Tag: Meat alternatives

Plant-Based Meats and Our Health | NutritionFacts.org

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According to the United Nations, meat and dairy production would need to be doubled to meet the predicted demand for animal-based proteins in 2050, but the opposite is required to contain the ecological damage. As I discuss in my video The Environmental Impacts of Plant-Based Meat Substitutes, if we have any chance of sustainably meeting future food needs, we must lower our meat consumption. The largest barrier to following a plant-based diet may simply be meat appreciation.

Enter plant-based meats.

Alt-Meat and Our Planet

Before we dive into the health profile of plant-based meats, let’s look at their impact on the health of our environment. Both the Beyond Burger and the Impossible Burger have had environmental lifecycle assessments published by reputable groups, and, indeed, switching to either one of those meat-free meat alternatives results in 90 percent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, land use, and water footprints. Similar analyses have been performed on more than 50 different plant-based meats, and they’ve all been found to be vastly more sustainable.

Is Plant-Based Meat Healthy?

We have to ask: Compared to what? Food is a zero sum game. Each time we eat, there’s an opportunity cost, a lost opportunity to put something even healthier in our mouth. For example, are eggs healthy? Yes, when compared to a breakfast sausage link, but not when compared to oatmeal.

Plant-based meat alternatives are no match for unprocessed plant foods, such as beans or lentils, and a bean burrito or lentil soup could certainly fill the same culinary niche as a lunchtime burger. But, if you are going to have some kind of burger, it’s easy to argue that the plant-based versions are healthier.

Is Beyond Meat Healthy? Is Impossible Meat Healthy?

Four of the worst components of the food supply are cholesterol, trans fats, saturated fat, and sodium. As I discuss in my video Are Beyond Meat and the Impossible Burger Healthy?, plant-based meat wins hands down against animal-based meat when it comes to cholesterol and trans fat. Trans fat intake is a serious potential risk factor for cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes, and has been linked to depression symptoms, lower testosterone in men, and dementia. Higher levels of trans fat in the blood are associated with up to a 50 percent higher risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer’s. A major source of trans fats? Animal products.

Plant-based meat is also free of hormones and antibiotics, which tips the scales even further in its favor, but it may have saturated fat from added coconut oil. Nevertheless, the largest study to date of the nutritional value of plant-based meats found that saturated fat levels of similar products only average about 2 grams per serving, which is much better than the animal-based equivalents. Sodium remains a problem throughout the sector, though, like nearly any other processed food out there.

So, plant-based meat is healthy compared with animal-based meat, but not as healthy as eating unprocessed or minimally processed plant foods directly.

Animal Protein vs. Plant Protein

Is there any advantage to eating protein from plants instead of animals? Studies have found intake of animal protein to be associated with a higher risk of mortality, particularly dying from cardiovascular disease, whereas higher consumption of plant protein is linked to lower all-cause mortality—a lower risk of dying from all causes put together. When it comes to living a longer life, plant protein sources beat out each and every animal protein source. Not just better than bacon and eggs, but better than burgers, chicken, turkey, fish, and dairy protein. What’s more, plant protein has also been linked to lower blood pressure, reduced LDL cholesterol, and improved insulin sensitivity.

Is Pea Protein Isolate Good for You?

The Beyond Burger is mostly comprised of pea protein isolate. Will we still get any benefits of the whole plant if the proteins have been isolated? Surprisingly, yes. As I discuss in my video Plant-Based Protein: Are Pea and Soy Protein Isolates Harmful?, researchers did not ﬁnd a signiﬁcant cholesterol-lowering difference between protein isolate products and whole food sources, “suggesting that the cholesterol-lowering effects are at least, in part, attributable to the plant protein itself rather than just the associated nutrients.”

Is Soy Protein Isolate Bad for You?

We’ve known about the beneficial effects of soy on cholesterol for 40 years or so, but what about its impact on the cancer-promoting growth hormone IGF-1? Soy protein is similar enough to animal protein that, at high enough doses, like eating two Impossible Burgers (mostly concentrated soy protein) a day, you may bump up your IGF-1 level. But the only reason we care about IGF-1 is cancer risk, and, if anything, higher soy intake is linked to decreased risk of cancer.

For instance, a recent systematic review and meta-analysis found that consumption of soy protein is associated with a lower risk in breast cancer mortality—a 12 percent reduction in breast cancer death associated with each 5-gram increase of soy protein a day. More than 10 daily grams of soy protein has been associated with cutting breast cancer mortality risk nearly in half, and more than 16 grams a day with a whopping 62 percent lower risk of dying from breast cancer.

What About Mycoprotein?

Mycoprotein is a meat alternative made from the mushroom kingdom. Quorn makes meat-free beef, chicken-free chicken, fish-free fish, and pig-free pork. As I discuss in my video The Health Effects of Mycoprotein (Quorn) Products vs. BCAAs in Meat, in terms of its environmental impact, Quorn beef’s carbon footprint is at least ten times smaller than that of beef and its chickenless chicken is at least four times better than chicken-chicken. Health-wise, mycoprotein is high in protein and ﬁber, low in fat, cholesterol, sodium, and sugar, and may help people control cholesterol, blood sugar, and insulin levels, and improve satiety. That isn’t a surprise, given that the fiber and the mycoprotein are fermentable by our good gut bugs, so they can also act as a prebiotic for our friendly flora.

What About the Heme in Impossible Meat?

As I discuss in my video What About the Heme in Impossible Burgers?, an issue specific to the Impossible Burger is the added heme, derived from soybean plants to enhance the product’s meaty flavor and appearance. Safety analyses have failed to find any toxicity risk specific to the soy heme churned out by yeast, and the Food and Drug Administration has agreed that it is safe—both for use as a flavor and color enhancer.

Plants for the Win

Plant-based foods, including meat-free meats, aren’t only healthier for our planet, but also for our bodies. But, as I discuss in my video Plant-Based Meat Substitutes Put to the Test, whole plant food sources of protein, such as beans, are even better. That’s why I consider plant-based meats to be more of a useful stepping stone towards a healthier diet, rather than the endgame ideal. The same amount of protein in a bean burrito would be better in nearly every way.

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Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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February 6, 2024
‘Plant-Based’ Peanut Butter … And Shampoo … And Booze

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Several years ago, I made a New Year’s resolution to eat more plants. Doing so, I assumed, would be better for my health, for animals, and for the planet. Besides, it would be easy: The rise of plant-based meat alternatives, offered by companies such as Impossible Meat and Beyond Meat, made it a breeze to eat less meat but still satisfy the occasional carnivorous urge. I could have my burger and eat it too.

Or so I thought. Meat alternatives, I found, cost more than their conventional counterparts and are made with complicated ingredients that raise doubts about their healthiness—and even then, taste just okay. Other people have had similar concerns, part of the reason the popularity of those products has declined in recent years to such a degree that Beyond Meat is reportedly now in “survival mode.” But beyond the meat aisle, the “plant-based” label lives on in virtually every food product imaginable: instant ramen, boxed mac and cheese, Kraft singles, KitKat bars, even queso. You can now buy plant-based peanut butter. You can also wash your hair with plant-based shampoo and puff on a plant-based vape.

Queso made from cauliflower instead of milk is correctly described as plant-based. But if peanut butter is vegan to begin with, then what is the point of the label? And who asked for plant-based liquor? On packaging and ad copy, plant-based has been applied to so many items—including foods that are highly processed, or those that have never contained animal ingredients—that it has gotten “diluted to nothing,” Mark Lang, a marketing professor at the University of Tampa who studies food, told me.

Technically, plant-based does have a clear definition. The Cornell University biochemist Thomas Colin Campbell is often credited for coining the term in the 1980s as a neutral, less fraught descriptor for diets considered “vegan” or “vegetarian.” That is what made plant-based a popular term for companies eager to sell their meat replacements to a wide range of eaters. The Plant Based Foods Association uses essentially the same criteria—foods made from plants that do not contain animal products—to determine which products can bear its “Certified Plant Based Seal.”

Some companies describe products as “plant-based,” however, even if they don’t meet these criteria. Items sold as such include foods that have always been vegan, such as prepackaged jackfruit, and those mixed in with some animal products, such as Wahlburgers’ “Flex Blend” patties. But even a product that is properly described as “plant-based” might mean different things to different people, because there is no one reason to try and avoid the consequences of animal rearing and consumption. Health is the leading one, followed by environmental and ethical concerns, Emma Ignaszewski, the associate director of industry intelligence and initiatives at the Good Food Institute, told me.

The label’s vagueness has been a marketer’s dream, creating an enormous opportunity to capitalize on the perceived virtuousness and healthiness of eating plant-based. Brands use the “plant-based” label to “draw people’s attention to the aggregate goodness of a particular product” and simultaneously “deflect attention” from any less appealing attributes, Joe Árvai, a professor of psychology and biological sciences at the University of Southern California, told me. Some, like coconut water, are relatively good for you; others, like booze, are probably not. And their environmental benefits remain murky: Using fewer animal ingredients generally decreases emissions, but the climate impacts are not always straightforward.

In this way, the evolution of plant-based mirrors that of organic or gluten-free. These terms have specific meanings that are legitimately useful for helping people make choices about their food, but they have been overused into oblivion. You can now buy organic marijuana and gluten-free water along with your plant-based energy drinks. With multiple labels, including gluten-free, plant-based, GMO-free, Earth-friendly, and Fair Trade, “some products look like a NASCAR” vehicle, Lang said. “You’re just putting buttons all over the place, trying to get my attention.”

We may have already hit peak “plant-based.” According to a recent survey from the Food Industry Association, there is substantial confusion about what the label means—and that could be discouraging people from buying plant-based products. Some are now outright skeptical of the label. A 2023 study co-authored by Árvai suggested that people are less likely to go for foods described as “plant-based” (or “vegan”) compared with those called “healthy” or “sustainable.” One reason may be negative associations with plant-based meat alternatives, which are seen as “artificial” because of their ultra-processed nature, co-author Patrycja Sleboda, an assistant professor of psychology at Baruch College, City University of New York, told me.

Another may be that consumers are not sure whether “plant-based” foods are healthy. Americans may respond better when the actual benefits of the food are highlighted, she said. Similarly, market research conducted by Meati, a company that sells meat alternatives made of mushrooms, found that the “plant-based” label, applied to food, signaled “bad eating experience, bad flavor, bad texture, poor nutrition, too many ingredients, and overprocessing,” Christina Ra, Meati’s vice president of marketing and communications, told me.

Some good may still come out of the messiness of “plant-based” everything. Meati deliberately avoids the label altogether, opting instead to highlight the contents of its products (“95 percent mushroom root”). A recent Whole Foods report predicted that in 2024, consumers will want to “put the ‘plant’ back in ‘plant-based’” by replacing “complex meat alternatives” with recognizable ingredients such as walnuts and legumes. In a particular literal interpretation of this prediction, the company Actual Veggies sells a greens-and-grains patty called “The Actual Green Burger.” And some milk alternatives are also now skipping “plant-based” and simplifying their ingredient lists to just two items (nuts and water).

Shoppers just want to know what’s in their food without having to think too hard about it. Plant-based hasn’t helped with that. Even Campbell, after he coined the term, acknowledged that it was a limiting, potentially misleading phrase that left too much room for unhealthy ingredients, such as sugar and flour. Perhaps shoppers’ exasperation with the vagueness of “plant-based” eating may eventually lead brands to promote more plant-based eating: that is, just eating plants.

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Yasmin Tayag

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January 8, 2024