I went to go mix one up for dinner, take my first sip, and the taste literally shocked me and had me wondering what the hell I was drinking. I’ve been actively purchasing Huel since January, drinking a serving of it nearly every single day, so I’m well aware of what it should taste like… Oaty Vanilla with added chocolate thanks to the flavor boost I usually use, absolutely loved it.
This new bag that I got, however, you can’t taste the oats, no vanilla flavoring, and I even added an extra tablespoon of the chocolate flavor boost and an extra cup of Huel (4 in total after the recommended 3) to try and see if that was the issue. Nope, just got worse. It literally tasted like thick, dirty water. I forced myself to finish the 700ml or however much it was, but by the last sip I literally almost threw up.
Did they recently change the formula, or did I possibly get a bad batch or something? Yes, I checked to make sure that I didn’t accidentally purchase unsweetened and the expiration date on the bag is 05/2019. I have a second unopened bag… I’ll try that tomorrow but if it tastes the same, I’m unfortunately going to have to throw it out and may unsub to Huel and look elsewhere. It was so disgusting.
Wait… you had one bad shake in over 6 months, and you’re going to unsubscribe?
There is a batch number on the bag you can post, other people with the same batch can chime in. I personally do not drink huel for the flavor, it’s probably one of the worst tasting MRPs I’ve ever had, but its nutrient profile and ingredients are solid.
I’d be more worried that that different flavor means the nutrients aren’t the same. It could be the powder sifted and separated during shipping as well.
Try giving the bag a really good shaking before scooping!
It wouldn’t just be one bad shake, the entire bag, maybe even both of the bags that I received would be like this. Please don’t turn it around in to me potentially being unreasonable lol. The taste, if that is how it is meant to be, is something that I would not be able to stomach.
But your suggestions are definitely appreciated! I never thought of shaking up the bag due to something like that! I’ll give that a go, I think you may be right
I can definitely handle just receiving a bad batch, I was worried that they altered the formula to change the flavor again which I hope was not the case.
Interesting. I’m intrigued to see if the second bag is the same. Kyle has been Hueling for a while so he knows what it should taste like.
If the second bag tastes the same as the first, I wonder if there was a mis-labeling and you actually got the Unsweetened/Unflavored. I have both types and there is a very distinct difference in taste. The U/U has a very blank taste (like drinking sand in water) and there is almost no smell at all in the bag. The vanilla has a nice light vanilla odor when I sniff the bag. Hey @Kyle_B do your bags have the vanilla smell to them?
On a side note, I’ve found some good formulas to use my U/U Huel. With U/U I have to use a mix of milk+water for the liquid, an entire banana or half banana + applesauce, and 2 tablespoons of PB (and sometimes a smidgen of honey). Then it tastes good.
What are your batch numbers? I wanna check the new bag I just got.
Sorry for the late response… I just tried the second unopened bag and it had the same repulsive taste. I’ll unfortunately have to toss both out at this point, as I can’t drink them. The first one that I forced myself to down a week ago had upset my stomach.
As far as the smell, I didn’t notice a vanilla sent in either bag in any way. Unfortunately I never thought to smell the last bags that I received, so I have no comparison
Are the batch numbers the Lot numbers on the back of the bags? If so, they’re both 93867. Is anyone able to shed some light on why these taste so insanely different???
You should get a very noticeable scent of vanilla when you open a new bag… or at least I do even with the new bag style. I wonder if you got U/U somehow?
It appears over on the UK site, they’re having some issues with taste of recent batches, and one prevailing theory is that it’s been an exceptionally warm season in the UK, and wondering if people’s Huel has either been getting too warm at their houses or during delivery.
Is it possible that your Huel sat too long in the heat/sun?
I don’t know that this is the situation, but over there anyway, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason, some people have had good and bad experiences with the same lot numbers, and with the vanilla vs. u/u, which makes me think the idea of Huel that’s been allowed to get too warm might be part of the issue.
That is interesting. Yeah, if there is no agreement between different customers with the same lot, then the source ingredients themselves may not be a likely cause.
For argument’s sake, let’s say that the Huel powder (once mixed) is stored in controlled temperature conditions at their sites. Once it leaves their factory, where does it go? It is possible that some bags are sitting in delivery trucks or intermediate places that are too hot?
I live in Florida. My new bags of Huel were dispatched last Friday from Texas and have been “in transit” since and won’t arrive till Tuesday. If these bags were allowed to sit on trucks not in shade, and it’s like 90 degrees in both states, so it could easily get to 130 - 140 F in those trucks. It is possible that those bags have been “cooking” for 5 days. Just speculating. But I can see how this is possible.
Although… I’ve baked Huel muffins at 350 F for an hour and let them sit out for a day and they were fine. I even ate them a week later after refrigerating.
Can 5 days of hot trucks really ruin a powdered food mix that easily? These are sealed bags and the fact that it’s in solid form should slow any chemical changes. Something that has a 1 year shelf life shouldn’t grow rancid that quick, even in hot conditions. I’ve had some bags made in Feb 2018 and they are still tasting just fine almost 5 months later.
The latest from @JamesCollier on the UK site is that they do test Huel in heat conditions, due to delivery in places like Arizona, and they have NOT found that to be an issue.
They are taking it seriously, but so far it’s been, as you might imagine, frustrating to try to track down, since there doesn’t seem to be a lot of consistency between the lot numbers and such. I’m sure they’ll let us know if they find anything.
By the way, I’ve noticed slight variations between my first order and my second, in that the second seems to develop a slightly noxious smell much more quickly. The first one, if I mixed up my morning huel and rinsed out but didn’t thoroughly wash the shaker before lunch, I’d be fine making the lunch huel. With the second batch, in the two hours sitting on my desk, the small bits of remnant left by a cursory rinse develops a quite unpleasant smell, and if I don’t wash it carefully before making the lunch huel, there’s a bit of an aftertaste.
But it’s also been really hot here this week, so it might be getting warmer on my desk than it had in previous weeks.
Hi @Kyle_B - sorry to hear you’ve had this bad experience. We have high quality standards so we don’t like to hear feedback like this.
The UK and US recipes have ingredients sourced sperately, are different recipes and are blended in different locations, so any issues that may be in region would be unrelated to another.
Have you raised this with my US Customer Service colleagues?
One observation is that the distribution of Huel is not different than other shelf-stable food products you buy. If your favorite cereal was affected by temperature then I would think there would be a lot more of this “tastes funny/bad” issue going around.
Looks like I am having a problem with several doses of U/U Huel. Since I opened the new bag of U/U, my Huel mixes have tasted very different. They now have a sour/tangy taste to them. Almost metallic taste to it. Like some kind of sour, flat sprite. It overpowers the oats, banana, peanut butter, and honey that I add. And this is a usual formula for me, so I know what it should taste like.
I thought it might have been the milk so I made it today with water only. (Even though the milk by itself tastes normal.) Same exact bad aftertaste. I couldn’t finish yesterday’s or today’s dinner dose. My lunch doses made with another bag of Vanilla Huel did just fine. I haven’t changed the way I make them and I’ve been mixing Huel for 4 months now so I know what I’m doing. But there has been a major change in flavor for this particular bag. What;s weird is that the other U/U bag that came with it from Amazon tasted fine. I mean, it had a bland taste to it, like U/U should. But this bag of Huel emits some kind of strong tangy and sour taste that overpowers everything else.
I am gonna do some testing. Gonna open one of the new U/U bags I just got and am gonna mix with that tonight. Gonna taste test it immediately after making and again after sitting in the fridge overnight. Something is definitely wrong and it started when I opened the new bag. I’ll list the lot number of the suspected bag once I can confirm it’s that bag of Huel and not something else.
No other effects from it. No upset stomach or anything. Just a bad taste.
Well, scratch that. I just made another dose with the “suspect” bag of U/U Huel in water, plain and simple. Tasted it, and it tasted fine. Kept it in the fridge overnight and am drinking it now. It still tastes fine.
I then thought the red container I kept it in was the culprit. I washed the container out real good. I made a batch from a newly-opened U/U Huel, tasted it immediately and it was fine. Stored that in the red container overnight in the fridge. Now I tasted it again 14 hours later, and it also tastes good.
So now I don’t know what to think. Perhaps there was some residue from a previous Huel dose stuck in the rubber gasket of the container’s lid. Maybe I didn’t wash it good enough. (I noticed the container can still smell of the Huel if I don’t thoroughly wash it.) Maybe some of the glue used in this container leached into my Huel dose. Maybe it was the power of suggestion after reading this thread and my subconscious brain said “Hey, I want in on this too”. Now I am questioning my own sanity. But at least I have good tasting Huel today.
Goes to show that there could be multiple causes of a bad tasting Huel dose, not necessarily the Huel itself.
I did have an unusual experience with my lunch shake yesterday. I always mix in the morning and take to work in an insulated bag with ice sheets and then in the fridge at work. It’s always cold. Quick shake before drinking for a final mix. So the first half of the shake tasted normal (flavored with 100ml coffee, cocoa powder, and a little cinnamon). The bottom half though had a noticeably different taste. While not undrinkable it was not a pleasant taste.
The only thing different I did was wash the shaker in the dishwasher the night before. Every other time I have hand washed. Shake today was back to normal. I don’t think it was the Huel but possibly a residue left by the dishwasher detergent.
Yeah, all my doses of Huel today tasted great. And last night when i prepped my Huel, I tasted each ingredient before and after adding, just to be sure. Milk, banana, peanut butter, and Huel was all fresh smelling and tasting. Thinking back to previous days, I did not give my insulated bottle a proper cleaning. And even the lid had a smell to it. It’s gotta be the container or residual food particles left in there, not fully cleaned out, sitting at room temp for a day, waiting for the next huel dose to be put in.
I had a batch that I left in the fridge for slightly more than 24 hours. When I got it out, it had noticeably separated. I took one drink and it was disgusting. I think that it went over the magic shelf life number because other drinks from the same bag were good. Good luck to you.
