Huel Powder - one 1,400kcal meal packed with 161 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 161 scientifically backed health claims for our core Huel Powders (the claims can differ slightly between the different Huel products).

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• Metabolism
• Hair and nail health
• Skin health
• Bone health
• Dental health
• Eye health
• Immune system
• Digestion
• Brain function
• Antioxidants
• Muscle
• Connective tissues
• Nervous system
• Cells
• Thyroid
• Blood
• Mucous membranes

Metabolism

First up, there are 14 micronutrients that support metabolic functions. That sounds a bit heavy 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. So, 14 vitamins and minerals help us to do what we do, and keep doing it too.

There are a whopping 18 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.

Finally, there are 7 nutrients that work to produce energy from the food that we eat.

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 color.

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 excellent shape. As well as being involved in hair color copper is also involved in the coloration 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 7 nutrients that are necessary for good bone health. If you’ve been trying to keep count we’re up to 69 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.

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, that’s a myth 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

We’re into double digits here. 10 micronutrients contribute to a fully functioning immune system, including the antioxidants vitamins A, C, and E. The immune system is essentially the body’s defenses against foreign pathogens, in other words, the guys you didn’t invite to your party.

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, calcium ensures that digestive enzymes (proteins that breakdown food) function properly, and fibre is an all-rounder for supporting digestive health.

Brain function

The brain is around 70% water, most kids know this, but only the cool kids know that there are 6 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.

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, and omega-3 fats help 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 99 claims, 62 to go!

Antioxidants

There are 3 micronutrients that act as antioxidants and 4 that help support these antioxidants to do their job. But what is their job? The body, and every day stresses, creates free radicals and products of oxidation. These oxidation products are important for several reasons, such as killing pathogens. However, if there are too many oxidation products or they hang around for too long, they can have negative health effects, so antioxidants mop them up to prevent this from happening.

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 muscles to do what they do.

Connective tissues

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.

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 11 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 11 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. Specializing 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 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.

Calcium and vitamin B6 help to send messages around the body via nerve impulses and hormones respectively.

Without zinc and folate, development is significantly affected. It’s why they’re so important for fertility and have 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 processes such as 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.

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 10 claims involving 9 different micronutrients related to the blood from vitamin K contributing to normal blood clotting 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 10 claims to go.

Blood Cholesterol

Alpha-linoleic 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 manage cholesterol levels already within a normal range as part of an overall healthy diet, the stuff that, in the wrong amounts and proportions, can lead to blocking and damaging the arteries (that’s not good).

Mucous membranes

Last, and by no means least, is mucus. 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, 161 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.