Huel Bar Review

We tried out the first iteration of the Huel product last year with good results, and in the name of ultimate convenience the company has now launched a bar alongside their powdered drink range.

Dropping a big part of your daily nutrition on a bar really does sounds too good to be true, especially for those who hate meal prep time, but are they really any good?

Let’s take a look at the Huel Bar.

Note: this review has been updated to reflect the new version of the bar recently released.

Product overview

Huel is a product designed to replace your daily nutrition if you’re low on time, and at its core focuses basically on providing human food which combines maximum nutritional value with minimal preparation effort.

The Huel Bar aims to broaden the product offering, being a bar to complement your very busy schedule with the same high quality nutrition the drink formula provided.

But the difference here is that the bar can’t completely replace your food like the Huel powder can.

That’s not a bad thing; it’s still an awesome nutritional tool in your time poor lifestyle, and if you are on Huel or regular food for most the day, the bar becomes a convenience tool.

Ingredients

Much like the powder, the Huel Bar is vegan friendly.

So the main sources of protein in the product are from brown rice and pea, and I checked with their nutritionist James Collier and was ensured that the two combined make a complete essential amino acid profile.

Having the ingredients come from vegan sources also means it’s dairy free – good news for those whose stomachs don’t agree with dairy stuff (if you fart after drinking milk, that’s probably you!).

The rest of the ingredients are pretty damn simple really, containing oats as the main source of carbs, as well as an added vitamin blend.

You get a real sense that this isn’t full of tons of crap like many high street protein bars.

The only ingredient to watch out for is the glucose syrup (essential to hold the bar in shape) which in excess can give you the shits.

The company assure that this won’t be a problem unless you’re using the bars as your sole source of food.

So far I’ve had no issues in this area even when consuming four bars alongside my daily food.

It would be nice to see a little more leucine in each bar; at the moment there’s around 1.1g per bar and we in the fitness world know that 3g will activate the mTor pathway for muscle growth.

The complete nutritional information is as follows:

Taste & texture

I’ll be honest from the start here, the bar itself isn’t an incredible texture experience.

The flavour is ‘chocolate’, which basically means to sweeten it they’ve used cocoa powder.

It’s really quite a decent taste, and I can happily eat four bars a day without really being bothered by it.

It’s not quite as delicious as the Huel drink, but it’s still pretty good.

The issue, however, lies in how dry it is.

It’s very hard to not need a drink during the eating of a bar – I feel like I’m chewing the last few bites for ages because my mouth keeps drying up.

This is probably the only thing that really lets the bar down.

Although if you’re on a good diet you should be drinking plenty of water anyway, it’s just that the bar isn’t super pleasant to chew on.

All in all, it isn’t going to have you craving your next bar, but it’s by no means bad.

Effectiveness

Where normal protein bars are high in protein, they certainly can’t replace a meal.

Even the meal replacement bars just don’t fill you up – plus they’re full of crappy ingredients.

Where Huel Bars are different, and more effective, is in the fact you can really rely on them as a genuine replacement for food when out and about.

The ingredients are good, they taste pretty good, and they actually do fill you up quite a bit.

On many occasions Huel Bars have saved me from making bad decisions from being too hungry, and I’m making a point of keeping a few of them in my bag at all times.

Funnily enough they seem to come in real handy when down the pub where the only food options are expensive meals or expensive crisps.

I’ve even subscribed to 80 bars a month to make them as cheap as possible.

More on that next…

Value for money

I think this is where Huel Bars really shine.

Basically the more you buy at once, the cheaper the bars become, and if you subscribe to a regular delivery you’ll get an even further discount.

This means you can pick up bars for as little as £1.29 per bar.

Compare this to your average protein bar, some of which can be up to £3.50 per bar, and you’re winning.

Summary

The Huel Bar is an excellent product all round, and although the texture needs work, it’s a convenient essential to the busy lifestyles many of us lead.

Buy Huel Bars

You can typically get the cheapest price on a pack of 16 Huel Bars by shopping here at Amazon.

Over to you

Have you tried Huel Bars or are thinking of putting in an order?

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