Scientists are digging into the supposed perks of these trendy meat and dairy replacements, and surprise, surprise – they're loaded with sodium, saturated fat, and are heavily processed.
All in all, it's much wiser to opt for real, whole foods that you can prepare from scratch rather than these chemical-laden, processed alternatives. What a shocker, right?
From Study Finds:
Our nutritional audit of more than 700 plant-based foods for sale in Australian supermarkets has just been published. We found some products are so high in salt or saturated fat, we’d struggle to call them “healthy.”
In 2022, we visited two of each of four major supermarket retailers across Melbourne to collect information on the available range of plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy products. We took pictures of the products and their nutrition labels.
We then analyzed the nutrition information on the packaging of more than 700 of these products. This included 236 meat substitutes, 169 legumes and pulses, 50 baked beans, 157 dairy milk substitutes, 52 cheese substitutes, and 40 non-dairy yogurts.
We found a wide range of plant-based meats for sale. So, it’s not surprising we found large variations in their nutrition content.
Sodium, found in added salt and which contributes to high blood pressure, was our greatest concern. The sodium content varied from 1 milligram per 100 grams in products such as tofu, to 2,000mg per 100g in items such as plant-based ground beef products.
This means we could eat our entire daily recommended sodium intake in just one bowl of plant-based ground beef.
