Thanks. But clear this up for me? Did you disagree with this
Or this
Or this
I’m glad you looked at the Huel page comparing it to Soylent and came to the conclusion that Huel looked better than Soylent. On the flip side, pretty sure if Soylent created their own page comparing Soylent to Huel, their product would look favorable.
Thanks for the business lesson. But by this metric, seeing that Soylent is ahead of Huel, Soylent is the best available option. I’m not sure that’s the point you were trying to advocate, though.
There is a reason Ford doesn’t go after GM, and vice versa. There’s a reason Coke doesn’t go after Pepsi. In the late 1980s, Pepsi regularly went after Coke. There’s a reason they stopped that marketing campaign.
I like the path Soylent has taken. Go to their discourse, and there are tons of reviews of competitors (including a couple of positive Huel hits and a couple more positive newspaper reviews). There is even a whole category committed to DIY recipes.
What isn’t present in the Soylent discourse: the founder of Soylent badmouthing other soylent products. My point being, for @Julian to do so just seems petty and amateurish.
Free delivery, oats and non-soya protein sources are all great merits. You are right, those would be good positives even without a direct comparison to Soylent or any of the other meal drinks which seems to contain soya.
Likewise.
“Badmouthing” is really overstating it. I think you need to read the Alternative to Soylent page again:
“Once you’ve finished reading, if you’re interested in trying Huel, then we’d love to have you as a customer. Or, if you think Soylent is a better match for your needs, then we encourage you to try them out.” [emphasis mine]
It is also worth keeping in mind that that particular page is not the front page of Huel. It is buried right down the bottom via an unobtrusive link. People will mainly find that page if they search for “Alternative to Soylent” in Google (as I did), which would indicate that they are interested in an alternative because Soylent isn’t quite what they are looking for (either delivery location or ingredients).
The front page of Huel contains absolutely no mention of Soylent, and does stand up on its own merits. For example:
“Everything your body needs.”
“Made in the UK. Free next day delivery.”
“Huel contains: No added sugar, no meat or animal products, no dairy, no soy, no eggs, making it suitable for those with even the most complex dietary requirements.”
If instead, the main headline on the front page was: “Doesn’t contain soy, unlike that awful Soylent which you should definitely stay away from”, then you’d have more of a point.
Huel having free UK delivery and not containing soy, both big positives for me.
Not for me personally, because I want something that has free delivery in the UK and doesn’t contain soy. So Huel would still win hands down for me on those points alone.
But it would be fine if Soylent had a page called “Alternative to Huel”, because if I wasn’t happy with Huel I might type that in and then find Soylent. Great!
I’m not trying to disparage Soylent, and I’m certainly not doing it on a constant basis. I think if you read all what I’ve written maybe 0.1% is about Soylent.
So now you are taking a potshot that they have so much information on their site that they can’t link everything on their main page?
Soylent has maybe 25 times more information on their website. I don’t hold that against Huel; I honestly think they are too inclusive of information. I just think that’s a silly battle to instigate. As well as earlier in this thread when you posed the snarky question “I wonder why Soylent highlights oats as one of their top four ingredients?”
Because oats is one of the top four ingredients, maybe?
Again, pointless dig which backfired. Huel is a great product; no need to reach for criticism.
@Ric Well, you clearly like both Huel and Soylent, and don’t like it when one criticises the other, which is fair enough. I suppose it’s like if you have two friends and one says something critical about the other friend. What they’ve said may not even be particularly harsh, but because you like the other friend too, it hurts more than it otherwise would.
@Ric on our comparison page we said “Other replacement products on the market (like Joylent and Soylent) are excellent at what they do.” doesn’t sound disparaging to me.
On their main page about the actual product yes I would expect them to list the ingredients. They they highlight one carb source - oats, oats is their 4th largest carb source which seems strange to say the least.
Huel highlights six ingredients on their main page (those pictured), they are the first six ingredients listed on the nutrition panel
Soylent highlights four ingredients on their main page (those pictured); like Huel, oats is one of the first four ingredients listed on the nutrition panel.
So, why is it “strange” that both Huel and Soylent highlight oats on their main page, when both products include oats as a top four ingredient?
To say that it is acceptable for Huel to include a picture of oats (one of their top ingredients) but it is “strange” for Soylent to include a picture of oats (one of their top ingredients) is disingenuous; a double standard.
Huel lists their ingredients on their main page. Kudos.
Soylent has a nutrition section on their main page. And right there is a prominent link to the ingredients page. Clearly prominent.
Soylent also has 20-times more information on their website. Explanation on gluten, soy protein, carbohydrates, lipids, multiple vitamins, manganese, glycemic data, etc. Kudos to them.
But, I don’t think any one should be criticizing Huel for not including all this information on the Huel website.
I mean, if you are now taking a stand because you have to click on one predominate link from the Soylent main webpage to see the nutrition panel, then you might as well start complaining that the forum link for Soylent is at the bottom of their main page, whereas the forum link for Huel is at the top of their page. But I guarantee you, that would also seem trite.
@Ric I can see what @Julian means. If someone was to go to https://www.soylent.com/product/powder/ they could be forgiven for concluding that Soylent only contains brown rice protein, oat flour, sunflower oil, vitamins and minerals. It’s not apparent at that point whether there are any other ingredients. Personally, I’m a curious person (in more than one sense of the word, I will freely admit), so I would go digging for more information. But some people might not, and I think that’s the point.
For 70g of maltodextrin, 47g of Isomaltulose and 41g of potato starch to not be prominently displayed is a bit strange, don’t you think? Especially considering the image of the 4 ingredients is underneath a headline saying “An empirical design process means only the best ingredients make the cut”. That does imply that only those ingredients are in it, because they are the only ingredients that meet strict requirements. It does imply that they only use oats at the carb source.
Similarly, on the new bottled version of Soylent (2.0), why is it that if I check http://files.soylent.com/pdf/soylent-nutrition-facts-2-0-en.pdf I see that maltodextrin is the first ingredient after water, yet it’s not mentioned on the front page where the pretty pictures of 4 sets of ingredients are? I think they have done this deliberately because they have guessed that some people will immediately turn away if they see maltodextrin as one of the main ingredients. But there isn’t time in that first impression to properly explain “No, but wait, this is a special low GI version of maltodextrin!”
On the Huel site, the nice picture of the ingredients in the bowls is immediately followed by the list of ingredients. This is not an insignificant different. It means that all information about what it contains is on that page.
I don’t think Julian should be accused of being petty. I think he should be congratulated for spotting it and telling it like it is. I think that would be true even Huel didn’t exist as a competitor. It would still be a valid criticism of the webpage. And of course, if Soylent weren’t being deceptive about their ingredients, there would be no need to point it out in the first place.
Deceptive? Industry-wise, Rosa Labs is commended being open-source. And I don’t think you can say a company is being deceptive when they list their ingredients so predominately.
100%Foods, Keto Chow, Custom Body Fuel all got their starts on the DIY pages of the Soylent discourse, and started out by replicating their recipe to some degree. Look at many of the European versions, they actually copied Rosa Lab’s original website.
I mean, deceptive? They don’t hide that they use maltodextrin. It is listed on their nutrition panel, and they explain their choice in the FAQ.
And the image of the 4 ingredients does not imply “that only those ingredients are in it.” No more so than that the image of the 6 ingredients on the Huel page imply that only those six ingredients are in it.
They do list the carb sources. Everything is listed (Soylent Nutrition Panel). USDA requires all food products to list ingredients. It would behoove you to stop lying. Or, maybe just choose your words more carefully?
I think your issue is that they don’t choose to post an image of maltodextrin on their site. I think that’s a little silly, but so be it. Joylent doesn’t either, I’m not sure if I hold it against them.
And thank your for the discussion also, @Julian. Put please, don’t request me to damper the discussion. That goes against the community guidelines of this discussion forum. If you think I am being uncivil, you have the right to flag me. (Although I believe I am not making our disagreements personal.) But because you may disagree with me is no reason to instruct me to stop posting.
I have to say I also feel the maltodextrin is deliberately kept vague on some of the web pages of the many Soylent products out there. I looked at the web site for Queal and they at least make it transparent by stating 23% of the ingredients is maltodextrin. Soylent 1.4 missed out stating there was even maltodextrin in the product, something they quickly changed in their list of ingredients for 1.5.
Maltodextrin is not healthy for diabetics no matter what spin anyone puts on it. See link for unbiased description
Imagine, in the case of Queal, 23% of your thrice daily soylent is maltodextrin. How can that possibly be considered healthy? Look how long it took for Soylent to declare the GI of their product and the flack on the Discourse when it was revealed as 65. See link
What’s wrong is that the original Soylent product was based around maltodextrin as the main carb source and as new products came out, they were based around the soylent model. Subtle changes with flavours etc. but based around soylents recipe. The result is that out of the many different products out there, only Heul does not have maltodextrin
Soylent is a relatively new concept and lots of people have bought in to it, I certainly do and live 95% on it. The long term effects are not known and won’t be for some years yet. When data does come out I just know that there will be a diabetic issue. Maltodextrin is not healthy and should not be in the product.
Thanks @davidmccarlie. I remember Soylent announcing the GI of v1.5 as 65. I learned a lot about glycemic index vs glycemic load that day. Maybe too much.
I’ve also read that the GI of Soylent 2.0 is 49. I’m wondering if that means the powdered version will see a decrease in GI, as Rosa Labs has stated a goal of having the powder and premixed formulas approaching the same.
@Julian, what is the glycemic index of Huel? I’m certain it is lower than Soylent and Joylent, but a value would be beneficial.
@Ric I think @Julian was just saying let’s agree to disagree, because he could see that you and him were not going to agree on the matter, so it could otherwise just go on indefinitely. He probably felt it was for the greater good that particular debate just settle down. Seems pretty reasonable to me. I think he has more right to do that than you have to tell him how to run his own forum.
But just one thing, Joylent do show Maltodextrin as part of their spinning wheel of ingredients:
I didn’t tell him how to run this forum. I would never be so presumptuous as to tell someone in a public discourse to refrain from comments.
I would also not be so presumptuous to say a person’s comments are more valid on a public forum because he is the CEO. In his defense, I doubt @Julian would say that, either.
If your point is to disparage me personally, or lecture me about the proper use of a public forum, you should PM me. That is a better alternative than derailing the thread.
