SUCRALOSE in Huel! I’m shocked and angered, canceled my order immediately. The volume of evidence against this known carcinogen makes its inclusion in this product beyond belief! Especially since they are also already using stevia, which should provide more than enough sweetness. I thought I had found something special, what a complete shame.
From cancer.gov:
Sucralose
Sucralose, marketed under the trade name Splenda®, was approved by the FDA as a sweetening agent for specific food types in 1998, followed by approval as a general-purpose sweetener in 1999. Sucralose has been studied extensively, and the FDA reviewed more than 110 safety studies in support of its approval of the use of sucralose as a general-purpose sweetener for food.
In 2016, the same laboratory that conducted the aspartame studies discussed above reported an increased incidence of blood cell tumors in male mice fed high doses of sucralose (5). However, as with the aspartame studies, FDA has identified significant scientific shortcomings concerning the reported study results.
Dude, there are two products: sweetened and unsweetened. In your haste to slam the sweetened version you might have overlooked the unsweetened version for those of us who don’t want or need sucralose or stevia. It’s not a “shame” it’s a different product offering for an audience you are not in; that’s ok.
When a product is marketed as healthy, it should be free of ingredients for which significant studies have shown risk. CSPI’s study, a group that has nothing to gain by promoting any particular ingredient, originally moved from “Safe” to “Caution” on sucralose, and has since moved to “Avoid”. Why put it in Huel with information like that, especially when there are demonstrably safe alternatives?
You’re citing a singular study. I don’t care what one group finds until it’s been tested and thoroughly reviewed by the greater scientific community. One group can find anomalies or make mistakes. Seriously, we still know very little about cancer and all it’s causes and contributing factors. Show me hard, peer reviewed evidence and I’ll change my mind.
Lord.
Okay well, guess I’m gonna die of cancer but you’ll have to pry my Huel shaker out if my cold, dead hands. At least I’ll die happy and full.
Healthy is a relative term. IMO, a small amount of Sucralose is far healthier than the same amount of sugar needed to create the same level of sweetness. And, really, Vanilla Huel is not overly sweet. There appears to be just enough Sucralose to slightly sweeten it. The overwhelming taste is oats.
And I would not base your argument on anything the CSPI states. Their past statements on trans fats and saturated fats are questionable.
Again, Huel fully discloses all its ingredients and the unflavored version contains no sweetener.
BTW, what’s up with the angry, triggered posts recently? This one and then the one where the woman was really mad and talking about unicorn’s farting rainbows. Huel is like causing road rage in some people.
They’re just hangry because Huel is a beautiful thing but a cheeseburger it ain’t.
Read our article on sucralose here.
Of course, if sucralose still isn’t for you, we have Unflavoured Unsweetened Huel which contains no sucralose and you can use our Flavor Boosts to flavour Huel as these don’t contain sucralose.
New study shows it causes problems in rats:
“For the first time, scientists exposed pregnant and lactating mice to sucralose and acesulfame-K—a common combination in soda, sports supplements and other sweetened products—and found their pups developed harmful metabolic and gut bacteria changes.”
The boosters contain Stevia… can’t believe you would recommend we use a different sweetener in place of another.
Do you have the source for this study Kyle? This isn’t really new information. In our article we mention previous rat studies the issue is mostly the amounts used are over the amounts achievable via human consumption and they have not been replicated in humans.
I believe Kyle is referring to this study:
Olivier-Van Stichelen S, Rother KI and Hanover JA (2019) Maternal Exposure to Non-nutritive Sweeteners Impacts Progeny’s Metabolism and Microbiome. Front. Microbiol. 10:1360. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.01360
For once they did actually administer amounts that weren’t outrageous. The study was specifically looking for effects of sweeteners on offspring during pregnancy and lactation.
Thanks for this.
You’re absolutely right there.
It’s disappointing that the mice were administered both sucralose and acesulfame-K so the individual effects couldn’t be studied. There may have been synergistic effects between the two especially as both are used up to their respective ADIs.
Let’s put this into context too, it was in pregnant mice, not humans. The effects on the mother’s microbiome appears not to have been studied here. It could be possible that artificial sweeteners are not suitable for pregnant/lactating mothers, but this is only a single study.
Even at 2000kcal of Huel you are consuming way under the ADI for a 45kg woman and during pregnancy and lactation, we do not suggest to have Huel for 100% of the diet due to the differeing needs compared to those not nursing a child.
Additionally, Huel contains prebiotics and fibre which are beneficial to the gut microbiota and cannot be ignored.
So even if this study was final (it’s not), you’d have to be a pregnant or lactating mouse for this to be truly relevant.
Yes, I was also slightly surprised that they didn’t include study groups where each sweetener was fed in isolation. It seems like an obvious area for improvement.
Luckily I have no plans to be pregnant or a mouse in the foreseeable future.
If only they listed ingredients clearly on the website and offered an alternative without sweeteners!
Reading the study and others like it, the threshold for safety is about 50 mg per kg of body weight.
For a 200 pound person, that’s roughly 4.5 grams (4500 milligrams) of pure sucralose per day.
Vanilla Huel has 14 milligrams of sucralose per serving, or roughly .31% of your daily recommended limit. You should be fine. If you are super concerned, I would recommend buying the unsweetened version of Huel.
There is an unflavored/unsweetened version available. You can flavor and sweeten that any way you like. But the amount of sucralose in a serving is so small I personally don’t think there is any cause for concern. Better than 10g of sugar to sweeten it.
EDIT: Reading your post again and I’m pretty certain I missed the sarcasm in the first go round. Oh well…