Huel

So I haven’t posted anything in nearly a year! I blame the wonderful vegan Facebook group that I’m part of for distracting me and providing a place to post my pictures and discussions.

I’m really bad for skipping meals, or eating cake for breakfast (I am actually a grown up, okay? I can do what I want). I don’t seem to be getting anything good out of doing this. I’ve been ill for about 80% of the year so far… colds, flu once or twice, potentially an infection. So to try and start eating ‘properly’ again, I thought back to Soylent which I followed for a while back in their development stage. Full nutrition in a drink that is easy to make and doesn’t take up many spoons or time. Only available in the USA and Canada so that’s not really going to work for me.

Then someone in one of the vegan Facebook groups I’m part of posted about Huel. They didn’t even say much about it but seemed very excited so I went to have a look.

The first things you’ll notice are their claims:

Everything your body needs

The future of food

Made in the UK. Free next day delivery*.

Okay, so 1. Nutrition is important here more than anything else so that’s good. 2. I LOVE the future. Is there anything better than faff-free, vegan science served by a robot with an lcd smiley face? DIDN’T THINK SO! 3. Supporting local businesses – yes. 4. Free delivery – I’m sold.

I took a quick journey around their website and watched the most boring (but informative) video ever. I have quite a terrible dependency on sugar, which I am managing to reduce a lot, so I try to avoid anything containing lots of the other white powder. Huel is “very low in sugar – 3.4g per 2000 calories, less than a teaspoon”. I’m still quite confused on the serving sizes, even their scoops don’t measure a round amount for some reason. They suggest using 100g of Huel to 500ml of water, and 2 scoops is like 114g or something. Either way, this is still sounding great. I want some.

I didn’t fancy spending £45 on trying out this magical powder drink, so lucky for me they have 100g sample sizes for £4, free postage and apparently I’ll get £4 off (along with a free t-shirt and shaker) on my next full size order if I email them first. Hurrah.

and here it is in all of it’s helvetican glory

I immediately opened the packaging and gave it a sniff; all I could think of was vaguely cheap cake mix. I tried to make some up in a glass using a plastic 1/4 measuring cup. Half of the wee glass holds about 3/4 of water, what’s 1/5 of that? How do I work this out with the tools I have? I don’t. Starting again, I do it in tablespoons. 10 tablespoons of water, 2 tablespoons of Huel and I’ve got a lovely wee sample glass ready and waiting to try out while my dinner cooks.

I took a photo. It’s gross. If you really want to see it though, it’s on my Instagram feed.

But you know what, it didn’t taste gross. It tasted like watery, cake batter flavoured porridge which is something I can appreciate.

I will be having some in the morning, maybe a yoghurt too. I don’t have enough to make many full meals so I’ll be having snack sized amounts – once I work out what amount this actually is. Who knows??!

Bonus fact: the cats LOVE sitting on the cardboard sleeve it came in. Obviously.