Huel offers £35k for 12-month no food diet

Powdered food manufacturer Huel is offering £35,000 to anyone prepared to go without solid food for an entire year in a bid to discover the effects of a non-traditional food diet.

The successful candidate will be able to continue with their current work or family commitments and will be required only to undertake daily video calls with Huel’s monitoring team.

They will also need to visit Huel headquarters in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire weekly for medical assessments and perform 30 minutes of daily physical activity.

The exercise plan will be set by Huel in order to study the effects of the Huel diet. Applicants must have a healthy body mass index in order to be considered.

Complete honesty

Huel need to be able to trust candidates to tell the truth so cheaters need not apply, the firm’s founder Julian Hearn said.

“We will be undertaking regular monitoring, but it’s important that there is complete honesty there,” he said.

“For the right person, this challenge could actually be very liberating. There was a lot of scepticism when we first launched and no doubt many people will find this an unbearable thought.

“But clearly Britons are far more interested in changing their lifestyles and habits than many initially expected.”

Huel has been “rigorously tested” during development and delivers 100% of the government-recommended nutrition that the human body needs, is vegan-friendly with has no added sugar, the firm claimed.

What £35k will get you

  • 7,000 meals of burger and chips in a pub
  • 972 pints of beer in London
  • A 977 Porsche 911
  • 30 tickets to see the Rolling Stones

The flavour has been compared to vanilla porridge, purposely designed not to be too flavoursome to minimise the risk of users overeating, it added.

Difficult feat

Eating nothing but Huel would be a difficult feat for the successful candidate, Hearn admitted.

“Not many of our customers are on Huel 100% of the time, the norm is probably about 50% Huel and 50% traditional meals,” he said.

Hearn said he wanted to understand what life would be like for someone consuming no solid food.

“Huel provides everything the human body needs, in a healthy and sustainable way, so we know that it is a perfectly nutritious way to consume what we need – but what will happen if this really is the future of all food?

“What will life be like when we have so much more time in our day and so much less to think about? We are keen to get a better insight into the longer-term effects on our behaviour, health and social lives.”

Huel is made from vegan protein (rice and pea), oats, flaxseed, sunflower lecithin, MCT from coconut, and a vitamin and mineral blend.

You can apply for the study here.