Huel is an interesting company, and one we admire in many respects. They make the extra effort to be transparent in how they source and make their products, which is refreshing in this age of hyper-marketing. We enjoyed early versions of their powder and ready-to-drink products, so we were looking forward to trying out the newest version, apparently dubbed 3.1, of their bars, designed to be a snack-sized portion of a full meal replacement schedule.
We've got some good and some bad to report here. First, the good: Huel Complete Nutrition Bars are made entirely from plant-based sources so they're vegan-friendly, if that's your thing. They're also lactose-free, soy-free, gluten-free, low-GI, and GMO-free, made with a similar oats, peas and brown rice base to their powder. All good so far! The price is fair too, about $2 per bar with a discount for subcription purchases, in line with other options out there. For all this you get 12g protein, 18g carbs, 8g fat and 5g fiber for a total of 200 calories. We're still good!
And then, the bad... The taste and texture of the Huel Complete Nutrition Bar are not great. Our tasters found them to be on the dry and crumbly side, and the differences in taste between the three bars we tried - coffee caramel, chocolate and peanute butter - are not particularly dramatic. They're easy enough to eat with some water to wash them down, and we did appreciate how light they are on the glycemic index, but it would be going too far to say we were looking forward to getting through the entire box of bars.
Overall if you want or need the benefits of Huel's high-quality ingredients and process, give them a try. If it's taste you're looking for, you may want to wait for version 4.0.
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