Eating this ultra-processed food may be good for you and the planet, experts say

Chicken and pork can be recreated using only plants. highviews/iStockphoto/Getty Images via CNN Newsource

Plant-based meats have an image problem.

It’s not flavor or appearance. Look-alike beef burgers, chicken-like nuggets and faux pork sausages often cook like meat — some even bleed and sizzle in the pan — and are tasty enough to be gobbled up by climate-conscious carnivores.

It’s not their role in saving the planet. According to the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting alternative proteins, replacing a beef burger with a plant-based patty can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 98 per cent and land use by up to 97 per cent.

Yet after an initial surge of consumer interest, the alt-protein market in the United States has recently slowed, according to some estimates. Why the sudden sour taste?

“Doctors and dietitians are reluctant to consider alternative proteins when advising patients on nutrition because they view these foods as ultra-processed,” said nutrition scientist Roberta Alessandrini, director of the Dietary Guidelines Initiative at PAN International — Physicians Association for Nutrition — in Zurich, Switzerland.

“Yet if carefully chosen, these foods can be a valid and helpful way to shift toward more plant-forward diets, which are good for people and the planet,” said Alessandrini, coauthor of a new report on plant-based meats by PAN International and the Good Food Institute.

Encouraging consumers to swap their beloved animal flesh for plant alternatives is increasingly critical, experts say. Global meat production and demand — a leading contributor to climate change — is projected to rise by up to 52 per cent by 2050 compared with 2012 levels, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

“There’s such great urgency related to climate change, environmental degradation and public health that we need to give people as many options as possible, including plant-based meat alternatives,” said leading nutrition researcher Dr. Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Studies show eating a plant-first diet — the award-winning Mediterranean diet is an example — can reduce the risk for diabetes, high cholesterol, dementia, memory loss, depression, breast cancer and more.

“The fat composition of beef is so undesirable for health that it’s very easy to be better than that,” Willett said. “Animal products not only have too much saturated fat but lack polyunsaturated fat, fiber and many of the minerals and vitamins available in plants.

“Any other important nutrients beef has that plants lack, such as vitamin B12, can be added to the plant-based meat alternatives, much as we fortify milk with vitamin D and A,” he added. “So I think we really need to look at each one of these novel products on its own merits.”

Is ultra-processed a dirty word?

By their very nature, plant-based meats are ultra-processed, an increasingly dirty word to many people, including members of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement. To mimic the fibrous structure of meat, faux versions may undergo 3D printing, extreme heat and cold manipulations and extrusion processes similar to those applied to ultra-processed foods.

Alternative meats also contain natural and artificial additives such as binders, emulsifiers, dyes, flavorings, stabilizers and preservatives. The Impossible Burger, for example, uses a genetically modified organism, or GMO, to create heme, a molecule that recreates the red color and bleeding typical of beef.

Proponents of plant-based meat, however, say these alternatives don’t meet the typical characteristics of ultra-processed foods, nor do they mimic the health harms. Experts say several of the top companies, such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, have improved the nutritional quality of their products since they were first introduced. The Beyond Burger, for example, is now on version 4.0, the company said.

“The conversation needs to significantly change when it comes to ultra-processed foods because they’re never going to go away — people want easy and convenient food,” said Joy Bauer, a registered dietitian who consults for Beyond Meat,

“We need to get to a place where we start to rate ultra-processed foods because there are some that are super healthy and can help people move in positive directions within their lives,” Bauer said.

The issue of salt and saturated fat

Plant-based meats also struggle due to their traditionally high levels of salt and saturated fat — both leading players in developing heart disease, the No. 1 killer worldwide.

A 2019 CNN analysis found Beyond and Impossible burgers at the time had a similar saturated fat profile as beef from cows: Beyond had 6 grams of saturated fat; Impossible had 8 grams of fat (due to coconut oil), and a beef burger had 9 grams of fat. In comparison, a store-bought turkey burger had 4 to 5 grams, while a typical grain-based veggie burger had only 1 gram of saturated fat.

Saturated fat can create plaques that clog arteries, leading to future heart attacks and strokes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

High levels of salt are another concern. In the 2019 analysis, Beyond, Impossible and more traditional grain-based burgers each contained 370 to 390 milligrams of sodium. Store-bought turkey burgers, however, contained 95 to 115 milligrams of sodium, while beef patties had only 65 to 75 milligrams.

That may be a false comparison, however, as many people salt meat during the cooking process, said Christopher Gardner, Rehnborg Farquhar Professor of Medicine at Stanford University in California who directs the Stanford Prevention Research Center’s Nutrition Studies Research Group.

In a randomized clinical trial Gardner published in 2020, people ate regeneratively farmed high quality beef for two months before switching to beef, chicken and pork products supplied by Beyond Meat for another two months.

“Yes, the red meat products we supplied people had less salt, but we found people seasoned them before they ate them,” Gardner said. “Beef eaters ended up eating the same amount of salt as those who were eating the higher sodium plant-based products.”

Blood pressure was identical during the two phases, but “almost everyone was a pound or two or three lighter at the end of the Beyond meat phase than the animal meat phase,” Gardner said.

In addition, “bad” cholesterol called LDL, or low-density lipoprotein, and trimethylamine N-oxide, or TMAO, were lower after eating the plant-based meat, Gardner said. Like LDL, TMAO has been linked to an increased risk of heart attack, stroke and heart failure.

Manufacturers move toward healthier options

Today, the nutrition labels of some plant-based products look much different than when they first landed on store shelves.

“In 2021 I published a study which found plant-based products in the UK were higher in salt than their meat counterparts,” Alessandrini said. “A few years later I repeated the same study in Australia on a much larger sample and found the alternatives had lower salt content than meat products.

“Of course, Australia has the Health Star Rating, which puts health labels on the outside of packages,” she added. “Programs like these can encourage manufactures to reformulate their products.”

Recent studies analyzed by PAN International and the Good Food Institute found plant-based meats were dramatically lower in saturated fat, a little lower in overall calories, equal in protein, 100 per cent higher in fiber (beef has no fiber) and a bit higher in salt and sugar than conventional meat.

Impossible Foods, one of the leaders in this space, told CNN the company has lowered the salt and saturated fat content in its products while keeping taste and appearance. The flagship Impossible Burger now has 6 grams instead of 8 grams of saturated fat from coconut oil.

Coconut oil is “100 per cent fat, 80-90 per cent of which is saturated fat,” according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Like lard, it has a firm texture at room temperature.

“Coconut oil is a source of saturated fat, but nearly all of our plant-based meat products have at least 25 per cent less saturated fat compared to the animal equivalent,” Impossible Foods chief science officer Sunil Chandran said in an email.

“This includes both our flagship Impossible Beef which has 33 per cent less saturated fat than 80/20 beef, and our leaner, heart-healthy Impossible Lite Beef which has a whopping 75 per cent less saturated fat than 90/10 lean beef,” Chandran said. “Plus, coconut oil is essential to providing that marbling effect and juiciness that makes meat so craveable.”

Beyond Meat, another leader in the alt-meat industry, has reformulated all of its products to meet consumer demand for healthier products, said Beyond Meat spokeswoman Shira Zackai.

One of the first changes was to replace coconut oil with avocado oil, which reduced “levels of saturated fat in most product to 2 grams and at times 1 gram,” all while keeping at least 20 grams of protein, Zackai said.

“I suggested they cut back on fortification, and now their ingredient list is streamlined — it’s simplified,” said Bauer, the registered dietitian. “And they did this to all of their products, not just beef.

“Sodium is now down 20 per cent. Plant protein was diversified to a mix of red lentils, yellow peas, fava beans and brown rice to be a complete protein with all the essential amino acids.”

Navigating the alt-meat landscape

While manufacturers continue to tweak their products to overcome the stigma of ultra-processed foods, nutritionists suggest consumers move forward in choosing products that help the planet — as long as they keep reading the nutrition label.

“I would look for something with a good fat composition in which saturated fat is less than a third of the total fat,” Willett said. “Some vegetable burgers made from peas and legumes can be quite starchy, which the body breaks down similarly to sugar, so I would prefer to see alternatives with more healthy fat, more nuts, more soy.”

While the Dietary Guidelines for Americans call for a limit of 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day for adults, “the American Heart Association recommends a limit of 1,500 milligrams for adults over 50, which is the standard I prefer,” Willett said.

“Look for about 1 milligram of sodium per calorie, which is a pretty good criteria,” he added. “In general, salt and saturated fat are the two really important factors — along with something that’s flavorful or delicious, which is, of course, up to the consumer.”

One more key point from Willett: Before plant-based meats can truly help save the planet, they need to come down in price.

“These products are quite a bit more expensive, from what I’ve seen, than basic hamburger,” he said, “and we really need products that are price competitive with the beef and pork if we’re going to see them used on a daily basis, not just by people who can afford it.”