Sudden intolerance of Huel?

Experiences
1

I’ve been on Huel for over 6 months with Huel for most of my calories for the day. I work night shift so excuse my weird schedule. I eat my first meal of the day around 1930 (7:30 pm). It’s Huel 3 old scoops into ~18 oz of water. My second meal is when I have my lunch break around midnight to 0100 (am). Same story of mixing. I’ve been noticing about an hour to an hour and a half after I eat my second shake, my stomach starts aching. I will often get sudden diarrhea and will be bloated, nauseous, and have aching pains in my guts for several hours after before the feeling finally recedes, usually by the time I’m heading home from work. I eat regular food as my “evening” meal before going to bed at 0900 (am).

I’ve stopped eating Huel for several days and have not had another episode of this hell since I stopped eating Huel. Lot 94708 of the chocolate is what I’ve been mainly consuming with just a bit of the berry (don’t have a lot number for that one). Wondering if anyone else has been experiencing anything or if it is just me. The Huel hasn’t tasted any different than normal so I can’t imagine it’s a bad batch. I have been sometimes using the strawberry booster for Huel, but not with every meal. I stopped using the booster first to test if it might be that, it seems to be the Huel that is the cause of my intestinal distress. Might have to back off of Huel for a bit.

2

Oh no :pensive: If you have been having no issues with Huel for 6 months and are now suddenly it’s a bit of a strange situation.

What I can recommend is try going back to one Huel meal a day for a week or so and see if all is well. Then you can build yourself back up to 2.

If this still causes issues please let us know and we can look into this further for you.

3

6 months ago was Huel v1.0.

4

@Huel_Hefner Yes, but I get new bags every 4 weeks so I’ve been eating the new Huel formula for over a month, so it doesn’t seem like it’s just the change of the formula. If that was the case, I would think I would see issues sooner.

@Dan_Huel It’s been a crazy week at work so I was just taking other food for the past couple of days to give myself a small break and not have to deal with intestinal distress while having to keep very focused on my work. I did take chocolate Huel again tonight to work though and ate the shake for my lunch break as I used to. Did not have one before work just to see how one shake was. I was fine until just after 6 am. My stomach and intestines are currently gurgling away and the cramping is increasing as the bloat increases. I can feel it starting to race through my digestive system and I fear I’m on the countdown to being on the toilet with some more diarrhea. But this is the first day of just one Huel meal so I guess we will see. Unfortunately I only have chocolate left of Huel so I cannot even see if one of the others might be better for my digestive system right now. Edit: I also realise it is quite likely that my digestive system isn’t the happiest since I stopped Huel for several days and then started back up as well so I will give it a few days.

5

Went through the list of differences to see if one in particular could pinpoint what may have caused what you’re experiencing (that list here: https://huel.com/pages/huel-version-1-1-the-changes )
Maybe you can bring this list of changes to your doctor and see what they think.

6

Yeah it’s not the new formula by the sound of things. I know it has been mentioned on this forum by someone else before, but I feel that is a rare case and should not be the go to answer for everyone.

You may simply have a sensitive stomach. As you stopped consuming Huel for several days that probably explains part of the issue. Huel is high in fiber (a good thing) and most Western diets are low in fiber. So, it can take a week or so for your body to adjust to this.

Please do keep us updated and try to gradually reintroduce Huel into your diet.

7

Yes, but original post was made when I had been regularly consuming Huel without a break. Perhaps my stomach was just suddenly sensitive, but it seems weird. I’ve still been having issues, but it has been better with just one shake versus two. I’ll have diarrhea, but it isn’t sudden explosive diarrhea. And the cramping from bloat is only mild compared to “it feels like my guts are about to burst open.” I’ll give an update in about a week to see if it improves.

8

Apologies for the confusion. That is strange. Please let me know how you get on in a week or so and we can go from there.

9

So I got very busy and never got back here to do an update. I kept on the one shake per day for a few days but I was still getting a lot of gas and diarrhea so I stopped drinking Huel until I got my newest order in on April 18th or so. I decided to start fresh with this batch and have just been eating one Huel meal for my lunch and I have been back to normal. I guess just something was off with that bag of chocolate Huel that I had. I make sure to close my Huel bag after each use and it’s stored properly. Oh well, glad to be doing better on the Huel.

10

It’s great that you’re liking Huel again Alex! Still very odd that you had an issue with your previous bag.

11

I seem to have the same problem. I’ve been searching the web and most forums like this one offer no solution. A lot blame the person having the issue - “give it another month until your body gets used to it,” etc. My money is on something wrong with the product. Granted, not everybody gets affected the same way, but it seems to really disagree with me, and I don’t have any intolerances as far as I’m aware.

I have been using Huel for almost 3 months now. I usually have one shake for lunch every week day, taking a break on weekends.
I bought a couple of white bags, one vanilla and one chocolate.

The vanilla bag seems not to cause any adverse reaction. The chocolate one gives me really bad indigestion: stomach cramps, bloated stomach, and bouts of nausea. It feels like I swalled a brick!

I did notice I was not feeling great, after I started taking Huel, but since it wasn’t happening all the time (I wasn’t drinking from the chocolate bag very often), and since most posts in the forum suggest waiting until you adapt to it, I carried on.

I now run out of vanilla, and I can confirm that the chocolate bag is bad. The effect is almost instant, it takes less than half hour to start. The strange thing is that my partner tried it a few times and he’s got no issues at all.

The symptoms for me seem to match that of irritable bowel syndrome, which I read could be triggered by sucralose consumption. It would explain why my partner is not having issues but it doesn’t explain why that specific bag seems to be causing problems for me.

I’ve just bought a couple of the black bags, vanilla flavour, and they don’t seem to cause too much of an issue either. Unfortunately it’s much thicker than the white shake, I can only manage to swallow about half a shake.

I’m afraid I’ll have to give up on Huel. It’s a shame really, I was using it as a meal replacement for my lunches and I can already see the results on the scale.

12

Hi Leo! I just personally messaged you about this!

13

I think I am experiencing this as well. I bought both a bag of chocolate and vanilla black huel (first time buyer). The chocolate huel had been giving me similar reaction, about 30m-1h later my stomach would be churning. The vanilla does not seem to be affecting me this way. I am going to drink some more of the vanilla and see if that isolates the issue to the chocolate black huel.

1 Like
14

Can confirm the chocolate issue.

I started using Huel Black Edition for my lunches two months ago. I lift and need the extra protein. I began with Banana flavor, which was great. It even worked great with just the shaker and no blender. I sipped it over the course of my thirty minute lunch break and everything was fine. I moved from Banana, to Salted Caramel, and then to Coffee.

The Coffee flavor is where the stomach issues began, but I soldiered through it and finished the bag. Next I ordered Chocolate and Vanilla, and hoo boy the Chocolate tears my stomach up. To be clear, this isn’t an issue of drinking hot beverages prior, or not blending it (I started using a blender with the Coffee flavor to ameliorate the stomach discomfort), or eating it too quickly.

The stomach tightness begins with one sip. Just one. I can feel it immediately. I have tried slowing way way down with it, drinking half at lunch and the other half even for dinner. Nothing helps. I feel bloated and crampy.

I mentioned having Vanilla also, and I have experimented with it also. There are very mild stomach issues that are easily dealt with by slowing down and blending, etc. The contrast between Vanilla and Chocolate is dire. There is something wrong with the chocolate.

15

I have found that I do have an issue with pea protein from time to time. But I can usually just take some anti-gas right after drinking to help stop the problem.

16

It’s also possible you’ve gotten a bad batch. It does happen, it’s happened to me. They sent out new stuff pretty quickly. All that being said, if you have been on it for a while and it’s not the startup conditioning, that could be one of the issues.

17

So I’m brand new to Huel, this is my first week and I’m having the same issues as the original poster. Within 30 min of drinking the shake I get cramping and an urge to immediately evacuate my bowels. Then I have bloating and cramps for the rest of the day. I bought the black salted caramel and chocolate and also hot and savory. I seem to be only have issues with the shakes. I am brand new so I am only doing one 2 scoop shake to replace my lunches on weekdays. Anyone know what is up with this? Could it be the fiber or sweeteners used in the shakes?

18

Exactly the same issues for me - Started using the black powder without any issues, initally with Banana and Strawberry & Cream flavours. My latest order was Vanilla and Salted Caramel, no issues with the Vanilla but 30 to 60mins after having the Salted Caramel, my stomach is in bits and feel very nauseous for a few hours. :nauseated_face:

19

Hey Tom - welcome to the US Huel forum. :slight_smile:

Sorry to hear this, that certainly doesn’t sound right to me! I just sent you a direct message to see if I can learn a bit more and help further here.

20

Hello everyone. I’m new to the forum, but not to huel. I think huel is great. I’ve been having the black huel for three months now. I have it only for lunch. In the morning I eat some fruit and a large cup of coffee. I had no problems in the beginning. But for the last two weeks, I’ve had regular food at dinner which causes stomach cramps the next day. It happens every time I eat something fried. Is that normal? Like I said, it didn’t have that problem when I started drinking huel.