This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they’re going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here.
In 2017, I was at rock bottom. My dad’s health was rapidly failing; my relationship with my mom was on the rocks. I was in a not-so-great place in my career. My undiagnosed polycystic ovary syndrome was wreaking havoc on my health. I was already in a dark place when a situationship broke my heart, my roommate notified me they were moving out, and I received a surprise $5,000 vet bill for my dog. Stressed, depressed, and a hot mess, I stopped eating.
Physically, I wanted to eat. Mentally, I simply couldn’t. A week into my involuntary fast, my therapist suggested meal replacement drinks until we could work out a solution. For six weeks, I forced myself to drink two chocolate Ensures a day until I managed to start piecing my life back together. It was a miserable, terrifying time, in which I lost 20 percent of my body weight.
I was recently transported back to that time thanks to a Huel ad. If you’re unaware, Huel is a wellness brand that sells meal replacement drinks, powders, supplements, instant meals, and daily greens. It’s probably best known for its powders and ready-made shakes, but this particular ad is for its daily greens drink. A manicured hand snaps open a can as wistful violins play over a series of text: Just went through a breakup. Is getting married next month. Just lost their job. Just need a break from the world. Looking for community. Just got a promotion. Just surviving the day. The caption reads, “No matter the moment, Daily Greens are ready to drink,” punctuated by a green heart emoji.
It just so happens that when I took a look at AG1’s science-washed marketing in a recent Optimizer, several readers requested I do the same for Huel. The two products are similar. Both aim to make up for a perceived lack of nutrients in an ordinary person’s diet. Both employ fit celebrities and influencers as spokespersons. AG1 has Hugh Jackman and Andrew Huberman, while Huel’s site boasts actor Idris Elba, former Yankee Alex Rodriguez, and Steven Bartlett from the Diary of a CEO podcast. Whereas AG1 leaned on dubious terms like “clinically backed,” Huel uses framing like “nutritionally complete” and “scientifically supported.” And while AG1 is clearly a greens supplement, Huel lives in a grayer area between greens supplements, protein powders, meal replacement, and ready-made food. Buzzy phrases like “nutrient-dense,” “superfoods,” “plant-based,” and “sustainable” also make appearances.
Perusing Huel’s marketing, the meal replacement narrative is what sticks out the most. “Huel is an ally on my busiest days,” reads Bartlett’s testimonial. “I always have a couple in the fridge at home — it’s my go-to when I realize I haven’t eaten,” reads another from Premier League Hall of Famer Gary Neville. Other ideas that frequently pop up: no prep, no need to buy food, cost efficiency, and staying healthy while on the go. It’s the solution “for your most inconvenient meal,” and “everything your body needs.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a tech- and wellness-adjacent meal replacement pitch. Remember Soylent? But the science behind meal replacement is more complicated than just packing nutrients into a bottle.
For starters, meal replacement supplements are not meant to replace food entirely. Even if a shake contains all the essential vitamins, minerals, and proteins, supplemental forms aren’t necessarily the same as what you’d get from eating whole foods. According to Stanford Medicine, absorption is generally better when those same micronutrients come from foods. Heat processing for shelf stability can also reduce potency. Since supplements aren’t regulated, evaluating sourcing, purity, and dosage can be hard without independent testing. (Huel does provide quality control information on its site, and says it’s received NSF International certification for its Black Edition product.)
Take the Black Edition of its ready-made drink: Huel says you get 7g of fiber from flaxseed, chicory, and corn. That sounds great on the surface. Most people don’t get the daily recommended 25 to 38g of fiber, 7g is high for this kind of product, and Huel includes both soluble and insoluble forms. But scientists have found that not all dietary fiber supplements are created equal. Chicory root fiber, or inulin, is often controversial as, in some people, it can cause gastrointestinal distress, inflammation, and potentially liver damage if taken in excess. In a diverse diet, you’d be getting even more forms of soluble and insoluble fiber, so some inulin might not be a problem. But if you’re prone to gas, bloating, or have irritable bowel syndrome? Heavily relying on Huel’s limited fiber sources might not be your best option.
In 2022, Huel commissioned a peer-reviewed study in Frontiers in Nutrition. In it, Huel recruited 20 participants to subsist on Huel — and only Huel — for four weeks. Good news: They didn’t die. Some micronutrient levels improved, compared to one monitored week of eating regularly. Other micronutrient levels didn’t improve. Many lost weight, reduced their BMI and waist circumference, and lost visceral fat (the bad kind).
The thing is, the study’s primary conclusion is that subsisting for four weeks on Huel won’t negatively impact your micronutrient levels. The study’s researchers also note that the weight loss and reduced BMI, waist circumference, and visceral fat were likely due to the fact that the participants consistently could not meet calorie requirements while on a Huel-only diet. It’s less that Huel was “healthy” than participants found it hard to eat a lot of Huel, and were thus in a prolonged calorie deficit.
On its site, Huel caveats that it doesn’t advocate only eating its product, but says this study “pretty conclusively” shows its product is “healthy.” But a single study in a clinical setting — which doesn’t reflect real-life use — and a limited sample size is far from conclusive. In 2024, a meta-analysis in Nutrients of 6,770 adults found that “daily and weekly [meal replacement] consumption were associated with higher risks of all-cause mortality.”
I bought Huel’s ready-to-drink Black Edition in chocolate for research. It cost me roughly $18 at Target for a box of four bottles. I’ve been sipping one over the course of writing this newsletter and I cannot lie: I am on the struggle bus. After two hours of writing and researching, I still have over a quarter of the 500ml bottle left.
It tastes a bit like wet chalk. After it slithers down my gullet, there’s a distinct aftertaste in my mouth that reminds me of my time drinking chocolate Ensure. Taste is subjective, but I’m inclined to believe that the pants of Huel’s wellness influencer partners are aflame. On that marketing front, I give Huel a D.
In other areas, however, Huel is far from the worst wellness brand I’ve seen. Its study was a little silly and I don’t love that it’s framed as “conclusive.” However, on its website summarizing the study, it does disclose some of the study’s drawbacks and flaws. (It does so with a slightly positive spin, but I’ll take that information over artfully omitting it entirely.)
It has science pages for each of its individual products, which give a breakdown of each ingredient included, the reasoning behind including it, and reference links to outside studies supporting those decisions. For example, on the science site for its Black Edition powder, it breaks down why it chose peas and brown rice for protein. It explains it chose two sources because plant protein doesn’t always include all nine essential amino acids required from your diet. When it claims protein is more satiating than other macronutrients, it cites this study. Most people will not click each link, and I only had the patience to click through roughly 20 percent. Some were relatively old but well cited; others were less convincing. But, compared to other wellness brands I’ve reviewed, I appreciated that the studies were clearly labeled as references and not as Huel’s own research.
Huel’s biggest fault is perhaps playing fast and loose with phrasing like “nutritionally complete” and videos that suggest this is a much more convenient alternative to cooking — and that that convenience is a good thing. (Never mind that most dieticians will tell you whole food sources of nutrients are better for you.) Like Soylent, that plays into tech-adjacent productivity narratives, where somehow taking the time and effort to eat a well-balanced meal is a burden. Subtly placing that next to claims of “sustainable” “plant-based food,” and a convincing “$2.65 per meal” badge for its powder? It’s not a huge jump for someone to think, “Wow, I can be healthy, not have to cook, save money, and eat something that’s not too bad for the planet?”
Huel has gotten into hot water for misleading advertising. Remember how I mentioned podcaster Steven Bartlett’s glowing testimonial earlier? Multiple ads were banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority because he failed to disclose that, at the time, he was a director and investor at Huel. The ASA also banned Huel ads claiming that using it as a healthy meal replacement could lead to lower food bills. Huel claimed a month’s worth was only £50. The agency found that was only true if you ate Huel once a day, and the true cost was £350.
There are some truths baked into Huel’s marketing. Meal prepping does suck. Sometimes you are too busy, and grabbing a bottle of Huel — as blah as it is — is likely cheaper, and potentially more nutrient dense, than junk food. Sometimes, meal replacement or supplementation is appropriate — especially in cases where you might not be able to eat solid food, like after a surgery or while managing a chronic illness.
Take it from me, someone who did need meal replacement as an intervention at one point in my life. At no point did that process bring relief or joy. I was far from my optimal self. While I did get complimented for my dramatic weight loss, I was physically so weak that I barely had enough energy to crawl out of bed, let alone work a demanding job. Whatever savings I had from not buying food, it wasn’t worth it. At the end of the day, something like Huel is best thought of as a temporary, occasional “lesser of two evils.” That’s not the same thing as healthy.
Photography by Victoria Song / The Verge