My week on Huel: can you really live off nutritionally-complete powder?
The best innovations, received wisdom tells us, solve problems we didn’t know existed. And I bet you didn't know that having to eat is a problem.
Huel, a portmanteau of “human fuel” with unfortunate undertones of “gruel”, is made from oats, pea protein, ground flaxseed, brown rice protein, and an arsenal of vitamins and minerals. It is a “nutritionally-complete meal replacement powder”, which is to say that you should be able to live off Huel and Huel alone while remaining in rude health.
Huel, in short, is the foodstuff that makes food an encumbrance.
Brewed in Devon, the concoction was dreamed up by internet entrepreneur Julian Hearn and his nutritionist pal James Collier, on twin unarguable premises: 1. Westerners eat bad food and too much of it; and 2. this means there’s not enough to go round elsewhere.
Huel is vegan, contains no gluten, works out to roughly £2 per meal, and needs only water and a vigorous shake before it’s ready to drink. Most of its users – it was launched a year ago – use it to replace the odd meal, and its healthy ratio of protein to carbohydrates make it a growing favourite with gym-goers.
But the real question is whether man can really live on a diet of Huel. So, having ordered a week’s worth of the stuff, I ignored the packaging’s warnings not to launch straight into a full-Huel diet (like electorates and household pets, guts need time to adapt to change), and set aside a week for the experiment, keeping a diary throughout. Below: my Huel log.
Monday
It begins. This morning I splashed five parts water onto one part silty, vanilla-scented Huel as instructed. It’s a thin, beige, oaty-sweet mixture, 150 calories stretched across the best part of a litre. If I learn one thing this week it’ll be why Oliver Twist wanted more.
Wildly increasing the relative amount of Huel to water stopped me expiring of hunger later in the day, but in the absence of a blender – you have to furiously shake the branded beaker like a baby with a rattle – this makes it fairly lumpy. Still, I’m full and feel fine, and if my colleagues think I’m a weirdo for doing this, none of them have said so.
I head to the pub after work – a problem. All I'm allowing myself to put in my mouth is Huel and water. Do I sup brazenly on my beaker? Or do I ask for water and put some shrapnel in the tips pot?
Realising that I’d have to turn down even a lemon slice, I hunker down with my trusty beaker and try to avoid the landlord's eye. It’s going to be a long old week.
Tuesday
I’m struggling to get enough down me to hit anywhere near my 2000-calorie RDA, and feel a bit off the pace playing five-a-side football. But I’m always off the pace, and I’ve felt full all day.
Interestingly, I don’t experience my usual vicious afternoon craving for Quavers. Am I cured?
Wednesday
Caved and had a ginger nut. Oops. In my defence, I’ve lost three kilos in three days and the scent of Huel is beginning to sicken me, making it even harder to chug enough down to keep me going. By mid-afternoon I feel fairly light-headed, and when a kind but unthinking colleague offers me a biscuit, I take it. I feel rejuvenated.
Thursday
The Huel remains a little lumpy, but putting coffee powder in it this morning livened it up enough for me to start almost liking it again. And I don’t feel malnourished at all. In fact, I can say with absolute certainty that my current diet of Huel by mouth is far healthier than whatever I’d be gobbling down left to my own devices.
But then I come home to find my flatmate cavorting around the living room with a couple of friends, empty bottles strewn across the kitchen table. God, I could do with a drink.
Friday
Someone on the other side of the office just opened a tub of curry from the Wasabi shop downstairs. I know because my sense of smell could rival a bloodhound’s after days without real food.
There are mercies though. Huel forum users warn that days of flatulence and digestive problems await sudden adopters, but to everyone's relief I’ve escaped this unwanted side-effect. And that coffee powder for breakfast really helps. Savoury in the morning, sweet in the evening. Like a drawn-out main course and then pudding. Delicious.
Saturday
The list of food which I am lusting after includes, but is not limited to: a colleague’s Cornish pasty; Mini Cheddars; a Quorn sandwich; red cabbage; and Quavers. I even half-fancy some lettuce.
I turned veggie a couple of years ago and this is the closest I’ve come to running into the nearest KFC, slapping a tenner on the counter, and demanding a Boneless Banquet with extra gravy. Is this what it's like to be pregnant?
It all gets too frustrating after another unfulfilling pub trip: I wolf down some noodles on my return home. Sorry, Huel. Sorry, journalism. Sorry, science.
Sunday
Having had something different the night before, the last day is a breeze. A week to the hour since my last full meal, my flatmate and I usher in a pizza delivery. It’s bready and flavourless and she bins most of hers – Hearn and Collier would despair at her wastefulness – but I make short work of mine. At last! Real food! I devour the pathetic excuse for a pizza like a wolf tearing through a flock of lambs.
Some reflections on Huel
It’s good. It’s very good. I got bored of having the same thing all the time, but have lost well over a kilo, despite finding it filling. I've also felt healthy throughout the experiment.
Ok, it hasn't been the fairest test. Banning all other foods (going Huel turkey?) for a week doesn't really do justice to Hearn and Collier's vision of a meal replacement powder; and I failed at a couple of key junctions anyway. A better indication of how the Huel week went is that now, a while later, I still use Huel: not all day, not every day, but here and there, when I can’t be bothered to cook, or when I want to balance out my otherwise atrocious diet.
The problem of repetitiveness could be resolved by using their flavour packs (seven of them, from banana to pineapple & coconut), or by actually following their advice and having a real meal once in a while. Huel isn’t a food killer, but it’s an excellent sidekick. All that remains is to get it to taste of Quavers.
