Noted. Like I said above, we’ve asked the lab to revisit measuring oxalates in chocolate Huel Powder. Our lab contractor is different to who we were using in 2019. I’ll report back when we have results.
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Thanks. Looking forward to it. Be sure to ask the lab to test the unflavored Huel powder, to serve as a baseline. The flavored varieties may give different results. The chocolate flavor would probably have the highest oxalate content of all the flavors available. Berry might be somewhere in between.
It would be cool if someone developed a way to create a cocoa extract that extracted just the flavor components, without the stuff that doesn’t contribute to flavor (oxalate, caffeine, etc.).
As a chocolate lover, it’s painful to have to give up the chocolate Huel, but based on my calculation above, and without any lab tests to go by, I have no choice. Fortunately I like other flavors too – including unflavored, which I love because I can add my own flavors and even use it as a cooking ingredient.
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Our labs have said that they have tested oxalates in protein powders before and so it may be possible to test for oxalates in our products but the matrix is different.
I’m sending off UU and Chocolate v3.0 and Black Edition powders for testing as well as Thai Green Curry for H&S.
It will be at least a month till we have results but I will post as soon as we have them.
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Hey, we have our results back! They’re expressed as mg of oxalic acid per 100g of Huel product.
v3.0 UU - 40mg/100g
v3.0 Peanut Butter - 50mg/100g
v3.0 Chocolate - 80mg/100g
Black Edition Vanilla - 90mg/100g
Black Edition Chocolate - 100mg/100g
H&S Thai Green Curry - 40mg/100g
We’ll update our information on site accordingly.
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Thank you Dan. I expected the chocolate to be highest; one serving of Black Edition chocolate consumes the entire daily oxalate budget for a kidney stone former.
Overall, these results are higher than I expected, but likely lower than your competitor Soylent, which uses soy (high in oxalate).
I wonder why vanilla is so high? Using the results for the Black Edition, I would expect regular vanilla powder oxalic acid content to be 90% of the chocolate, or about 70mg/100g. Even so, I am quite surprised by that number. I thought vanilla Huel was basically unflavored with some sweetener and vanilla added. Isn’t that the case with most Huel powders? Start with UU and add flavors to it?
I don’t see any differences in ingredients that would account for Vanilla having higher oxalate than UU. Vanilla flavored things barely register on oxalate.org.
For the unflavored Huel, 40mg oxalate per serving is higher than I expected. It means a kidney stone former cannot be on a 100% Huel diet without blowing the 100mg/day budget. I’d be consuming 160mg of oxalic acid per day. This can be mitigated somewhat by mixing in lemon juice to increase the citrate load (which helps prevent stones from forming), sweetening to taste with stevia (extract, not leaf), and drinking it with a calcium supplement to encourage calcium oxalate to form inside the intestines rather than the kidneys.
If the 80/20 rule holds, I suspect most of the oxalic acid in the UU Huel comes from one ingredient (possibly the coconut powder, tapioca, or brown rice protein).
Yeap, you’ve got it.
Black Edition is higher in brown rice protein than v3.0 which would explain the difference. It’s not due to the flavour blends.
Brown rice protein is the main contributor, you’re absolutely right.
Brown rice protein is the main contributor, you’re absolutely right.
Well, Huel contains proteins other than brown rice protein, so the oxalic acid could be reduced by reducing the proportion of brown rice protein and increasing the others, and adding some amino acids to keep the profile in balance. I have also heard about rice protein isolates containing over 90% protein instead of the 70-80% for normal brown rice protein.
I guess, if I want to live for a while on a 100% Huel diet as a kidney stone former, it would have to be a weight-loss rather than weight-maintenance diet, because I would have to limit myself to three servings per day, which would be 120mg/day of oxalate (slightly exceeding the recommended budget of 100mg/day). Someday I’d like to see a low-oxalate version, perhaps using more pea protein or even whey protein isolate (which would no longer be vegan).
Yes that’s true.
We also tested Complete Protein and the oxalic acid content was 70mg/100g. There’s no brown rice protein in Complete Protein, we use hemp, pea and fava bean.
It’s certainly something we’d consider, but alongside so many other considerations it can be tricky!
To everyone on this post especially Anachronist and Dan_Huel, thank you for the discussion and the information. I just recently had a stone so knowing this information is invaluable.
Really enjoying the Berry flavor it’d be nice to have the oxalate content for that one as well.
Though I’m sure it won’t happen anytime soon a lower oxalate version in the future would be great, =)
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No problem Ian! I’m sorry to hear you’ve had some health troubles recently.
As the only difference between Berry and UU is the flavourings you can apply the 40mg/100g value to Berry.
Let me know if you need anything else.
All: I recently had a kidney stone as well and am suddenly interested in this topic. I really love the v2.0 RTDs and was curious if you had similar oxalate numbers for the RTDs? Will they be in the same ballpark as the powders? Sorry for bringing back a very old thread.
I really love the RTDs and would be great to keep drinking them 
Anil
@Dan_Huel I was wondering if you had a chance to also get some data on the v2 RTDs, especially regarding oxalate? I have a fridge full of them and wanted to learn more before going back to my usual one a day consumption
I’m sorry for the delayed response Anil! I’m afraid we don’t currently have testing results for this but we have added to the list to send off so once we’ve had these results we’ll make sure to share them 
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Thanks! I look forward to it - hopefully it will be at the lower end of your other results (~40mg). Did I mention that I really like the v2 RTDs
Anil
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No problem at all! I hope so too 
what’s your current favorite flavor?
Strawberry, followed by Cinnamon Roll
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What a bummer, BE bags are all I have left.
Is the amount of Potassium Citrate in BE and “standard” the same? I believe the amount of Potassium is about the same, but the breakdown isn’t listed, so I’m not sure how much is Citrate and how much is Chloride…
The breakdown between citrate and chloride will be the same between both V3 and BE.
Is there a chance to actually get the Black Edition UU results? It would only be beneficial to add all the results into the product site. I’d suspect them to be around 60mg/100g - UU is 40mg/100g, chocolate is 80mg/100g, BE chocolate is 100mg/100g, so UU BE should be 60mg/100, given the fact it’s got no chocolate nor stevia (that one has oxalates, too), but around 50% more protein per the same size (90g).
But swapping brown rice protein for something else would be a welcome change…or at least adding more vitamin B6 and calcium, since these (as well as magnesium) bind the oxalates, and even those people at risk of kidney stones will see the majority of oxalates being binded by those minerals/vitamins, thus preventing them to get into your bloodstream and then kidneys.
Hi everyone,
I’ve been dealing with kidney stone issues since I started consuming Huel a year ago. So far, I’ve had four kidney stones. The first one was due to consuming a lot of spinach and chard. Three years later, I passed a second stone, which was relatively small—I suppose that’s normal for me. Four years after that (this year), I passed another stone, measuring about 4-5 mm. Just one or two months later, I experienced the most excruciating pain of my life while passing a 6 mm stone. This painful experience compelled me to make a promise to myself to be more consistent and proactive about my health.
These last two episodes occurred after a year of increasing my exercise routine while continuing to take Huel. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s largely my fault for not drinking enough water, leading to dehydration, but now I recognize the need to make consistent dietary changes as well. I’m particularly concerned about the calcium supplementation and the oxalate content in Huel complete protein since they directly contribute to my calcium oxalate kidney stones.
It would be ideal to find an alternative with less supplementation, though I’m not sure the market is very large for people with my specific needs.
I really appreciated the product and was very excited to complement my normal diet. It’s unfortunate that in my particular case, being prone to kidney stone formation, I need to stop using it. Thank you, Huel, for the journey we’ve shared!
Best regards,
Hector