I think a rising tide raises all ships. I take issues with him claiming other products have a higher GI, when Huel can’t provide us with its own GI.

Of course you can comment on anything. But you have a habit of commenting on me personally, rather than the content. In this case, I made the observation that Huel won’t spend money to determine GI (which many people would like to see), so why would Huel spend money to indicate pesticides (since 1) very few people care about, OP not withstanding, and 2) Huel doesn’t make claims that it is pesticide free). If you think that isn’t a valid obeservation, that’s fine. But I think it is, and others might also. Comment on the claim; no need to direct comments personally to me.

It’s just common courtesy, Marcus. Like the community guidelines say:

“You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But, remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content. Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.”

The conversations here set the tone. Just because you add smiley face icons every time you critique me personally doesn’t make it a “good” tone.

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Hi @Ric

Thanks for your feedback. To my mind you make a valued contribution here, but sometimes the way people speak with each other online differs between the UK and US - maybe there’s the issue. I’m well aware of this as I own/run a very busy 15 year old discussion forum and I’ve witnessed this many times.

I know I’m bias to stick up for my colleague, but I don’t feel Julian does ‘bash’ competition: he merely points out where Huel is better. Like me, Julian is highly passionate about Huel.

People will disagree online and, even those with a vested interest in a company, have a right to debate an issue and offer an alternative opinion, in the same way that we welcome yours.

The GI issue is a complex one: to do a proper test there is a lot involved. However, it’s likely that the GI of Huel is low - maybe even lower than we think, because some of the non-carb ingredients are known for slowing GI (that’s gastro-intestinal, not glycaemic index!) transit time which will have a bearing on a glycaemic response.

Does this make sense?

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Of course it makes sense. My guess is that the GI of Huel is lower than you think. That’s even more reason to test the GI. Then you can definitively say that Huel has a lower GI than the competitors.

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@Ric Well, you make some fair comments there.

There may be some truth in what you say about me tending to disagree with you personally. In the interest of transparency, perhaps I can explain why…

When I first discovered Huel, I thought it was brilliant. I really liked the drink, and I really liked the way Julian was doing things here. I could see that it was in its early days, just starting. I felt enthusiastic about it all.

So then you came along, and it seemed to me that you were giving Julian an unnecessarily hard time. I have perhaps given you a bit of a hard time in return because I felt like somebody needed to. To me, you seemed like a trouble-maker. You seemed to be deliberately stirring up trouble. If I misjudged that, fair enough. But that is definitely how it seemed to me. If I seem to have singled you out in disagreements, maybe it’s because you were the only one who was saying so much stuff I disagreed with. And it all seemed so unnecessary from where I was standing (although it’s worth acknowledging that you have made some valid points along the way too).

You also like to bring things back to the forum rules, when it seems you break them yourself. You remind me that we should not make things personal, but you make things personal too. Even in your last message, you quote the rules saying not to comment on the tone, then comment on the tone of my messages. That doesn’t really make any sense to me. You can’t really have it both ways.

As I say, if I have misunderstood anything here, then that’s fair enough, I accept that. As James says, maybe it’s partly due to a difference between the way British and American people. Maybe it’s partly due to the nature of text-based communication having a high risk of misunderstandings. Or maybe my brain just works differently to yours.

I understand most conflicts are 50/50, and I acknowledge my part. I could easily have ignored the person who appeared (to me) to be a trouble maker. But if you want to know why I have behaved as I have, that’s it. If you see things differently (and if I too seemed like a trouble maker from your point of view), that’s fair enough, I can accept that.

Perhaps we could shake hands (virtually speaking) and both make an effort to get along better, for the sake of the greater good?

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Wow. I think this thread could use some pesticides.

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So, 15 months later, any update yet?

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@sanovine yes we have got some details for you @Gulliver_Huel will supply the details.

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@sanovine You can view our pesticide reports on our Huel Food Safety and Quality Controls page

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