Scoop Size

Just wandering if anyone else has noticed this or has weighed it themselves;

Just got my first order of the Unflavoured & Unsweetened over the weekend and I measured 3 scoops and it came to 131g (roughly 3 x 44g). I’ve looked to try to find a definitive answer as to how much a scoop should weigh and I’ve seen 38g mentioned on my pack, but on the sticker it says a 5 meal a day serving is 98g (2 x 49g? 3 x 33g?) or a 4 meal a day serving is 122g (4 x 30g? 3 x 41g?).

I’m confused as to how much a scoop should actually hold and what a serving size is as it doesn’t seem clear to me? I’d rather not have to get the scales out each time I wanted a serving.

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Quick experiment - get a level scoop of Huel then press it down with your thumb. It will probably compress quite a bit. The weight of what you scooped didn’t change, the density did. But you could fit more Huel in and it’s still a scoop.

Huel is a powder and there will be a lot of air in that powder. How much air depends on how the Huel has been transported and stored. A scoop is a measure of volume. How much that volume weighs depends on the density of the Huel in it. Which may vary a bit. Scoops aren’t that accurate.

If you treat each bag in a similar way then it shouldn’t vary too much. So you could weigh for a while until you get a feel for it.

Or you could put your mixing beaker, with water, on a scale. Zero the scale. Then add powder until it reaches what you want.

Personally I don’t count calories so it isn’t that important for me. I do about 2 and a half scoops for breakfast with a banana. The weight of the banana probably varies as much as the exact power in each scoop.

I get all of that, I’ve been using powdered supplements for years, all with varying densities and none have been off by as much as this. I didn’t squash the Huel into the scoop or compact it, just used the usual technique of scooping the mixture a couple of times so all the gaps are filled then run my finger across the top to level it off. I used a scale on this occasion just to check but I’d rather not have to do that 3 times a day every day. Perhaps a smaller scoop would have a lesser margin for error, I’ve got a few old ones knocking about which I’ll try using.

I get your point RE: counting calories and whilst that may work for you, it certainly won’t for everyone. If you’re scooping in an extra 5g per scoop and having 12 scoops per day, that’s an extra 60g. If your target is maintenance or just below by 100-200 kcal, then the extra 60g, 240kcal, is actually going to take you out of a deficit and into a surplus. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that doing this everyday adds up to over 1000kcal extra per week.

I wasn’t suggesting you had necessarily compacted it yourself, just that it can be compacted so a scoop is inaccurate. It might be transport, storage, a lot of things.

I’d suggest weigh it for a bit longer and then see what the pattern is. I’m sure people here would be interested.

Sure, apologies if my tone came across accusatory, it wasn’t meant to be. I’ve had another serving today, which I weighed and I just did one long scoop in and levelled off the top. This time the first scoop came out at 36g, second at 43g, third was 39g - all 3 combined at 118g. My mixture in the bag certainly seems very clumpy and not very homogeneous so I guess this could just be the result, which is fine I guess - will just make sure to use the scales if I’m counting/logging calories and probably just not even bother with the scoop.

As much fun as it would be to keep experimenting and coming up with an average, I might pass on that one :grin:
(I suspect this may be what Huel have done to get to 38g)

I’ll just leave the advisory statement that the actual mixture in the scoop can vary quite a bit, (36g-44g), so beware if counting/logging calories!

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That’s exactly what I do. If you leave your scales out all the time, it’s no trouble to do!

I had a thought — maybe the new smoother recipe is denser than the old one? Went to experiment with my (2.2) bags of Huel and found this: my usual way of filling the scoop is to sweep it through the Huel and then, with my hand still in the bag and holding the scoop almost sideways, swipe the top of the full-to-overflowing scoop backwards and forwards against the side of the bag until it’s level (i.e. using the side of the bag to “wipe” any excess/heaped Huel off top of the scoop). I try not to press the Huel into the scoop, but inevitably a little of that will happen. Using this method I found I was getting 40g+ (once 44g).

That’s a bit higher than intended, so I tried doing it differently. This time I swept the scoop through the Huel, but then held it upright and just tapped it back and forth against the sides of the bag, to knock the heaped Huel off, until the scoop was level or just below level. Using this method I got 35-38g.

So, you can easily get a ±10% swing in the Huel you’re scooping just by minor alterations in the method you use to scoop it. If you care about precision then it’s probably worth testing and adjusting your technique until you get satisfactory results…

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