Beyond the Impossible – how do plant-based meat alternatives stack up?

On Saturday 19 October 2019, I presented a talk at the Brisbane Vegan Expo called ‘Love Your Guts: How to have a happy, healthy gut on a vegan diet’. After delving into the research that documents how and why a plant-based diet promotes a healthy and diverse gut microbiota which in turn promotes our physical and psychological well-being, I discussed some of the reasons why vegans may fail to reap the gut health benefits of going meatless.

One of those reasons is that many vegans rely heavily on plant-based meat and dairy substitutes, rather than basing their diets on whole or minimally processed plant foods.

These substitutes, which are assembled from highly processed plant-derived ingredients, lack the core components which are known to promote a healthy gut microbiota: fibre, resistant starch and a diverse range of polyphenols.

My concern about these products, as it turns out, is shared by some of the world’s foremost nutrition researchers. An article on this subject by famed Harvard scientist Frank Hu, who has over 1200 peer-reviewed medical journal articles to his name, was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Titled ‘Can Plant-Based Meat Alternatives Be Part of a Healthy and Sustainable Diet?’, the article presents Hu and his co-authors’ key concerns about the products that they describe as the “new generation of plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs)”, particularly Beyond Meat products and the Impossible Burger, which are both “specifically designed to mimic the taste and experience of eating meat”:

• PBMAs contain purified plant protein (pea protein isolate in the case of Beyond Burgers, and soy protein isolate and concentrate in Impossible Burgers). However, in both epidemiologic studies and randomised clinical trials, health benefits have been shown to occur when red meat is replaced with nuts, legumes, and other whole plant-based foods, not isolated plant proteins.
• The whole plant foods that are typically framed as “good sources of protein” in a plant-based diet are rich not just in protein, but a plethora of other components including a diverse range of carbohydrates, fats, micronutrients and phytochemicals – none of which are present in protein isolates and concentrates, and all of which are depleted in the processing of other food ingredients used in PBMAs.
• Diets high in ultra-processed foods, which are inherently calorically dense and specifically engineered to be highly palatable, drive overeating and weight gain, as I discussed in my article Ultraprocessed foods make you overeat – even when you don’t want to – and cause weight gain.
• The total and saturated fat content of both Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods burger patties are slightly lower than a beef burger patty, but considerably higher than wholefood plant-based protein sources, such as legumes (dried peas, beans and lentils).
• Both Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods products are higher in sodium than their animal-derived counterparts; whole plant foods are of course low in sodium – or more accurately, contain levels of sodium to which the human body is physiologically adapted.
• Impossible Burgers contain haem iron derived from soy beans, and fermented by genetically engineered yeast, which lends a meaty flavour and appearance to the product. High dietary intake of haem iron (which is found abundantly in red meat) has been linked to an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The molecular structure of the soy-derived haem iron in the Impossible Burger is identical to that of meat-derived haem, so there is no good reason to think that a high intake of haem from a PBMA would not carry the same risk as eating haem from meat.
• No studies have been conducted to gauge the health impacts of regular consumption of PBMAs. We simply don’t know what happens to humans who eat these foods as part of their standard dietary intake.

Below are some of the slides I showed in my ‘Love Your Guts’ presentation. First, I showed the nutrition panels from two plant-based foods, and asked the audience to guess what each of them was. No one guessed the one on the left correctly – can you?

If you guessed lentils, well done!

And the panel on the right is for the Beyond Burger.

Take a close look at the nutrition panel for the Beyond Burger, below on the left. For comparison, I’ve included a nutrition panel for a standard beef-based burger on the right.

What do you notice? They’re almost equivalent in macronutrients, and while the Beyond Burger has no cholesterol, it’s loaded with sodium.

Now take a close look at the ingredients list for the Beyond Beef burger:

As you can see, it’s a laundry list of highly processed food components, with not a whole plant food in sight.

As I explained to the Brisbane Vegan Expo audience, occasional consumption of PBMAs probably won’t harm otherwise healthy people. But anyone suffering from cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, autoimmune conditions, chronic pain syndromes and the like, should give these ultraprocessed foods a wide berth and stick to whole and minimally processed plant foods such as beans, lentils, tofu, tempeh, whole grains, nuts and seeds, along with generous servings of a wide range of fruits and vegetables.

Confused about how to transition to a healthy vegan diet? Apply for a Roadmap to Optimal Health Consultation today, and let me help make it simple and straightforward for you!