175 Reasons to Try Huel

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Huel Powder = 1 400kcal meal packed with 175 health benefits

Yes, you read that right, we picked the short straw and had to count all these claims! Huel contains all 26 essential vitamins and minerals, plus the carbs, fats and proteins that your body needs. From the nutrients that help to reduce tiredness, being high in vitamin C to promote collagen formation (wait there’s more) to all the nutrients your body needs for building muscles and the nutrition you need to keep your immune system strong. Huel has it all.

Before we start we’re going to be really honest with you. We know that health claims aren’t sexy or fun, but we’re science based and this is what we’re about.

We’re going to run you through the 175 scientifically backed EU approved health claims for our core Huel Powders (the claims can differ slightly between the different Huel products). At times there’s going to be some boring legal stuff, but bear with us, as you’re going to be learning something new. Every day is a school day.

• Metabolism
• Hair and nail health
• Skin health
• Bone health
• Dental health
• Eye health
• Immune system
• Tiredness and fatigue
• Digestion
• Brain function
• Fertility and reproduction
• Cellular stress
• Muscle
• Connective tissues
• Nervous system
• Cells
• Thyroid
• Blood
• Mucous membranes

Metabolism

First up there are 15 micronutrients that contribute to normal energy-yielding metabolism. That all sounds like a bit of gobbledegook so let's break it down.

Micronutrients are nutrients we need in small amounts in the diet, this mostly refers to vitamins and minerals. Metabolism is chucked around a lot. What it relates to is all the chemical reactions and sciencey stuff that’s involved in keeping us alive. Energy-yielding in this context is getting the energy (calories) from foods and the nutrients within those foods, namely carbohydrate, fat, protein and fibre. So, 15 vitamins and minerals help to get the calories from the food we eat to the parts of the body that need this fuel.

There are a whopping 17 different health benefits related to nutrient metabolism, involving nutrients from biotin to zinc, giving us a total of 24 health claims. Nutrient metabolism boils down to a nutrient contributing to making another nutrient, transporting it or supporting this other nutrient to do its job.

These claims are for the cheerleaders, the person in the group project who does all the work but gets none of the credit. For example, magnesium helps to produce proteins in the body and vitamin C is required to regenerate vitamin E so it can be used as an antioxidant again and again. Vitamin C is so selfless.

Vitamin C also increases iron absorption so there’s another claim and another participation award.

Hair and nail health

Hopefully, you know what hair and nails are so we’re not going to explain them. Why would you want biotin, zinc, copper and selenium in your life? Because your hair and nails are worth it. Without these little fellas say goodbye to healthy hair and nails and even proper hair colour.

Skin health

Did you know that the skin is the largest organ of the body and has a total area of around 20 square feet?

Now that we’ve written that down it sounds a little gross… anyway, there are 6 nutrients that help to keep your skin in tip-top shape. As well as being involved in hair colour, copper is also involved in the colouration of the skin. This is because copper is required to produce melanin, a pigment which makes several parts of the body darker. Vitamin C is super important too because it’s needed to make collagen. Collagen is the most abundant protein in the body and around 75% of the skin is collagen, providing it with strength and elasticity.

Bone health

There’s one nutrient that comes to mind when bones are brought up and that’s calcium. Calcium helps to keep bones strong but there are another 8 nutrients that are necessary for good bone health. If you’ve been trying to keep count we’re up to 61 claims already!

Dental health

Like with bones, when it comes to teeth calcium is seen as the king. However, teeth are also made up of phosphorus and magnesium and without vitamin D that precious calcium can’t be absorbed. Calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, vitamin D - needed for the maintenance of normal teeth. Vitamin C is also critical, again because of its role in collagen production, which contributes to healthy gums and keeps the teeth where they should be.

Eye health

“Carrots let you see in the dark”, or at least that’s what we’ve been told. Carrots are high in beta-carotene which is used to make vitamin A. Vitamin A is vital for good eye health and so is riboflavin and zinc. Oh and carrots don’t help you see in the dark any better than another high vitamin A food, but if you eat enough your skin can turn orange, so if you’ve got a casting for Charlie and the chocolate factory coming up there’s a useful tip.

Immune system

10 micronutrients contribute to a fully functioning immune system.

We're into double digits here. The immune system is essentially the body’s defences against foreign pathogens, in other words, the guys you didn’t invite to your party.

Vitamin C keeps popping up because its roles are a little out of the box. When it comes to the immune system it’s trying to keep everything normal during and after intense physical exercise. Time to sound the boring alarm. This beneficial effect is obtained with an intake of 200mg on top of the recommended intake, which is good news for Huel because it’s high in vitamin C.

Tiredness and fatigue

If reading all this is making you feel a little sleepy, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. There are 9 micronutrients in Huel that aid in reducing tiredness and fatigue. Iron is one of the most common micronutrient deficiencies and because of this, unexplained tiredness may be a result of a lack of iron.

Digestion

We all have a good idea of what digestion is but it can be quite hard to explain. It’s the breaking down of larger food molecules into smaller molecules so the body can absorb the nutrients from food. Chloride is involved in the production of stomach acid and calcium ensures that digestive enzymes (proteins that breakdown food) function properly.

Brain function

The brain is around 70% water, most kids know this, but only the cool kids know that there are 13 different nutrients that help the brain do the incredible things that it does.

Or not so incredible if you’ve ever lost your sunglasses and then found them on your head. Time for the lawyers to step in, a daily intake of 130g of carbohydrate is required for carbohydrate to benefit brain function.

Just so we don’t forget, there are a couple of claims related to other organs (yes we know the header is brain health but they don’t fit anywhere else). Choline contributes to a healthy liver while thiamin, otherwise known as vitamin B1, helps keep the heart bleeding, no that doesn’t sound right… beating that’s the right word.

If you’ve run out of fingers to count on we’re on 107 claims, 68 to go!

Fertility and reproduction

Babies may not be something that is at the top of everyone’s list, but tough, we’re talking about them anyway. 3 micronutrients all play important but varying roles. Zinc is crucial for fertility, while selenium specifically benefits male fertility, and folate is vital for foetal development. So these tiny vitamins and minerals can impact more than just yourself!

Cellular Stress

We’ve all experienced stress and at its worst, it can really affect both our physical and mental health. Did you know cells have to deal with stress too? Okay, it’s not exactly the same as what we experience as people but it’s not something your cells want to be dealing with for a long time. The good news is there are ways to deal with this stress, in fact, there are 7 handy micronutrients which aid in protecting the cells from stress.

Muscle

Muscles aren’t something that just gym-goers should be thinking about.

Muscles make the body move, amongst many other roles, and as we get older it’s harder to maintain the muscle we have, which makes moving harder. Protein is the most obvious nutrient that comes to mind but there are also 4 micronutrients that enable the muscle to do what it does.

Connective tissue

Connective tissue is a pretty good name for this component of the body because you guessed it, it connects tissues together. Now, tissues in this context are not those things that you reach for when the character you’ve been rooting for the last 14 episodes dies, tissues are groups of cells that come together to perform a specific job. There are so many tasks that connective tissue aid from helping get oxygen into cells to protecting organs.

Without copper and manganese, connective tissue struggles to function and vitamin C is needed for collagen production which is a major component of cartilage, a special type of connective tissue.

Nervous system

The nervous system, no it’s not that thing you feel before you have to give a presentation to your boss, it’s a part of the body that sends messages to other areas. The nervous system is also involved in movement and processing the information from these messages. Without it, and the 13 nutrients that support it, you’re not going to be doing much.

Cells

Cells are the building blocks of life and the human body is made up of trillions of them, which makes them kind of a big deal. Cells need to be able to divide to construct and repair the body and there are 7 micronutrients that assist cells to do this. Not all cells are the same either, each type has a particular job and so needs different tools. Specialising a cell for its job requires calcium and vitamin A. Finally, the cell has to protect itself and it does this with a membrane, which phosphorus is a part of.

Misc

We’re going to be frank, we didn’t know where else to put these two claims so they’re going to sit here.

Magnesium contributes to electrolyte balance. You’ve probably heard of electrolytes in sports drinks. They’re special minerals because they must be in the right proportions to help balance the water and pH levels of the body.

Without zinc, DNA can’t be made properly. It’s why zinc is so important for fertility and has numerous roles in the body.

Thyroid

The thyroid is kind of weird but has a lot of influence. It’s a gland in the neck that produces hormones which affect a whole host of the processes such as your heart rate and body temperature. If your thyroid is out of whack you’re going to know about it. Both iodine and selenium ensure the thyroid keeps on influencing the body in the right way.

The thyroid isn’t the only structure that secretes and responds to hormones, there are more than 200 hormones in the human body. Vitamin B6 assists the regulation of some of these other hormones.

Blood

If we can help it, we’d rather keep blood in the body and just let it do its thing. That thing boils down to transporting substances to and from different regions of the body. There’s a lot more to blood than this but we’ve got a word count limit, sorry guys. There are 12 different claims involving 12 different micronutrients related to the blood from phosphorus contributing to the maintenance of normal blood pressure to iron being involved in the formation of red blood cells. Iron is interesting because it’s also key to transporting oxygen in the blood. If our maths is right we’ve got 8 claims to go.

Blood Cholesterol

Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) and linoleic acid are polyunsaturated fatty acids and create a mouthful of a sentence. If you’re not sure what they are check out our article on fats. Both of these fatty acids help to maintain healthy blood cholesterol levels, the stuff that in the wrong amounts and proportions can lead to blocking and damaging the arteries (that’s not good). If you switch out saturated fats for unsaturated fats, such as oleic acid, then this can also help to keep cholesterol levels in check. Okay, this one is the last legal thing we have to write, honest, to get these benefits from ALA and linoleic acid you need to consume 2g and 10g a day respectively.

Mucous membranes

We’ve saved the best to last. I mean, we haven’t but it’s something you say anyway right? Mucus is this sort of thick fluid that protects and moistens areas of the body that need it, like the nose. A mucous membrane is a tissue that secretes mucus. Lovely stuff. There are 4 vitamins that are needed for the mucous membranes to work properly and do their important, but rather disgusting job.

So that’s that, 175 health claims.

Well done you if you made it this far in your first read! If you didn’t, don’t worry we won’t tell anyone, our editor didn’t either. It’s always here for when you have 5 minutes to learn more.