Been using Huel for almost 75% of my daily calorie intake since 2018 and absolutely love it!
However there are almost always things to improve and one of them would be to eradicate Sucralose as a sweetener. I started with Original Huel and tried other tastes back n forth but Original is the one for me, however my belly really doesn’t like Sucralose even in the small amounts that is in Huel.
Sucralose is often being ignored as any culprit due to the small amounts used in Huel which is understandable if you only have Huel occasionally but if you consume Huel daily, then it’s another ballgame in my opinion. There are multiple threads about Sucralose not only on this forum but many more which all describes a pretty similar outcome/reaction.
I’ve since then toned down the sweetness of Original with U&U which has shown noticeable difference. And before anyone says it’s probably something else that I changed with my diet, I will reply with that I have tested this on multiple occasions to have a few more scoops of Original (and thus more Sucralose) and less U&U and every time (after a few days), my belly will get more upset and stinky while it will normalize a few days after as soon as I have taken less of the Original Huel.
My current mix: I have a hard time eating just U&U so I use the stevia flavor boost pouches to compensate and that works fairly well in terms of taste and no impact on belly. Usually 3 scoops of U&U and 2 scoops of Original (old scoops) and half a teaspoon of flavor boost (stevia) with 6dl distilled water and 2dl plant milk (yeah thats thick! but I don’t like peeing more than necessary)
The other suggestion is about prepared food which many of us are so fond of
I recently got myself an Instant-pot and that was a really great investment I wished I bought sooner. So my thought is what if you could make some meals that are made for instant-pots which is often more healthy than using a pan due to the more controlled cooking method with less risk for burned food.
Like you get most of the bulk from Huel and then possibly add some vegetables and/or other additions to your likings in the pot and start cooking (potting?).
Thanks for the suggestions and it’s so awesome you’ve been having Huel for so long.
We sure have tried other sweeteners, but for now we like sucralose for it’s taste profile. We find too much stevia can taste bitter, and some also perceive stevia as a liquorice flavour. But it sounds like you’re getting there with Original and Unflavoured - you don’t find the sucralose in Original impacts you because it’s diluted with the Unflavoured? Only when you increase it beyond 40% of your mix
The other one for you to try would be Black Edition, that has a combination of Stevia and coconut sugar. Might be worth trying a pouch with your next order?
Love your idea around the instant-pot! Like a bag of ingredients you throw in an instant pot that is nutritionally complete?
The sucralose doesn’t impact me as much the lesser I have of it and the more I dilute it with U&U. I tried plain U&U and U&U with flavor boost but just couldn’t make it work taste wise, belly wise was even better for the short week I experimented with only U&U. The tolerable limit seems to be around 60% U&U and 40% original, going with less original makes it hard taste wise (kinda like the taste better the other way around 40% U&U and 60% original).
I’ve tried the Black edition as well and that worked alright but didn’t taste as good as original and got tired of it quicker.
Yes on the instant-pot. Like i’m not a huge fan of microwaving your food and oven takes it’s time, a pan needs to be monitored but instant-pot is almost effortless and with great result (providing you follow instructions, enough water etc) so having a few ready to go recipes with prepared food for the instant pot would be really nice.
So far i’ve only used lentils, rice and spices and that turns out almost perfect but you still need to balance the meal and preferably be nutritionally complete which Huel could possibly provide. Also depends on how many that has instant-pots but from what i’ve heard its quite common in UK and the US if i’m not mistaken
Forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn here but have you tried the hot and savoury stuff and adding some veg etc?
Don’t mean to bang the drum about this too much but the Thai Green Curry H&S mixed in with some chicken and then coconut rice and veggies works really well. Just as a suggestion.
I think @Phil_C is a bit of an aficionado when it comes to this sort of thing so really well worth looking at some of his recipe suggestions.
To be fair I had assumed @dbcrohn had already given these a go for some reason, but perhaps I was wrong!
Yes yes, you should definitely try our Hot & Savoury! How I kind of like the idea of a pouch of the raw (non-freeze-dried) ingredients that you add to a slow-cooker and leave!
Wishlist…so is everyone here invited to add some wishes?
I would really appreciate it if you could lower the caffeine content in v4. And the next Black Edition.
Hope I can use this forum for a request. I really love the Hot and Savoury range. I used to really like the UandU powder with the peanut butter and curry powder. Would you consider doing a Hot and Savoury product with that flavouring - i.e. Satay flavoured?
@ david: I was referring to the caffeine-containing flavours. It would be great if we could have the flavour without the caffeine. At daytime this is not a problem, sure, but in the evening it can be a problem; or is a problem.
I suppose they could use fake chocolate instead of cocoa. White Chocolate flavour? It would be a bit too sickly sweet for me, but I’m sure some people would love it.
Edit: by the way, if you put a space between the @ and the username, it breaks the tag, which means the recipient doesn’t get a notification. Not a problem with me because I’m always lurking like a dirty spider, but more busy people might miss your messages.
yes white chocolate contains no caffeine but as you say, is a very sickly flavour that would easily be overpowered by the other Huel ingredients so you may as well just drink the vanilla version.
I do think decaf coffee Huel would work though. Decaffeination (imo) ruins the taste of coffee, but Huel tastes fine with a spoonful of the cheapest, crappiest instant coffee, because the other ingredients mask the shitness. I think crappy decaf would work equally well.
Although as you’ve previously mentioned, only eleven people would buy it.
Yeah it’s a difficult one. For them to offer decaffeinated products practically – you’d have lean all in and have all the coffee products like this. This then presents two problems:
Do you keep it under the radar and hope the entitled masses don’t catch on and launch class action lawsuits because you ruined their lives* or
Promote it and risk alienating the vast majority of caffeine loving customers who take the hump and ultimately consign the products to the Matcha obscurity product graveyard.
You seem keen for this change to happen, but I don’t understand why. Just don’t buy the flavours with caffeine. If you have a caffeine sensitivity you must already be accustomed to avoiding coffee and chocolate.
If you really must have a coffee Huel without much caffeine, it’s very cheap and easy to DIY. But even decaf contains some caffeine.
Do you find the small amount of caffeine in Huel Black causes problems for you? It’s like 3% of a cup of coffee per serving.
