The best plant proteins are whole foods such as beans, lentils, chickpeas, peanuts, almonds, walnuts and seeds, but plant meats can be a good choice for people who want to cut back on the amount of beef and pork in their diets for health or environmental reasons, said Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
“Ideally, we’d like to see people switching to whole-food plant sources of protein,” he said. “But there’s a reality factor that a lot of people can’t make that leap all at once, and so having these alternatives is a good thing. They can be quite a bit better than the real thing.”
Christopher Gardner, the director of nutrition studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, said that people ask him all the time if plant-based meats are good for them. He tells them, “Instead of what?”
“If it’s instead of lentils, then the answer is no,” said Gardner, who has conducted a study funded by Beyond Meat. “But that’s not why Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat made these products. They made them as alternatives for people who are eating red meat.”
Here’s what to know when deciding between eating plant-based meat and actual meat.
They’re ultra-processed
Plant-based meats contain different ingredients, some better than others. Many plant-based meats are ultra-processed, meaning they’re industrial formulations that contain a variety of additives, such as oils, starches, thickeners, sodium and preservatives.
Most studies have found that limiting the amount of ultra-processed foods you consume is good for your health. But nutrition experts say that plant-based meat substitutes can still be a good choice if you use them as a swap for processed meats or highly processed carbs like a bowl of pasta.
They taste like meat
Traditional veggie burgers and sausages are made from things like beans, grains, nuts, seeds and tofu, and are mostly intended to appeal to vegans and vegetarians. But plant-based meats are designed to mimic the flavors, textures and appearance of real meat. They’re typically made from pea and soy proteins, and they’re often marketed to meat-eaters as better for you and better for the planet.
Joy Bauer, a registered dietitian and nutrition adviser to Beyond Meat, said she wished that everyone loaded their plates with lentils, nuts, seeds and vegetables. “But I know that the majority of people are not willing to give up their red meat favorites — the burgers, the steaks, the sausages and all the things they make with ground meat from tacos to casseroles,” she said.
Bauer said she doesn’t feel that everyone needs to entirely eliminate red meat from their diets, but that Beyond Meat products give people “the opportunity to enjoy the foods that they crave and love but in a far healthier format.”
They’re better for the environment
Most studies suggest that plant-based meat alternatives have a significantly lower carbon footprint than farmed fish, poultry, pork, farmed shrimp, beef and dairy.
They have less saturated fat and more fiber
Surveys show that the most common reason people eat alt-meats is because they consider them to be healthier than real meat. In one study that examined this question, Gardner and his colleagues at Stanford recruited healthy adults and assigned them to follow two different diets for eight weeks at a time. For one eight-week period the participants ate at least two servings a day of Beyond Meat products, and for another eight-week period they ate at least two servings a day of grass-fed, 80 percent lean real meat. The participants were instructed not to change anything else about their diets.
The researchers found that when the participants ate the plant-based meats, they weighed slightly less and had lower cholesterol. On average their LDL fell about 11 points on the plant-meat diet. They also had lower levels of TMAO, a compound that has been found to increase the risk of heart disease.
Beyond Meat products contain less saturated fat than the ground beef used in the study, which explains the drop in the participants’ LDL cholesterol. In a typical day on the plant-meat diet, the participants consumed about 26 grams of saturated fat, compared to 33 grams a day on the regular-meat diet. Beyond meat products also contain fiber, which isn’t found in real meat and can help to lower cholesterol.
One caveat to the study was that Beyond Meat provided a research grant to Stanford that helped to fund it. Gardner said the researchers hired an independent, third party to conduct the main analysis to minimize any appearance of conflict.
Willett at Harvard, who was not involved in the study, said the significant drop in LDL cholesterol levels on the plant-meat diet could translate to a roughly 30 percent reduction in the risk of heart attacks. He said he believed the researchers put “enough firewalls in place” to prevent the study from being biased. “The findings are just what you’d expect based on the composition of the foods,” he added. “I have no reason to doubt the conclusions.”
They have more protein but also more sodium
The Beyond Meat burgers and sausages had surprisingly more protein — 20 grams in the Beyond burger and 16 grams in the Beyond sausage — compared to their real-meat counterparts, which have 16 grams in the beef burger and 10 grams in the sausage. But they did contain more sodium than real meat.
Bauer noted that since Gardner’s study was published, Beyond Meat has reduced the sodium in its burgers and ground beef by 20 percent.
Health effects vary by brand
In a study published this summer, researchers in Singapore assigned 82 men and women to eight weeks of eating plant-based meats or regular meat. Unlike in the Stanford study, the plant group was given a variety of plant-based meats — fake beef, chicken and sausages — made by different brands, including Impossible burgers, OmniMeat Mince, Beyond Meat burgers and sausages, Chickened Out Chunks and Little Peckers.
In this study, there were no major changes in measures of cardiometabolic health, including LDL cholesterol levels, inflammation, insulin and body weight, among those eating plant-based meats or real meat.
While plant-meats in general tend to be lower in saturated fat than real meat, there’s wide variation in their ingredients and nutritional content, said Mike Murray, a registered dietitian and researcher at Examine, an independent organization that analyzes and summarizes scientific research. For instance, one Impossible burger patty contains 6 grams of saturated fat, compared to 2 grams in a Beyond Meat patty.
Sunil Chandran, the chief science officer of Impossible Foods, said the company isn’t trying to convince meat-eaters to become vegans or vegetarians. He said Impossible products offer people the same nutritional benefits as real meat with fewer drawbacks. “It’s not really about switching so much as diversifying your diet,” he said.
