My question is, let’s say you are eating Huel for Half or 2/3 of your nutritional intake? How would you balance the rest of your diet based on the recommendations they give you like you need this many servings of fruits and vegetables and this many calories should come from fat and things like that? What I thought would be the best solution is to just subtract Huel calories from your daily intake. For example, if you are eating 2000 cal a day, and 1000 cal comes from Huel, Then you would calculate everything else based on the 1000 cal you have left over so that would be like two or three servings of fruits and vegetables. Is that correct or is there a more precise way to do that? It gets confusing because they say that a certain number of calories can come from fats and sugars like a chocolate bar for example, as long as you keep it below that amount, but then would you base that off of your entire calorie intake, or could you only base that off of the calories you had that did not come from Huel? Also, how many servings of grains would A serving of Huel Count as? I would say probably two servings of grains, so then you would take those servings away from your total allotted servings. I know that these recommendations weren’t made so that you could get really exact with them, but if you just kind of wanted to follow them loosely and make sure that the non-Huel part of your diet was balanced, what would you do? It is not fair to bass some things off of your entire calorie allowance because since you are eating a balanced option for half of the time, it will be especially hard for you to get in the servings of fruits and vegetables based off of your entire allowance. But then I was also reading that the recommendations say that you should have 3 cups of dairy a day or 2 ounces of cheese can count as a cup. But I haven’t been having 3 cups of dairy a day. I don’t really like milk that much because I get heart palpitations after drinking it in large quantities, and I also don’t like soy milk because of the taste. I do like yogurt, but I probably would not see myself eating 3 cups a day. My calories are less than 2000, but I still probably could not eat 2 cups a day. Even if I cut my dairy in half to account for the Huel, That is still one cup a day. I have tried to look this up online and can’t find any answers. What do you think? How could I modify the recommendations to still be balanced, account for the Huel, But also not put impossible restrictions on myself such as what would happen if I just took the recommendations as they were? Can coffee creamer count as my dairy as well? Also, if something could count as a serving of protein, but it could also count as a serving of vegetables like beans, would I take one serving off of my vegetables and one serving off of my protein, or would I just take a serving off of one of them? How about completely sugar-free cooking chocolate or cocoa powder? What is that a serving of? Also, V-8 says that a bottle of their juice counts as two servings of vegetables, but it says that you can only count up to 150 mL of fruit or vegetable juice as a serving and anything you drink above that doesn’t count as an additional serving, So is V-8 lying? But then it also said if you make a smoothie, you can only count that as two servings. That isn’t fair because if you made the smoothie, it is basically the same fruits and vegetables you would have eaten, but they have just been mashed up. Baby food can count for as many servings as you want, dried fruit can as well, but not a smoothie? Yes, I can understand how if you got a smoothie from Jamba Juice that was made halfway with yogurt and ice cream how it would not count, but if you made your own smoothie just with fruits and vegetables, the recommendations still say it doesn’t count.
IMO, we don’t need to micromanage our bodies in regards to specific nutrient intake. Rather we should follow two basic rules:
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Eat foods that are shown to be healthy
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Avoid foods or certain nutrient components that are shown to be detrimental.
Avoidance should focus on minimizing sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, saturated fat, and trans fat. These dietary components (or, eating lots of foods with these in it) are associated with insulin resistance, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and possibly cancer.
Good things to eat are things low in these, have poly unsaturated fats, have fiber, have a wide range of vitamins. Legumes, tubers, rices, potatoes , vegetables, fruits, oats, seeds, nuts. These types of things should be safe to eat.
The body will handle the rest.
I second @Deron’s advice. Keep it simple! So far I have been eating 1 or 2 Huel shakes per day, and I enjoy traditional food for the rest of my diet. I do this because I like eating a variety of things, and so I can partake in “normal” meals with my kids. It also allows me to easily go without Huel for special occasions and to mix traditional foods into my Huel. Keeping it simple makes the process easier to stick with, and I figure I am already doing much, much better with my overall diet by including Huel than I ever did before I found Huel.
I mostly try to eat less processed foods, and foods low in sugar (especially added sugar). I try for lean protein and veggies/fruit, but will also eat things I enjoy (Rib-eye steak for the win!). If you use an app to track your eating (like I do with Fitbit) it can also help - it will give me the total macro-nutrient breakdown for each day, including any Huel I have consumed. With that I can easily stay close to Huel’s 37:30:30:3 breakdown of carbs, fat, protein, and fiber respectively, even when including traditional food.