Huel offers a range of meal replacement products, including powders, protein bars, and ready-to-eat meals. It’s marketed as a healthy, “nutritionally complete,” and affordable option for those with busy lifestyles who need something straightforward. Huel’s products have an extensive ingredient list, so it’s no surprise that many people are questioning: is Huel ultra-processed?
Let’s delve into what’s inside Huel and its manufacturing process to determine if it fits this category.
Contents
What Are Ultra Processed Foods?
Ultra processed foods undergo significant changes from their original form. They typically contain a number of added ingredients like sugars, oils, and preservatives that you wouldn’t normally use at home. These foods are often ready to eat immediately with little or no preparation needed. Given this, is Huel classed as an ultra processed food?
At First Glance, Is Huel Ultra Processed?
Let’s go through the identification checklist of an ultra processed food and see how Huel measures up.
Packaging
Ultra processed foods typically come in packaging that extends shelf life and maintains freshness without needing refrigeration. Huel is available in sealed packets and bottles, typical of many ultra processed products.
Ready to Eat
A key feature of ultra processed foods is that you can eat them right away and require no or very little preparation. Huel’s powders and ready meals generally require you to “just add water” and their ready-to-drink shakes and bars can be eaten straight away, offering an on-the-go meal/snack.
5+ Ingredients
Ultra-processed foods usually contain more than 5 ingredients, often including a mixture of additives. Huel has a long ingredients list that goes way above the 5+ lower limit. It contains a variety of proteins, thickeners, vitamins, minerals and flavour enhancers.
Use of Additives
Huel has additives such as xanthan gum and guar gum, commonly used in UPFs. These are to improve texture and extend shelf life. These additives are not typically found in a home kitchen and suggest a high level of food processing.
Industrial Processing Techniques
The production of Huel involves advanced processing techniques such as protein isolation and oil conversion into powder. These methods are characteristic of the industrial processing associated with ultra processed foods, greatly changing ingredients from their original state.
High Sugar, Fat, or Salt Content
Huel generally maintains lower amounts of these ingredients. According to the UK’s traffic light labeling system, Huel’s products would likely show green or amber signals, indicating they are not high in sugar, fat, or salt compared to many conventional ultra processed foods.
Lack of Whole Foods
Huel’s formula relies more on processed ingredients than on whole foods. For example, it uses pea protein and sunflower oil powder instead of whole peas or sunflower seeds, indicating a move away from natural forms.
Degree of Transformation
The transformation level in Huel’s production process, which includes extracting, refining, and stabilising ingredients, further solidifies its classification as an ultra processed food.
Natural Flavourings
Natural flavourings might sound simple, but they’re heavily processed. These flavours are extracted from natural sources like fruits or plants, yet the complex processing they undergo aligns them with UPFs. Despite their natural origins, the extensive processing modifies them significantly from their original state.
A Closer Look at What’s in Huel?
Huel is designed to offer a quick and balanced meal, but is Huel UPF based on it’s ingredients? Let’s delve into the ingredients of their original powder product.
Base Ingredients
- Oat Flour: Whole oats ground into flour, providing carbohydrates, fibre, and other nutrients.
- Pea Protein: Protein extracted from peas, isolated from carbohydrates and fats. Considered ultra processed due to its isolation and extraction processes.
- Ground Flaxseed: A good source of fibre and healthy fats, excellent for heart health.
- Brown Rice Protein: Similar to pea protein, derived from brown rice and supplies essential amino acids. This ingredient undergoes extraction and isolation, classifying it as ultra processed.
- Sunflower Oil Powder: Sunflower oil transformed into powder form, often mixed with protein and starch to create a balanced nutrient profile. This process makes it ultra processed.
Additional Nutrients
- Micronutrient Blend: Includes a mix of minerals like potassium, calcium, and iodine, and vitamins such as C, K, A, E, niacin, B12, D, pantothenic acid, B6, B2, folate, and B1. Typically involves synthetic ingredients, placing it in the ultra processed category.
- Lutein: Often added for its benefits for eye health.
- Medium Chain Triglyceride (MCT) from Coconut: A type of fat that provides quick energy. The extraction and concentration processes classify it as ultra processed.
Stabilisers and Flavour Enhancers
- Guar Gum and Xanthan Gum: Stabilisers that help Huel maintain a smooth and consistent texture. Both are considered ultra processed due to their extensive processing and extraction from natural sources.
- Faba Bean Protein: Adds to the protein content, derived from faba beans. Like other protein isolates, it is considered ultra processed.
- Sweetener: Sucralose is used to enhance sweetness without adding calories from sugar. This synthetic sweetener is ultra processed.
- Natural Flavourings: Added to improve taste without increasing sugar content. Despite being natural, the level of processing involved often makes them ultra processed.
How Huel Is Made
Although Huel starts with relatively simple ingredients such as oats and peas, it undergoes numerous steps to achieve the final product. This includes isolating proteins, converting oils to powders, and mixing everything uniformly for shelf stability. This process, combined with the use of ingredients like thickeners, aligns with many characteristics of ultra processed foods.
Is Huel UPF According To The NOVA Classification?
The NOVA system sorts foods by how much they’ve been processed. It puts foods into 4 groups, with the 4th group being for ultra processed foods. These are foods that are changed a lot from how they start out and often have added things like colours, flavours, or preservatives that you wouldn’t use in home cooking.
Huel, with its processed ingredients and methods, would fit into this 4th group. This helps us see that Huel is quite different from less processed food options.
Is Huel UPF According To Open Food Facts?
Open Food Facts is a website that collects information about all sorts of food products from around the world.
Huel is shown as NOVA 4 so they define all their products as ultra processed.
So, Is Huel Ultra Processed?
Yes!
While Huel is nutrient-rich and avoids negatives such as excessive sugar and unhealthy fats, it still requires considerable processing.
Does Huel Say They Are Ultra Processed?
Huel has talked about ultra processed foods on its website. They discuss are UPFs always bad for you and explains how their products fit into this category.
Key Points from Huel’s Article
In the article, Huel admits that its products might be seen as ultra processed if you look at how they are made.
Huel then goes on to argue that not all ultra processed foods are unhealthy and claim their products are designed to be complete and balanced.
They openly state that while its meals are made from processed ingredients, they aim to include all the essential nutrients without the high sugars, bad fats and unnecessary additives found in many other ultra processed foods. They argue that the health issues associated with UPFs are a result of their poor nutritional quality which Huel tries to avoid.
Huel’s View on Processing
Huel believes that how much a food is processed doesn’t always tell you if it’s healthy or not. Instead, they say you should look at what the food contains nutritionally. Huel states that their processing methods help keep the nutrients in the food while also making it last longer and easier to use, helping people eat well even when they’re busy.
Clearly, Huel fits the criteria for being classified as an UPF, but the company is hesitant to label it as such. This reluctance isn’t surprising since Huel is a business and ultra processed foods often carry a negative connotation that could affect its image and sales.
Final Thoughts
Huel is ultra processed – there is no escaping this fact. If your aim is to reduce UPFs then adding Huel into your diet might not be the best move!
Whether Huel is healthy is another consideration altogether. From a purely UPF perspective, it may not be considered healthy. However, compared to other traditional convenience ultra processed foods such as crisps, meal deals or ready meals, Huel could potentially be a healthier option due to its designed nutritional content.
I will leave you with some final thoughts from Chris Van Tulleken:
For more burning questions such as is huel ultra processed, check out our: Is this food ultra proccessed? section