First timer here… Ordered 1 bag Berry, 1 bag Chocolate, 2 bags Vanilla, 1 case Berry RTD, 1 case Vanilla RTD, frosted shaker, enamel mug… Want to try what’s available to see what resonates. I was not able to add a free shirt / shaker to my order, the cart kept glitching. Tried Chrome, Safari, even creating a new account with a different email address. No luck. Not a big deal, just wondering if anyone else had trouble with this?
Anyone try mixing Huel powders with protein, superfood, greens, or other powders? What are your favorite combinations to get the most out of Huel?
How do you travel with Huel / take it to work? Portion the powder into the shaker and add water when ready? Mix / store in fridge overnight and take it ready to go? My concern with the latter is how long does it last when premixed? Figure I can add ice or throw it in a cooler if necessary.
Thanks for the feedback, apologies if this has all been covered elsewhere on the forums.
I always blend my powdered Huels. I usually prepare the night before and place in an insulated bottle in the fridge. They vary in recipe but the Vanilla Huel ones mainly go like this:
Half plant milk + half water (with a little crushed ice to get it cold) is the liquid part. Using milks is a key, I found.
300 to 400 calories worth of Huel. I don’t accurately measure. Estimate.
Peanut butter base or fruit base
a. Peanut butter base means I add 1 to 2 heaping tablespoons of peanut butter. Optional add in will be a spoonful or two of apple sauce or a few of my frozen banana slices. (I make my own banana slices and freeze.) Then I add in cinnamon, or pumpkin pie spice, or Huel caramel flavor additive.
b. Fruit base: banana, apple sauce, berries (frozen or fresh) in any combo I feel like.
For chocolate or berry Huel powders I do less additives.
Half milk + half water
500 to 600 calories of Huel powder
Greens powder. for some reason this tastes good with these two flavors.
Optional: with chocolate only, I will add a little bit of peanut butter.
Note: I have also used PB2 powder in place of peanut butter. It is dried peanut butter, with a good amount of the fat removed. It is less energy dense, and easier to add in since it’s powdered. And it tastes almost as good as full peanut butter. In fact, if one were to mix their Huel on the spot, adding some PB2 powder to your mix would still allow you to shake it up right before drinking.
Most doses are prepared the night before and stored in a 32 ounce insulated bottle in the fridge. I leave an inch or two at the top for room to add in ice cubes in the morning when I take it out and head to work. The added cubes will melt as time goes on but in the insulated bottle it keeps my Huel cold for a full 8 to 10 hours. I don’t need to use the fridge at work. Also, I have come to like my Huel doses a little more dilute so this melted ice helps do that. Don’t be afraid to try Huel more dilute than recommended. Many of us weirdly find it to taste better than concentrated Huel.
This is great, Deron! I’ve ordered PB2 and will give it a try. Also considered putting in a shot of espresso in the mixture for the morning Huel meal. I bought an insulated shaker and have an ice machine, so should be all set! Which plant milks do you like? Heard oat milks are all the rage, picked up almond and rice varieties since those are familiar.
Do you find fruit increases sugar excessively? Concerned about that during the weight loss vs. maintenance stage. I know over time you’ve transitioned to being able to process starches, etc. efficiently, but wondering how I can incorporate these principles into my current goals. Thinking blueberries and raspberries would be a good start - great flavor, nutrient qualities, without excessive sugar spikes.
Very much appreciate your responses, thank you! This is incredibly helpful / encouraging.
I mix up two shakes in the morning, one for breakfast and one for lunch. I use a blender, which is key. I just dump three scoops (one cup) on top of the water, blend for maybe 10 seconds, then pour the shake into a shaker cup and throw it in my backpack. About as low-effort as you can get. I keep the cup in a fridge at the office, it’s pretty thick by noon.
On days that I lift, I throw a scoop of protein powder in with the scoops for my breakfast shake and drink that after my workout (I go to the gym at 5:30AM).
I laugh every time someone is worried about fruit, its natural sugar, and weight gain. I’m on mobile so I won’t be able to properly address it. I can later when I get on my laptop.
But for now think about this rhetorical question: do you think Americans have an obesity epidemic because they are collectively eating too many servings of whole fruit? Is whole fruit consumption a cause of our type 2 diabetes epidemic? You see a lot of fat people binging on 5 to 10 pieces of fruit a day? Why are raw vegans, who eat 20 or more pieces of fruit a day, some of the slimmest people out there and often find it hard to keep weight on?
Anecdotally, when I cut out meat and dairy this year, I started eating a lot more fruit. 5 to 8 servings a day on average. This happened while I lost another 15 pounds. Also, my latest hemoglobin A1c is 4.7
I don’t think it is laughable at all. Some fruits actually can increase the sugar content a lot, especially if you are puréeing the fruit and adding it. It does depend on the fruit, but if you add something like bananas, you can increase the sugar a lot. I like it with just water. I either eat it in a bowl like oatmeal heated up, or I have it in the shaker and I just use a wire ball in there. I follow the instructions that they have as the usage instructions. Are used to add a few spoons of yogurt, but I stopped doing that now because with the new formulas, the earthy taste isn’t so pronounced and I don’t need it anymore because the new formula is so much smoother and creamier. Definitely contact customer service to have your free shirt and shaker added to your order.
I laugh because there is no scientific evidence linking whole fruit consumption to obesity. It’s actually the opposite. I laugh because I know how effective the meat and dairy industry is at attacking carbs and getting the US public so afraid of anything carbohydrate that the idea of fruit causing weight gain becomes the conventional wisdom. Our great grandparents would roll on the floor laughing if someone suggested they abstain from apples, oranges, bananas, etc for fear of becoming obese.
" A number of prospective cohort studies have observed associations between diets containing fruits and vegetables and weight control, weight loss, and risk of obesity. A 2015 systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies (17 studies; 563,277 participants) showed that fruit intake was associated with modest reductions in body weight and waist circumference and a reduced risk of obese adiposity by 17%
A 2016 review article concluded that the consumption of increased levels of whole fruit was uniquely protective against weight gain and obesity
Pooled data from 3 US prospective studies including the Nurses’ Health Studies and Health Professionals Follow-up Study (133,468 men and women; baseline normal BMI; 4-year cycles) observed lower weight for intake of total non-juice fruit by 0.53 lb/serving and total vegetables by 0.25 lb /serving
As far as bananas is concerned, with my own anecdotal evidence (I eat 1 to 2 bananas every day) along with observing several raw vegan YouTubers who pound down 10 or more bananas a day and are skinnier than me (my BMI is 21), I’d definitely not worry about bananas. Incidentally, most bananas that are not overly ripe contain a lot of resistant starch and therefore don’t raise blood sugar quickly.
It doesn’t matter whether it is sugar from fruit or sugar from carbs or sugar from candy. A certain amount of sugar will be too much. It is metabolized by the body in the same way. Even government guidelines ask you to eat less fruit than vegetables. And yes, you probably won’t get too much sugar over just eating an apple or something like that, but when you put fruit into a shake, you smash it down a lot. I can fit 2 cups of fruit into one shake, and that is a lot. I stopped doing that because it is too much sugar. 2 cups of berries has 17 g of sugar, and berries are One of the lower sugar fruits. Two bananas have it 29 g of sugar. It honestly doesn’t matter whether it is honey, table sugar, or sugar from fruit. It gets metabolized by the same channels, and if you are trying to watch your sugar intake because of diabetes, insulin resistance, and other factors, it doesn’t matter. It is the same sugar. Lots of government entities and nutritionists criticize fruit smoothies for this same reason. Yes, even the ones made with real fruit. These smoothies have way too much sugar including if you make your own with real fruit. And people with diabetes are also encouraged to avoid some fruits because the sugar is one in the same. Yes, the idea that you became obese from eating an apple every day is laughable, but the idea that you can add too much fruit to a shake or a smoothie and that the sugar content can become just as high as a candy bar is actually not laughable. I’m not saying it is unhealthy to add fruit. I am just saying that you have to pay careful attention to make sure that the sugar content is not too high because it can very easily get too high. Another thing is that it can be kind of hard to overpower the flavor of Huel because it has a very distinctive nutty, Odie flavor that is always going to be in the foreground. So if you are adding berries or bananas to it in the hopes that it will taste more like berries or bananas, you can easily add too much. And it does add extra calories. If you are trying to lose or gain weight, you still need to count the calories that you are eating from fruits and vegetables. They still count. I would like to hear what a nutritionist from Huel has to say about this, but this is what I understand from my research. I would say that if you want to add fruit, it would be best to use fruit extracts, the flavor boost from the company, or add low sugar fruit although it makes more sense to me to actually eat the fruit instead of adding it to your shake. If you eat the fruit, you know how much you are having. When you purée or smash the fruit, look how small it seems. Do you want more of a savory Huel, I would say that it makes more sense to add vegetables to it. You could add 2 cups of vegetables and not have too much sugar. I am sure that the junk food industry does it capitalize on the fact that fruit has sugar, but just because they misrepresent this information and use it for their own gain, doesn’t make it untrue.
I’d argue that fruit from sugar and added sugar in candy are significantly different. They are handled differently by the body. The sugar in fruit is held within its fiber matrix. Fructose and sugar in fruit absorbs slower than added processed sugar. So although one soda may contain the same amount of fructose as 8 apples, even if I were to eat 8 apples it would still take much longer for my liver to process than if I were to drink the soda. My hormonal response would be muted compared to the soda, in my best estimation.
And I’m not convinced that mashing up the fruit in a blender significantly changes its contents or release of sugar. The resistant starches and fiber are still there. When I chew and swallow fruit, it winds up in basically the same consistency as if I blended it and drank it.
Anyway, I posted those peer reviewed association studies to show evidence that fruit consumption is associated with lower BMI. I also have links to randomized controlled trials showing how fruit helps with weight loss and insulin resistance.
Look we can debate this with our opinions and theorized mechanisms if we want. But the literature is clear. Fruit is beneficial for obese and type 2 diabetics. Most type 2 diabetics can and should consume multiple pieces of whole fruit each day, blended or not. They can certainly test their blood sugar if they want.
My conclusion from what I’ve read is that fruit is very healthy and should be consumed without intentional restriction by most people, even with its sugar content. It’s physiologically very different from consuming processed sugar which has been added into food. Also, for most people, it’s hard to “overdo it” on fruit. Most people would be content eating 8 pieces of fruit a day, and many would be fine with less. It’s self limiting. It’s very difficult to flood the liver with fructose from whole fruits the same way we can by drinking soda or eating candy. Consuming fruit and consuming candy or honey are not comparable.
Celery has sodium. But people aren’t developing hypertension from eating celery or even celery juice. Why? Because the dose and absorption of sodium from this natural source aren’t to the same degree as the added sodium in processed foods.
Let’s consider something else here, in regards to whole fruit. Fruit is more than just sugar. It’s also more than fiber. It has multiple different types of fiber. It also has resistant starch. It also contains pectin which is a “prebiotic”, a polysaccharide that promotes the growth of certain intestinal bacteria which are considered healthy. It has been shown in small controlled feeding trials that inclusion of various fruit can actually change the ratio of certain “good gut bacteria” to bad bacteria in just a matter of a week’s time. This mechanism may account for some of the long-term benefits we see in human studies and fruit consumption.
Fruit also contains polyphenols. One interesting thing highlighted in another article I was reading on polyphenols was:
" * “Polyphenols are the most abundant antioxidants in the diet, and their intake has been associated with a reduced incidence of Type 2 Diabetes in humans [11–13]. Polyphenols have anti-inflammatory effects and may influence glycemia through different mechanisms, including the inhibition of glucose absorption in the gut and the improvement of insulin resistance [9].”
" “Intakes of polyphenols, especially flavan-3-ols, and their food sources have demonstrated beneficial effects on insulin resistance and other cardiometabolic risk factors. Several prospective studies have shown inverse associations between polyphenol intake and T2D. The Mediterranean diet and its key components, olive oil, nuts, and red wine, have been inversely associated with insulin resistance and T2D. To some extent, these associations may be attributed to the high amount of polyphenols and bioactive compounds in typical foods conforming this traditional dietary pattern. “
So, when we talk about sugar-sweetened drinks, candy, deserts that have added sucrose or HFCS, this is a very very different situation than eating fruit. The sucrose has been extracted from the sugar beet or cane, taken out of it’s natural form, void of any polyphenols, fiber, resistant starch, etc. Then it is added to another food in it’s concentrated form. Consumption of these foods is what is harmful to human health. This type of sugar can overload the liver and lead to insulin resistance.
I would be very hard pressed to advise Type 2 diabetics to avoid fruit. In fact, in light of the evidence, it would be unethical for me to advise a Type 2 diabetic to avoid or minimize fruit.
In some diabetics, their post-prandial blood glucose may be high if they start on a plant-based diet with starches and fruit. Of course it will. We expect it to. They have developped insulin resistance over many years by consuming a diet high in added sugars, saturated fat, low in fiber, etc. We cannot expect to reverse Diabetes overnight. It is perfectly acceptible for a type 2 diabetic to have mildly elevated blood glucose for a short period of time IF they are now changing to a diet designed to restore insulin sensitivity. Restricting fruit or oats or starches or legumes is not the long term answer since people who ate these types of foods, minus the added sugars and animal fats, never became diabetic in the first place. And in light of the fact that Dr. Walter Kempner was CURING diabetic and obese patients on a diet of mostly white rice and fruit, we can be certain that starches and fruit are not the ultimate cause of Type 2 Diabetes.
If a type 2 diabetic were to rid their plate of meat, sugary drinks, sugary deserts, and dairy, go to a diet based on tubers, grains, squashes, green and yellow vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds, they could cure themselves most of the time. Yes, they would have elevated blood glucose for a while. But after a period of time (1 to 3 months) they would see significant improvements in blood glucose levels and likely lose excess body fat. Restricting fruit is never the answer. Restricting “carbs” is not the answer.
Diabetic complications take many years. This incessant need to closely monitor post-prandial glucose after every meal and therefore avoid any food that may spike blood glucose is not the best answer, especially in light of evidence that a certain diet can cure the diabetes. Cure should be the focus. A diet with plenty of fruits can be part of that cure. For example, if a Type 2 diabetic were to eat 2 white potatoes, his post-meal glucose would almost certainly be high. But does that mean he should avoid potatoes? Nope. In fact, an all-potato diet could actually cure his diabetes if he wanted to embark on a spartan diet. Potatoes are fantastic food for diabetics and non diabetics.
The plant concentrates nutrients into the fruit to benefit the animal. The fructose is built into the fruit to induce animals and humans to eat it. We eat fruit because it’s sweet and our taste buds prefer it. It’s there because fruit is very good for us. It’s also good for the plant since the animal eats the fruit, and the seed can pass into the fecal matter unharmed, be pooped out and now can grow in this nice fertilizer. Fruit benefits both the plant and the animal. Extracted sucrose which is concentrated and added into other foods doesn’t benefit anyone except the company selling the product. Sucrose is “dosed” in a way to induce the consumer to become addicted and want to buy the food again and again.