The dark truth behind your meal replacement shake

If you’re a gleaming gym influencer or muscly tech bro, nothing is more essential than Huel, or any one of the grainy, tongue-curling meal replacement shakes that have bio-hacked their way into cultural ubiquity of late. The post-pandemic wellness boom, born from a desire to avoid getting sick, brought with it a huge wave of pills, potions and powders promising to cure ailments, boost health, and improve performance. “Protein” has become a buzzword for anything fitness-related, and drinks like Huel have found their way onto every shelf, promising quick hits of protein and nutrition to, well, fuel you through your day.

But the tide is beginning to turn on these drinks, thanks to a new awareness around the detrimental impact ultra-processed food is having on our bodies, and concerns over how these shakes are being used. Eating disorder specialist and MBACP-accredited psychotherapist Ruth Micallef tells me that many of these drinks – that are heavily advertised on social media as “nutritionally complete” and “protein-rich” – are helping to fuel eating disorders in a “socially acceptable manner”. (Huel did not respond to multiple requests for comment.) Most meal replacement brands – Huel included – don’t promote weight loss as a benefit, primarily focusing on protein content, which appeals to those trying to build muscle. But it’s undeniable that a significant portion of people use them for weight management. I should know. For a brief period last year, I was one of them.

“The reality is that meal replacement shakes are not, in fact, full meals and were never initially designed to be a long-term solution,” Micallef says. “Firstly, if we are attempting to lose weight, we need to do so sustainably, and liquid meals are in no way sustainable. Secondly, meal replacement drinks can severely exacerbate and legitimise disordered eating.”

Meal replacement shakes were originally developed in the 1960s for the sick, specifically people who were unable to eat solid food for medical reasons. Diet culture, though, spotted an opportunity, quickly tightening its grip on liquidised nutrition as a weight loss aid. It’s never quite let go. The 1970s brought the advent of the SlimFast shake – described as a “fat-free, carbohydrate-free, animal-based fortified protein supplement formula” – which itself spawned dozens of similar products.

There was a brief respite from all of the above give or take a decade ago, with body positivity being embraced by the masses. The internet, once a force for good, helped spread the message that hating ourselves thinner was doing us absolutely no favours. But diet culture, always lurking in society’s recesses, wouldn’t go away for long: the meal replacement drink evolved, rebranded, and found a whole new audience through the rise of “fit-fluencers” on social media. And much like SlimFast, the goal of a modern meal replacement shake is to transform the customer’s body, bringing them closer to the current physical ideal.

Ruth Micallef, eating disorder specialist

Sales of these drinks have soared in recent years. Huel, specifically, surged past £200m in 2023, potentially due to the support of influencer, Dragons’ Den star and millionaire Steven Bartlett, who hosts the podcast The Diary of a CEO. But there has also been trouble: the advertising watchdog ASA condemned Huel on multiple occasions for misleading customers by making unsubstantiated claims about the health benefits its products provide. Nutritionists also regularly share videos on social media warning people against using meal replacement drinks in the long term.

I didn’t intend to use these drinks for an extended time, but in a bid to shift some weight, I decided to give meal replacement shakes a shot. I bought a bag of vanilla-flavoured powder and a shaker from one of the many brands on the market. But the experience was so incredibly joyless that I’ve left a third of the bag to languish in my kitchen. I cannot bring myself to measure out another cup of the stuff and drink it sadly during dinnertime, when I could be cooking and eating a delicious, warming meal with everything good in life. It wasn’t just the objectionable taste that turned me off – I found the lack of enjoyment very difficult to live with, and wondered seriously how anyone could say with a straight face that these shakes were “totally delicious” for any amount of money.

While weight loss motivated me to pick up a meal replacement shake, others are drawn to them in order to save time – that’s another one of their biggest selling points. They seem to appeal to those too busy with their nose to the grindstone. No time to sit down and eat a proper meal? Just grab a shake!

Nottingham-based chef Sat Bains used to make a habit of drinking Huel on the go. “It was just easy,” he tells me. “If I was squeezing in gym time between running the restaurant, a Huel seemed like a good idea to have a meal without really having a meal.” He says he was swayed by the “clever marketing” the brand employs, using celebrity and influencer endorsements on social media and in podcasts like Diary of a CEO to reel in customers. Most recently, Bartlett came under fire for promoting Huel in advertisements without making it clear he had business interests in the company. Bartlett is an investor in Huel and also sits on the company’s board.

Today, Bains avoids meal replacement drinks because of their status as an ultra-processed food, which he stays away from due to his health history. He also believes they’re fine to drink every now and then when you’re short on time, but they shouldn’t be consumed with regularity.

“If you’re not eating because you were so busy that you forgot to eat, your blood sugar and energy levels are going to go down, so grabbing a shake is better than nothing,” he says. “But they won’t sustain you because your body’s going to burn it all up so quickly, leaving you tired and hungry quite soon.” Eating solid food is always going to be better than a meal replacement, he adds, both in terms of nutritional value and time.

The way Huel and related drinks have snuck into our everyday lexicon is cause for concern, Micallef says. Yes, they have become synonymous with fitness, but few questions are being asked about their relationship to diet culture. Micallef points to symptoms of disordered eating such as fasting and over-exercising, which she says have become “increasingly normalised on [social media], to the point where many now see them as healthy life choices”. She adds: “Drinking Huel for your meals is in essence a liquid diet, albeit it is one that many would see now as ‘healthy’ or socially acceptable.”

Micallef advises that anyone looking to lose weight, or who is struggling with disordered eating, try working with a specialist and a registered dietitian in order to create healthier habits and get to the bottom of the condition. “Therapy and dietetics will never be as ‘sexy’ as a shake, but for eating disorders, they are going to be far more beneficial.”

I ultimately realised that swapping real food for a cup of pea protein was far too dystopian for me. And I’d advise others to follow my lead. Prepare meals, choose solid forms of sustenance, and learn from the plethora of quick, healthy recipes that are available on the internet. Healthy, tasty, nutritionally rich living is achievable – don’t believe you only need a powder to do it.