isn’t it quite high, 4g for just 400 calories in the Ready to Drinks?
i recall the american heart association saying to keep saturated fat as low as possible, preferably making up about 5% of total calories for maintaining healthy cholesterol.
mines is quite high, not super high, but i am looking to lower it. i eat pretty clean to begin with and exercise 4x a week, but i was wondering if this plant based diet helps. but im a little concerned about the saturated fats.
I think the saturated fat content in Huel is mostly coming from the coconut ingredient. Please correct me if I’m wrong @Dan_Huel .
Coconuts, one of the most debated foods in the vegan community. I mean, some vegans are concerned with saturated fat in coconut, others aren’t. My wife is Jamaican and so coconut products are a mainstay in our home cooked meals. Tell a Jamaican to “avoid coconut milk because it’s high in saturated fat” and they will look at you like you are insane. Keep in mind, this is much different than the high saturated fat which comes from red meat. So consider the source. Coconuts are most likely not the source of our country’s heart disease problems.
I can only speak from my own experience. I had been consuming about 500 to 1000 calories worth of Huel mixtures for my food at work for about 9 months before I had my annual blood work. My cholesterol panel results are now the best they’ve ever been. In fact my LDL cholesterol was so low it just said < xx because it was too low to calculate. My Triglycerides were around 50 if I remember. And my HDL had risen to it’s highest level ever. My hemoglobin A1c was 4.7%.
To disclose, I practice a 16 hour daily fast. I exercise about 5 days a week, modestly. And since January I’ve removed meat and dairy from my diet. I still consume powdered Huel most work days and eat plant-based regular food while not at work. (Occasionally using the RTD Huel when I am out and need a temporary food supply until I get home.) So, part of my good cholesterol and glucose control numbers may be attributed to these other good practices. Huel alone is probably not doing all the work. But, I will say that Huel is a good fit for my overall diet.
Several things influence your LDL, Triglycerides, and HDL. Dietary saturated fat is just one of them. Trans fat can really make your numbers turn bad, and trans fat is only found in animal products (so Huel has zero). Too much processed sugars (sucrose or HFCS) can affect these numbers. Too little fiber has been shown to affect these numbers. You gotta look at all the components of a diet and how they all work together.
Huel has very little sugar, no trans fats, a low amount of saturated fat, and a good amount of fiber. It has none of the potential carcinogens that may be in some animal products like red meat. It contains no cholesterol since it’s from plants. The oats have both fiber and resistant starches which have positive health benefits. The new formulation of Huel has a good ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 fatty acids.
Personally, I wouldn’t get too concerned with the saturated fat content in Huel. Huel is using straight forward ingredients from good sources. More than half is whole oats and whole flaxseed. There’s brown rice powder, which is also a whole food. Pea plant protein. Focus on the sources of the ingredients rather than just one sub-component of the fats.
Don’t I know it, brother. A former Sprite-aholic here. I would drink 4 to 5 cans a day back in college. Hey, it had lemon-lime, which counted towards my fruit intake for the day.
The short answer is no. Based on government recommendations it is, but the evidence shows these recommendations are outdated.
A large part yes. Some saturated fat will also come from the other fat sources (canola, flaxseed and sunflower), there’s a bit more information here.
The significant portion of the saturated fats in Huel are medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) rather than the more commonly consumed long chain triglycyrides (LCTs). MCTs are metabolised differently in the body and so have different health effects.
