I find it really hard to believe people use this for food and nothing else. I’m on 2 weeks and its a struggle to want to drink this stuff and takes me almost 2 hours to get it down. The taste is so horrible and the only way to make it taste better is adding more calories which ruins the point of this shake. I feel like pieces of the oats are constantly stuck to my throat which is annoying it. I was excited to try this after hearing so much about it but I guess it wasn’t for me which sucks cause I ordered a lot for the first time buyer discount. Smh
I personally found only chocolate to be good. I added sugar free chocolate syrup I bought at the grocery store to the vanilla and Berry from my first order and have been 100% chocolate since then. 4 months going strong – replacing most meals during the week. Lost 14 pounds and feel great.
I’m sorry to hear this. What is it you don’t like about the taste exactly? We have loads of suggestions to get Huel working for you.
How are you making your Huel?
Use more water, slam it down
You shouldn’t need more than 30 seconds to drink half a liter of water.
I ran out of the juice I was using to adf flavor and this week I’ve spent even less time worrying about how it tastes. I don’t dwell on how horrible my vitamins/supplements taste either.
If I felt like the OP I certainly would not “choke it down” over two hours; that’s too much like punishment or abuse.
shrug 'just sharing a different perspective
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Yeah, two hours is wayyyy too long to do a huel shake. I take about 30 minutes.
Currently I’m using a pre-mixed iced coffee drink (4 oz) + chocolate powder and ~ 6 oz water. What I do is pour in the coffee drink, add in 75g powder and shake it up. It sits in my work fridge until I’m ready for lunch - so approximately five hours, today it’s six hours. Then I add my cold water and shake again. The resulting texture is way better - less grit by far, less sticking to the throat for sure.
I also always have a drink of some sort on my desk anyway so that’s not necessarily an issue for me. I don’t drink soda, so it’s nearly always lemon water or the Bai flavored teas.
If you have the vanilla huel - there’s a slew of things you can try. Pre-mixed iced coffee drinks (check the calories or you’re shooting yourself in the foot), I’ve used regular coffee too. Earl Grey tea + vanilla huel isn’t awful - it definitely needs a shot of Splenda in it, but that’s how I make my tea anyway. I’ve also used the flavor drops for milk (find on Amazon) and sugar free coffee syrups (walmart or similar).
You can also use a cup of almond milk (or whatever nut milk) and sugar free jello powder. At one point I was using a cup of almond milk + 1/2 tablespoon sugar free cheesecake jello powder + 1/2 teaspoon of sugar free cherry jello powder and the vanilla huel - now, I’m not saying it tasted like cherry cheesecake, but hey - it was pretty dang good.
You can also use cocoa powder with the powdered peanut butter with a 1/2 tablespoon of sugar free butterscotch jello powder and it’s kind of a knock off Reese’s / Snickers flavor.
Listen, I’m always going to be a foodie / fat kid at heart, I don’t care how much weight I lose - if it doesn’t taste good - it can keep on trucking. You just have to play with your food, despite what we’re taught as kids, and make it taste good to you.
p.s. For what it’s worth - I don’t use the Huel shakers for Huel. I use them for ice water (or tea) because the screens are great at straining the ice from the drink as I’m sipping. I use the shaker bottles with the wire balls - they perform way better at demolishing the flax seeds - which is what is likely actually getting stuck in your throat.
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I’ve gotten to the point where I went out to buy another shake that holds more water to water it down. It’s still horrible but I can get it down in a matter of seconds. I’ve tried blending with water and ice and just water nothing, also over night. I bought the flavor pack plus banana flavoring. I also bought both chocolate and vanilla bases. Chocolate is even worse. I refuse to add any other calories to this so I don’t add anything. I’m going to try and suffer through the rest of this and probably switch. You would think taste would be a important factor in these drinks. Saw dust would have been cheaper and taste the same in my opinion at this point.
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What were you eating before you tried Huel?
If you are still sugar addicted, the lack of “flavor” might be that you’re missing the sugar.
You might try non- nutritive sweeteners such as splenda or stevia.
The blender helps a lot too.
Have you tried other meal replacements? I thought Soylent tasted too much like how spackle smells and it gave me way too much sugar shock. I can’t stand the milk aftertaste of whey-based protein shakes even when they’re a crazy amount of sugar to mask it. I really don’t like paying for RTD products for mostly water and the trash associated with bottles/cans.
Give you a little history. I’m a vet and got hurt while in. Nothing crazy, just slipped and feel while doing maintenance on top of a tank, big fall tho. lol. So fast forward about 10 years and my back starts getting so inflamed I can’t get the strength to leave the bed because of the pain. Shit sucked. So I do what everybody does, I turn to the internet to find a fix. I did what was supposed to be a 7 day dry fast but only made it a little over 4 days. Around day 2 and a half I became more mobile again though wasn’t completely great. By day 4 my back was fine but I couldn’t handle the lack of water anymore and was feeling sick. So I broke it the proper way with fruit and veggie juices for 2 days before I went to a diet of chicken, brown rice, and only green veggies. Nothing but water to drink. I did use some zero calorie sauces somewhere in the first week because I couldn’t handle the blandness. I did that meal plan every day 3x a day for about 2 weeks before I got tired of cooking because I couldn’t find time. Ordered Huel and continued to eat that till it got here.
I don’t think I would be addicted to sugar after that. But I could be wrong. Shrug. I have tried the blender and it didn’t help. Honestly the lot of water option is the best so far. I don’t waste money so that’s what I will do.
This gym I used to go to sold Herbalife shakes at their juice bar and I would get them occasionally. The only problem I had with them was that I always had to double up the order cause the calorie count was so low. They tasted amazing. I’m sure if I was ordering them from someone though it would be a different story one way or the other. I’ve heard good and bad things about them. I can just say I like the taste. I’ve never heard of the one you were on.
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Hey @prongs307 these suggestions may help:
Coffee - either instant if you’re in a hurry, or brewed if you’ve a little bit more time on your hands.
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Syrups - such as those used at Starbucks. There’s a whole range of flavours, from caramel to mint.
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Blended fruit - some people say it’s nice to add some extra fresh or frozen fruit and then blend, i.e. banana.
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Cocoa powder - for a hint of chocolate.
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Cordial - I’ve not tried this myself but I’ve heard it can be good.
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Cinnamon powder - this often comes up as a customer favourite.
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Combinations - the choice is endless once you start experimenting with combinations. A couple of customer favourites are: Bananas and Cinnamon, and Chocolate powder and Coffee.
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Savoury flavours - the Unflavoured and Unsweetened Huel opens up a whole world of possibilities. Some ideas include: cayenne powder for those who love heat, curry, stock cubes, even bacon powder
It’s really hard to find anything about Herbalife’s nutritional’s from what I found, there’s 9g of sugar per 90kcal. So comparing that to a 400kcal Huel meal there’s 1g of sugar vs 40g!
Are you only eating Huel? Because going from a comfort food-based diet to 100% Huel (or any other instant food) is jumping into an ice cold bath. Of course it won’t be easy. Maybe you should try having one Huel meal a day to start? That is what I typically do. You know, not every meal has to be a beautiful aesthetic experience - ultimately what we want is good nutrition, and Huel does provide that.
And there are ways to improve the flavor. I am sure you can find some info on that if you look around. A lot of people have come up with various additions and recipes. Good luck…
Thanks for the suggestions Trailesque, but it is no longer needed. I ordered something better and tossed this already.
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Hey Prongs, just wondering what you decided to switch to. I also eat Soylent, and occasionally Jimmy Joy. Some of the others look good too, but some are pricey. Soylent powder with a banana and/or some melon, sugar, and spices tastes pretty darn good imo.
Best regards
Hey Trailesque, I went with Herbalife. I’m one of those people that couldn’t care less about something if its supposed to be good for you, I care about taste. I can’t maintain eating a diet or these drinks if they taste bad. I don’t prefer Herbalife actually cause I think the calories are too low for individual shakes. But they make up for that by some amazing flavors and they have a powder to up the calories in the shakes, I just haven’t bought it yet. I’m only about 20 pounds from where I want to be, so it’s not that crazy. I have 4 Herbalife shakes a day plus a protein shake after the gym. Averaging 1400 calories a day and about a 2 pound weight loss a day for the last 3 days. After I get to 190 I’m going to a keto diet. Sounds amazing and I can still have cheese. lol
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Hi, again. It sounds like you are doing some interesting playing around with your shakes. I never tried Herbalife but I wonder if that plus some protein shakes is really giving you the nutrition you need. You may want to consult with a nutritionist to get a good program going.
Personally I like the meal replacement shakes (like Huel and Soylent) because they are fast, inexpensive, healthy, and vegan. We all have our own reasons for trying these products. They don’t always taste great, I know, but I have found ways to make them taste better. Here is something for you - a website that compares a bunch of these products:
Best regards
I’ll try Herbalife after this then are they much nicer? I’ve had one off these huel shakes and im really put off there absolutely disgusting
I ordered gainful and its tailored to my needs and they have vegan personalized shakes that’s a plain base powder and I get to pick 4 different flavors to add and is way smoother and better. I loved the vanilla huel cause I love oatmeal an the taste and texture didn’t bother me but I got the chocolate which was disgusting and the RTD huel of vanilla and berry and I’ve never been more disappointed with a rtd being 10x worse than the powder so after spending all that money for nothing I had to switch myself
Sorry to hear you weren’t a fan of Huel Stacy. What is it you didn’t like about the powder and RTD? If you have any unopened pouches of powder or full boxes of RTD you can return them for a refund.
Gainful is more of a protein powder. Even the “meal supplements” are not nutritionally complete missing out on essential fats, vitamins and minerals. The two are not like-for-like at all. If you compare calorie for calorie Huel is far cheaper too.
Obviously both boxes were open as I had to try them because you dont offer samples and I got 2 different flavors, they tasted rancid the vanilla rtd tasted like drinking something expired which was disappointing cause I love the vanilla powder and the berry barely had any flavor but more tolerable than the other. I ended up tossing them.
Gainful is more leaned to protein yes but they use similar plant based proteins and I can also add very few things to make it a delicious meal unlike huel, if I added what it took for it to taste good it would end up being close to 650 calories which defeats the purpose for me. I really wanted to love huel as a whole but with the price and the no samples I cannot recommend to people for that reason sadly.
I will still order vanilla powder huel here and there because I genuinely love the taste but I will wait a while before doing so again
there are a lot of things that you can add to Huel shakes that don’t alter the caloric intake much if at all.
check out some of my recipes posted here, check out the thousands of other recipes posted here.
fruit. nuts. various powders. grains. mix n match Huel flavors. the flavor boosts. sounds like you just ran with your first impression. give it another go. the benefits of adding Huel to your diet outweigh the taste.