Abstract
Consumers are shifting towards plant-based diets, driven by both environmental and health reasons. This has led to the development of new plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs) that are marketed as being sustainable and good for health. However, it remains unclear whether these novel PBMAs to replace animal foods carry the same established nutritional benefits as traditional plant-based diets based on pulses, legumes and vegetables. We modelled a reference omnivore diet using NHANES 2017–2018 data and compared it to diets that substituted animal products in the reference diet with either traditional or novel plant-based foods to create flexitarian, vegetarian and vegan diets matched for calories and macronutrients. With the exception of the traditional vegan diet, all diets with traditional plant-based substitutes met daily requirements for calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, iron and Vitamin B12 and were lower in saturated fat, sodium and sugar than the reference diet. Diets based on novel plant-based substitutes were below daily requirements for calcium, potassium, magnesium, zinc and Vitamin B12 and exceeded the reference diet for saturated fat, sodium and sugar. Much of the recent focus has been on protein quality and quantity, but our case study highlights the risk of unintentionally increasing undesirable nutrients while reducing the overall nutrient density of the diet when less healthy plant-based substitutes are selected. Opportunities exist for PBMA producers to enhance the nutrient profile and diversify the format of future plant-based foods that are marketed as healthy, sustainable alternatives to animal-based products.
Highlights
Global concerns around the consumption of animal products and their adverse effects on health and the environment have led to significant growth in the plant-based protein space, for new products to replace traditional meat and dairy [1,2,3,4]
There has been the suggestion of a “health halo” around these products, where established health benefits of vegetarian and vegan diets are being conflated with positive messaging around animal welfare, sustainability and the environment for many of the newer plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs) products [8,12]
While retaining dairy and increasing the proportion of energy derived from plant-based foods, resulted in traditional (Veg-Trad) and novel (Veg-New) vegetarian diets, both of which were lower than the reference diet for cholesterol, Vitamin B12 and zinc, and higher in dietary fibre and iron
Summary
Global concerns around the consumption of animal products and their adverse effects on health and the environment have led to significant growth in the plant-based protein space, for new products to replace traditional meat and dairy [1,2,3,4]. The Mediterranean diet is a well-studied example of a feasible plant-based eating pattern low in red meat and high in unsaturated fat intake [4] It is associated with numerous health benefits including reduced incidence of cardiovascular disease and greater longevity [23,24] while having a lower environmental impact compared to a typical omnivorous Western diet [25]. Frequent red and processed meat intake is linked to greater risks of cardiovascular disease and cancer [26,27]; the World Cancer Research Fund highlights that this does not mean all consumers must completely avoid meat This is because meat presents a valuable source of protein, iron, zinc and Vitamin B12 [28]. Whether novel PBMAs and traditional plant-based foods make nutritionally equivalent animal food substitutes remains to be seen
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