Plant-Based Meat Alternatives. Does the nutrition match the hype?
Many people these days are exploring ways to reduce their intake of meat. Legumes and tofu aren’t everyone’s cup of tea and so welcome to the market the plant-based meat alternatives. Many of these products are designed as raw ingredients to be used in place of their beef, chicken, bacon buddies in standard family recipes. What we then achieve is a reduction in meat intake without too much on the day-to-day look of family meals.
So, with so many of these plant based products hitting the shelves, the question is, are they NUTRITIONALLY the equivalent of the real thing?
What’s in meat that’s most important for our bodies?
Beef and lamb are some of the richest dietary sources of iron, zinc and vitamin B12, while chicken has less iron but is still a good source of these minerals too. So for me, when choosing a plant-based meat alternative, one of the most important things for me is to make sure that it is providing me and my family with these important minerals.
What else should I check for when choosing a plant-based meat alternative?
Most meat mince products consist of mostly ONE ingredient… the meat itself. What you will find when you look further at the meat alternatives is that they contain up to 50 ingredients! This is pretty alarming and makes me wonder what impact all of those ingredients have on our health and wellbeing
I want to eat less meat but also want to get the most nutrition for my family meals, what should I do?
After reviewing as many plant-based meat alternatives as I was able to, I was able to find several that were fortified with the essential nutrients of iron, zinc and vitamin B12 but only 5 which contained 10 or less ingredients.
No doubt as time goes on, food companies will better meet all of our nutritional needs, flavour preferences and environmental concerns but in the mean time, this is what I have found…
