'Trust me, I'm a doctor' - tonight, BBC2, 8:30pm

Pretty sure the gas came up. She also tried to pressure me into using the word Hueligan but these were the days before Huel really leaned into the Hueligan thing and I wasn’t about to go starting something on national radio

Ah you know what, it was a long time ago and I’m not as embarrassed anymore. Here ya go. I promise I don’t sound like that irl, or so I hope

2 Likes

Ah that was fine. That was some good, vigorous shaking too.

Huel does contain polyphenols - naturally from the oats and flaxseed and added to the vitamin and mineral blend in the form of lycopene, lutein and zeaxanthin. It may have been a comment about the variety of polyphenols you can get from fruit and veg which you get from a varied diet.

Bernadette used to be my dissertation tutor, she hadn’t seen the show beforehand either so was equally nervous. Naturally, producers will snip and edit bits.

For those interested, the full comparison breakfast was: 2 slices of Dr Vogel’s soya linseed bread, smoked salmon, spinach, a scrambled egg, drizzle of olive oil (pipetted to gram quantity!), blackberries, low fat natural yogurt and sesame seeds.

This comes back to why Huel has a purpose. If you’re going to match it nutritionally, you’re going to have to put in a lot of time and effort.

10 Likes

You went to Leeds? UoL high-five!

I dropped out before I finished my degree but it still counts.

That’s breakup territory right there. My breakfast is Huel or it features bacon and white bread. Linseed bread", I’d rather have toasted plasterboard.

This comes back to why Huel has a purpose.

100% and that reminds me of a radio4 interview Julian did ages back during which the nutrition lady said that Huel doesn’t replace a healthy nutritionally balanced meal.

I quite enjoyed it when Julian just said “it’s not supposed to, but if we look at what people are eating, they’re not getting healthy nutritionally balanced meals using veg grown in their back garden, and that’s where Huel can be really good.” Nutritionist had nothing to say back.

5 Likes

Glad you all watched it. I thought overall it was a good piece and pretty fair. Obviously there was the bit about it not being food and the presenters piece about him really craving something to chew (:roll_eyes:), but they rounded it up by saying the exact purpose of Huel - not to eat it 100%. So that was good as many TV shows have missed that point in the past.

Did they film it? I thought it was just audio! You were a legend, don’t worry!

This actually made me laugh so much last night. It’s so accurate!

:fist: * heads to rooftop to commence shouting *

Apart from the bread, I think that breakfast sounds gorgeous.

1 Like

Apart from the bread and the bacon I’m all over it.

smoked salmon, spinach, a scrambled egg, drizzle of olive oil (pipetted to gram quantity!) mixed with blackberries, low fat natural yogurt and sesame seeds?

Sounds like cold hell to me.

It was just the perfect response. I’ll never understand why nutritionists don’t realise that hardly anyone eats this magic perfect diet that they compare everything to.

4 Likes

Salmon, scrambled egg, and blackberries! That’s good stuff right there.

1 Like

Couldn’t agree more, they should compare it to a piece of white toast with margarine spread on. Or a bowl of cornflakes with sugar on.

2 Likes

My breakfast, pre-Huel, (when I had any breakfast that is. I’d often skip it) used to be porridge made with semi-skimmed milk, no sugar but maybe a few frozen mixed fruits or fresh blueberries stirred in and maybe a spoonful of chia seeds. I’ll probably go back to that if Huel stop making their granola.

Personally having watched some of this series on and off previously I was surprised that this segment was fronted by Alain Gregoire rather than Dr. Giles Yeo.
Alain is the psychiatrist expert specialising in mental health related topics. Giles is the food and obesity specialist generally covering topics like appetite control, nutrition, satiety and hunger. Officially he’s a geneticist but specialises in the brain control of food intake. I would have thought he was a more natural choice for the segment looking at Huel.

Alternatively Moseley has fronted several of the diet and exercise related topics. Gregoire seems like an odd choice as usually they stick to their specialist areas.

3 Likes

giphy

That would have been really cool to see. The point of the study was to look at the effects on health etc to see if a liquid meal like Huel was the same as a solid wholefood meal with the same macronutrient split and calories.

Thanks Carly this is interesting and probably why he was so focused on mentioning the social aspects of eating.

1 Like

I’m not aware of this programme or who these people are. I do not watch much TV. Surely the best person would be a human physiologist or a dieterics specialist. A psychiatrist Either way I’m always sceptical of ‘science’ on television due to bias of the reporting. A psychiatrist makes sense if there had an experience of eating disorders.

1 Like

I’d like to know what proportion of the UK population eats such a well balanced breakfast every morning?!?

toast, smoked salmon, spinach, egg, yoghurt, fruit and nuts

Probably less than 1%. Most people I’ve ever known have a bit of toast and / or some sugary cereal and that’s it.

The fact that Huel performed so well compared to such a nutritionally dense breakfast is pretty amazing.

I didn’t see the programme, did they mention what the guy’s cholesterol level actually was? The article states “His blood glucose and cholesterol levels were already healthy”. By “healthy” do they mean he had an average/normal level found in the UK population, a country who’s largest cause of death is heart disease? That’s what is regarded as normal/healthy.

It doesn’t look like they’ve really gone into much detail on Huel’s ingredients as is evidenced by them implying that it’s missing something and a general overall downer attitude without providing any evidence to support the inference.

I’d love to see a larger scale test comparing Huel to a more normal range of common breakfasts that most people shovel in every morning!

1 Like

I thought it was a reasonable representation, albeit they could have easily covered some of the other aspects already mentioned in this thread.

In addition, I feel that they could have covered:

  • Relative cost between the sample breakfast and Huel
  • Environmental perspective
  • Suitable for vegans

It will be interesting to see if the Huel website has been getting an increase in traffic!

2 Likes

Nope.

2 Likes

His specialisation is actually mother and baby psychiatry. Which is why choosing him to front the segment made no sense to me. In fact this is only the second food related segment he’s ever done on the series, the previous one was on the effect of a bedtime drink on sleep.

Most of the food and drink related segments are fronted by Moseley which makes sense given his previous research into fasting, intermittent or time restricted eating and sugar/blood sugar control. Other than that Yeo currently does much of the food related segments. In fact he recently did one on switching to a vegan diet for a month and monitored the effect on various health markers such as body fat, cholesterol, iron, zinc and various vitamins.

By contrast, Gregoire has previously fronted segments on post natal depression, phobias and dementia. Like I said - an odd choice.

1 Like