Is vegetable meat better for your health than real meat?

You have probably heard two nutritional advice: eat more plants and reduce the consumption of ultra -processed foods.

So where does this leave the hamburgers, sausages, nuggets and other vegetable meat products sold by companies such as Beyond Meat and impossible foods? They are made of plants like soy and peas, but are also highly processed.

If you ask companies, they will say your products are good for you. Nutrition experts say there may be benefits as well. But while it is clear that the consumption of red meat and processed meat is associated with health risks, such as heart disease, some cancers and early death, we do not yet know how vegetable meat alternatives can affect our long -term health.

How do you compare nutrients?

The nutritional profiles of vegetable meat products may vary greatly, but two scientific revisions, both published in 2024, suggest some standards.

Compared to regular meat, such as ground meat, pork and chicken sausages, plant -based versions usually contain fewer saturated fats (a category of fats that are linked to heart disease) and similar or slightly lower protein levels.

A 113 gram hamburger made with 85% lean ground beef, for example, contains 6.5 grams of saturated fat. An equivalent impossible hamburger has a little less (6 grams of saturated fat), and a Beyond Burger has much less (just 2 grams). On the other hand, a Gardein Ultimate Plant-based hamburger has almost 40% more saturated fat (9 grams) compared to ground beef.

When it comes to protein levels, hamburgers are much more similar: beef hamburger has 21 grams of protein, while the three plant -based versions have 19 to 21 grams.

Vegetable meat products also often contain some fiber – a nutrient associated with reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer and heart disease. A hamburger impossible has 5 grams, a Beyond Burger has 2 grams and a Gardein hamburger has 1 grass. The real meat contains no fiber.

The main nutritional negative point of plant -based meat is that they tend to contain much more sodium than raw and non -processed meats, such as ground beef, pork and chicken breast, said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, cardiologist and medical professor at Tufts University.

Of course, most people add at least one amount of salt to the raw meat before cooking it, a Beyond Meat spokesman said in a statement. The company’s current products, both hamburgers and meat, contain less sodium than previous versions, he said, and now use avocado oil instead of coconut oil, which has reduced saturated fat levels.

Vegetable meat products usually have a better nutritional profile than red meat, said DR. Frank B. Hu, Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at Harvard Th Chan School of Public Health.

“Products are evolving very quickly,” he said, adding that they hope they will continue to improve.

Mixed Results in Studies

In two small studies that investigated the health effects of replacing real meat with plant -based alternatives, such as Beyond Meat and impossible foods, Hu said the researchers reported mixed results.

One study, published in 2024, found that when 40 people in Singapore consumed 2.5 portions of hamburgers, sausages or plant -based chicken per day for two months, they were no longer healthy than the 42 other participants who consumed similar quantities of real meat during the same period. The researchers used fake meat products from Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat, Omnimeat (headquartered in Hong Kong) and Vegetarian Butcher (based in Great Britain). This study was funded by an agricultural research company in Hong Kong that had no interest in the result, said the main author of the study.

In another study – this ended by Beyond Meat and published in 2020 – the researchers found some benefits associated with plant -based meat. Thirty -six healthy adults consumed about 2.5 portions of real meat per day for two months and then about 2.5 portions of Beyond Meat plants for a day for two months. At the end of the plant -based phase, participants had lower cholesterol levels – and were a few lighter pounds – compared to the end of the royal meat phase.

Christopher Gardner, a nutrition scientist and medical professor at Stanford University who led the 2020 study, acknowledged that people can be skeptical about the results because it was funded by Beyond Meat. Nutritional research funded by industry tend to result in industry -favorable results than industry -financing research. But with federal dollars limited for nutrition research, it is often the only way these studies are conducted, said Gardner.

He tried to minimize the bias, as having external statistics analyzing the data and not allowing Beyond Meat to revise the study results until they were accepted for publication.

The different findings of both studies may be related to differences in the participants, food products or study design, HU added, who said Stanford’s study was “well designed and carefully executed.”

Regardless of these conflicting results, the data is “promising,” Hu added. They suggest that plant -based products may be beneficial to health – or at least not worse than meat. But, he said, “we need much larger and long -term studies” with independent financing sources to confirm this.

Conclusion

If you like meat flavors and textures, but you want to eat less of it, vegetable meat products can be an “intermediate step for a more plant -based diet,” Hu said. They may have some health benefits, he said, and great benefits to the environment.

Even better, all experts agreed, is changing their diet away from red meat and processed meat, towards less processed plant protein sources such as beans, lentils, tofu and tempoh. Exchange plant -based foods such as vegetables and whole grains for meat, for example, is clearly associated with reduced risks of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. These foods are also usually cheaper, said Gardner.

“Beans, peas and lentils are undoubtedly better than Beyond Burger,” said Gardner.

You can also try fish and chicken as healthier alternatives to red meat and processed meat, Mozaffarian said. Or, he added, use a portobello mushroom for his hamburger instead of ground beef. “This is a real alternative,” said Mozaffary.

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