Huel should use ordinary sugar, apple juice, muscavado, etc. Artifical sugar substitutes like Sucralose have been in the news. It is the last ingredients on Huel lists, but nontheless, it is a powerful artifical sweetener.
Obesity, Diabetes, Weight Gain, Increased Appetite, Metabolic Dysfunction
A 2014 study in Nature pointed to risks of consuming artificial sweeteners generally, and sucralose spefically, for diabetes patients — a core market for sucralose. The paper concluded that consumption of artificial sweeteners “drives the development of glucose intolerance through induction of compositional and functional alterations to the intestinal microbiota.” The increase in artificial sweetener consumption, the study notes, “coincides with the dramatic increase in the obesity and diabetes epidemics. Our findings suggest that [artificial sweeteners] may have directly contributed to enhancing the exact epidemic that they themselves were intended to fight.”Blockquote
If you use the search function you’ll see this topic has been discussed at length many times with plenty of replies from the nutrition team. But the tl;dr version is sucralose is 600x (I think) sweeter than sugar so if regular sugar was used the amount needed to achieve the same level of sweetness would then come with its own health concerns. They are also satisfied that sucralose does not pose a health concern.
Hi, Huel generally seems to be a good product. However could Huel consider a more natural alternative to Sucralose? I can see this has been asked and concluded with “sucralose is fine”. However, due to fatty liver problems and liver problems in general, the enzyme levels are high when taking Huel, I ask the question.
As a meal replacement, Huel would need to be taken daily along with normal foods and need to consider my health too.
I did some research and quote from a study of sucralose/mice : Gut Microbiome Response to Sucralose and Its Potential Role in Inducing Liver Inflammation in Mice - PMC . Concludes: " results highlight the role of sucralose-gut microbiome interaction in regulating host health-related processes, such as chronic inflammation."
If one already has chronic inflammation like fatty liver (alchohol or non-alchohol), I would avoid any artifical sweeteners. If one does not suffer, Sucralose might be okay. It seems in many cases that if one has Diabetes 2, most likely suffer liver fatty inflammation too.
I am considering a meal replacement and might try the non-flavoured one.
I did try the Huel chocolate and is was incredibly sweet - too sweet. Artificial sweeteners give an unnatural sickly sweet taste too. Does it have to be so sweet? There are so many other types of natural sweeteners that are not sickly sweet but strong enough to use only a little of it.
Huel Black Edition uses stevia, maybe that would be a better product for you?
I don’t think the evidence is strong enough to say that sucralose causes chronic inflammation, particularly as this is such a general term. For example here is a study that shows the opposite.
Yes that might be good for you and you could always add something like honey for sweetness.
Thank you for your reply. No, Stevia powder somehow didn’t do my teeth enamel/gums any good during the time I used it. Stevia is like icing sugar, a very fine powder. Since I stopped using it, teeth/gums are normal. I guess, what one person’s pudding is another person’s poison!
With the plain Huel powder - I could add fruits/berries, chopped dates and maybe a dash of fig syrup or honey.
