Ultra-processed vegan foods: Healthy alternatives to animal-source foods or avoidable junk?

Abstract

Animal-source foods (ASFs), namely, meat, milk, eggs, and derived products, are crucial components of a well-balanced diet owing to their contribution with multiple essential nutrients. The benefits of the consumption of ASFs in terms of hedonic responses, emotional well-being, and mood are also widely documented. However, an increasing share of consumers decide to exclude ASFs from their diets. Some of these vegan consumers are inclined to consume so-called "meat" and/or "dairy analogs," which are produced from plant materials (soy, wheat, and oat, among others). In order to simulate appearance, texture, and flavor of ASFs, these industrial vegan foods are designed using an intricate formulation and industrial processing, which justifies their identification as ultraprocessed foods (UPFs). While the introduction of these processed vegan products is becoming popular in developed countries, the consequences of the sustained intake of these products on human health are mostly ignored. Contrarily to common belief, which emphasizes their role as "healthy" alternatives to ASFs, these plant-based UPFs may enclose certain threats, which are reviewed in the present paper. The remarkable differences between vegan UPFs and the genuine ASFs (meat/dairy products) from sensory, nutritional, hedonic, or health perspectives precludes the designation of the former as analogs of the latter. Understanding the basis of these differences would contribute to (i) providing consumers with grounds to make reasoned decisions to consume meat/dairy products and/or the vegan alternatives and (ii) providing food companies with strategies to produce more appealing, nutritive, and healthy industrially processed vegan products.