Can I live off Huel Alone? – Is Drinking Your Meals the Best Idea?

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I got my hands on some Huel Black Edition strawberry and cream flavor. I’m interested to know what this stuff tastes like, but also, if Huel is the real deal, is it worth it? 

Is it all a massive gimmick or is there some actual substance to this?

Table of Contents

• What is Huel?
• How Healthy is Huel?
• Can I live off Huel Alone?
• What Does Huel Taste Like?
• My Conclusion

We’re going to explore the question of is Huel worth it, and also can I live off Huel alone? It’s quite a big question because of how popular Huel is today.

Huel hasn’t paid me to do this review, this video is me just looking into Huel. I bought all of this with my ‌money to see what it’s actually like.

I bought this bag of strawberries and cream flavor Black Edition and I also bought the chocolate and vanilla ready-mixed drinks from the supermarket mainly because I didn’t want to spend too much just in case it tasted disgusting.

What is Huel?

If you don’t know what Huel is I’ll give you a quick summary.

Huel is a meal replacement supplement, or as they call it a ‘complete food’ that over the past, I’d say… 5 years has really grown in popularity.

I first remember seeing Huel as a subscription deal a few years ago where you pay a certain amount per month and you get a bag delivered to your door every 1,2,3, 4-week period. They actually still do that.

But now, their range has expanded and they aren’t just selling chocolate and vanilla meal replacement powder in an online only deal, you can now get snack bars, protein bars, a hot and savory range, and ready mixed drinks that you can now buy in supermarkets and a whole lot more flavors.

They also have a sustainable clothing line called ‘Huelwear’

They also have a band of loyal and devoted followers, who swear by the Huel brand, and are also the reason why I’m looking into it, so many of my friends rave about Huel, about the feeling it gives them and the taste of it. So let’s get into this.FLASH UP TASTE TEST CARD.

What’s in Huel?

With Huel, you get 

• 40g of protein
• 16g of carbs, 4.5g from sugars
• 8.3g of fat

The protein is from rice and pea protein, this. This is something that initially put me off, because for me, when I’ve tried vegan friendly protein powders, rice and pea protein blends have always tasted gritty and disgusting, a bit like drinking sand. The only proper way around it is flavoring it strongly or using a few tricks to get rid of the gritty sandy texture and taste that these forms of protein give you. 

Of course, some people love rice and pea protein, but for me it’s just not my kind of thing. 

• The carbs are from Tapioca flour, which is a naturally gluten free ingredient that comes from the cassava plant. 

• And the fats are from a blend of sunflower oil, coconut and flaxseed – The omega oils are derived from flaxseed.

Nothing dodgy to mention here. This all seems quite well balanced to me. 

How Healthy is Huel?

When it comes to the amounts of Vitamins and minerals in Huel Black Edition, this is where I think a bit of consideration needs to be taken. Huel does give you a good, well rounded range of vitamins and minerals. But each 90g serving doesn’t give you close to your daily recommended amount of each of these vitamins and minerals.

For example, some vitamins such as Vitamin A or Vitamin B6 come in at 23 and 24% respectively of your daily recommended amount per serving so technically, you’d need to drink multiple servings per day if you wanted to fulfill your daily recommended amounts. 

I’ll also mention, that although huel does contain omega 3 and 6 oils which are great for your health, each 90g serving of Huel, gives you 6.8 grams of omega 3 and 4.6 grams of omega 6 from ALA which is from flax seed and not fish. Of course, if this came from fish, it wouldn’t be vegan friendly.

Some people say that omega oils from fish sources are better, some say it makes no difference, there’s a big discussion going on in the science community about it right now. But as far as Huel is concerned, I think it’s fine.

Can I live off Huel Alone?

I think huel has a good basis of things covered for a meal replacement drink, and their ingredients look great. 

The issues come with how you decide to use it. 

I know they label this as a complete food and that it contains all 26 essential vitamins and minerals in varying amounts, but to take that literally and to only drink huel everyday in my opinion would be pushing it.

You do still need to make sure you are eating proper hard food. You can’t depend solely on this drink to provide you with everything. Just like with multivitamin tablets, I have never heard a doctor say that you should forget about eating fruits and vegetables, and just take multivitamin pills. And also, drinking this 3 times a day and not having anything else would make me a bit sick. 

It’s more about convenience, rather than actively trying to replace actual food once and for all. 

What Does Huel Taste Like?

The taste of this drink isn’t as bad as I thought. I initially thought because of the rice and the pea protein that the taste would be gritty and bland like many vegan protein powders I’ve drank, but it seems they’ve balanced the flavors really well in these drinks.

What I would also say is the powder tastes way better when you use milk over water. Mixing Huel with water vs milk it’s just a whole different drink. It tastes much creamier and drinkable with milk, but with water for me, it just isn’t as pleasant to drink.

Another thing to mention is that drinking huel doesnt give me that satisfied feeling that I’ve just had a whole meal, I still feel hungry after drinking it. 

My Conclusion

In my opinion, if you are in a position where you need to get meals in and you can not cook whole foods or even make a decent smoothie, then Huel will suit you. It’s a good option, but I wouldn’t recommend taking it further and thinking that you could replace your whole diet with just Huel drinks, you may tire of the taste and consistency of just drinking a powdered mixture for every meal, and you can never really replace the feeling of a nice home cooked hot meal.

I would, however, really like to try their hot and savory food range to see how that tastes and whether they got the flavors right with that. 

But ‌the Huel Black Edition is an excellent product, and these ready mixed drinks are even more convenient. They’ve done ok with the flavoring but my preference is to use milk. 

Have you tried Huel? What flavor do you go for?

Let me know in the comments below.