What Does Huel Greens Taste Like?
The taste is one of the worst issues with Huel Greens, the apple and pineapple flavors don't do nearly enough to hide the mushroom and greens combo, we don't recommend it for flavor.
Huel Daily Greens Ingredients
Plant-Based Protein & Superfood Blend - 8934 MG
The Daily Greens Plant-Based Protein and Superfood Blend consists of tapioca starch, organic gluten free oats, pea fiber, organic pea protein, flaxseed, organic mung bean protein, organic chia seeds, and organic sprouted quinoa.
There are some good protein sources in the blend, like mung bean protein and pea protein (1). You then have healthy fats in the flax and chia seeds, and carbs in the gluten free oats (2)(3).
The issue is, this is meant to be be a greens powder, not a protein shake or meal replacement product.
Adding in all the nutrients you can to make a greens powder nutritionally complete is not a bad thing. However, making them the largest component of the product is, as it takes up space that should have been used by the ingredients you would expect in greens powders.
This means it immediately sacrifices being able to deliver the kind of results you expect, while not being able to compete with a protein shake or meal replacement powders either. The blend also has the only three non-organic ingredients in the powder too (aside from the probiotics).
Organic Antioxidant Greens Blend - 2594 MG
The Daily Greens Organic Antioxidant Greens Blend contains organic chlorella, spirulina, kale, broccoli and broccoli sprouts, carrot, spinach, nettle aerial parts, green tea leaf extract, sweet fennel fruit, artichoke leaf, basil leaf, black garlic, green coffee bean extract, mate leaf extract, and calciferous marine algae (aquamin f).
An immediate point of concern is that the entire Greens Blend weighs only 2594 mg, while some of the best green powders will use almost that quantity of a single ingredient. For example, Supergreen Tonik has 2000 mg of spirulina alone in each serving.
Then there is the fact that, while you have plenty of great ingredients, like green tea extract, spirulina, spinach, and chlorella, they are surrounded by things like sweet fennel fruit or basil leaf extract, which provide very few benefits or still need to be researched in more depth (4).
This blend is a perfect representation of what is wrong with Daily Greens as a whole. In trying to do too much, it prevents itself from delivering the results that its most beneficial ingredients are capable of offering.
Organic Superfruit Blend - 508 MG
The Huel Greens Organic Superfood Blend has organic tomato, coconut nectar, apple, lemon peel, acerola fruit extract, red grape vine leaf, small plantain leaf, bilberry, strawberry, tart cherry, raspberry, blueberry, elderberry, and cranberry.
Blends like this are often used in greens powders, as the fruits, leaves, and lemon peel in them boast antioxidants, vitamins, and phytonutrients. Unfortunately while these are indeed rich in nutrients, they need to be consumed in quite large quantities for you to reap their benefits (5).
When consumed in supplement form, in doses of the size that we see in Daily Greens, they simply are not powerful enough to meet the body's nutritional needs, so won't produce any notable health benefits.
Organic Adaptogen & Super Mushroom Complex - 173 MG
The Huel Greens Organic Super Mushroom Complex and Adaptogen blend uses organic reishi mushroom, maitake mushroom, shiitake mushroom, cordyceps militaris mushroom, rhodiola root extract, ashwagandha root, Siberian ginseng root, red ginseng root, white ginseng root, marshmallow root, ginger root, maca tuber, and lemon balm leaf.
Ashwagandha, ginseng, ginger, and marshmallow root are all known for offering varied health benefits, but only when consumed in daily does of 250 mg or more per day (6)(7)(8)(9).
This means even a proprietary blend can't hide the fact that there is not enough present in each Daily Greens serving to be of use.
You then have lemon balm leaf, rhodiola root, and maca tuber extracts, and maitake, shiitake, cordyceps, and reishi mushroom powders that have all been linked to offering many benefits but have had either none or very few of them actually proven.
Put all of this together and it makes the entire blend another that is unlikely to be of any use.
Organic Botanical Blend - 122 MG
The Huel Greens Organic Botanical Blend features organic cinnamon bark, dandelion root, burdock root, echinacea aerial part, hawthorn flowering top, hibiscus flower extract, and lemongrass leaf.
All of these ingredients are extremely similar in the sense that, while they are claimed to offer a variety of different benefits, they are sill being investigated and require far more evidence before any of their effects can be conclusively proven (10).
Even those that have a bit more proof to support their use, like dandelion or burdock root, are then present in such miniscule quantities that they can't possibly offer any real benefits. This means the whole Botanical Blend does nothing but take up space in the Daily Greens formula.
Probiotics - 3 MG
The probiotics in Huel Greens are bacillus coagulans MTCC 5856 and bifidobacterium bifidum 100B. Both are extremely beneficial for the human body and can offer benefits like improving gut health, digestion, and nutrient absorption, and treating IBS (irritable bowel syndrome).
There are two problems with this blend though. Firstly, probiotics are measured in colony forming units (CFU), rather than MG. As Daily Greens displays the weight of the blend in MG, it makes it impossible to know if enough is present to be of use.
Then there is the fact that only two probiotics have been used in the Huel powder, while dedicated supplements will provide a much more diverse range (11).
So, while there is no way to determine what effect the probiotic content of Huel Daily Greens will have, we can safely say it will be limited.
Resources
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6358922/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6567199/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30029703/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32835919/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8271923/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3252722/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK538198/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7019938/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5524553/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5220230/
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Probiotics-HealthProfessional/
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