Healthy living & lifestyle
replacements when evaluated on nutritional, health, environmental and cost metrics. In fact, they outperformed processed products such as veggie burgers, plant milks and even lab-grown meat – which ranked worst.
The study went on to state that choosing legumes over meat and milk could reduce nutritional imbalances in high-income countries (including the UK, US and Europe) by about 50%, while also cutting greenhouse gas emissions by more than half. Moreover, it indicated that such a switch could reduce mortality rates from diet-related diseases by roughly 10%. Researchers assessed a wide spectrum of alternatives: traditional products such as tofu and tempeh, processed options like veggie burgers and plant milks, prospective products including lab-grown beef, as well as unprocessed foods like soybeans and peas. While it is important to distinguish between processed and unprocessed legumes, the study found that even processed plant-based foods (e.g., veggie burgers and plant milks) still offer substantial benefits over meat – albeit with emissions reductions and health improvements roughly 20–30% lower than those provided by unprocessed legumes. Consumer costs for these processed alternatives were estimated to be about 10% higher than those of current diets. Notably, unprocessed legumes emerged as the clear winners in terms of nutrition, health, environmental impact and cost. A surprising entrant was tempeh.
Tempeh: a surprising star Tempeh is a traditional Indonesian food made from fermented soybeans using a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds the soybeans into a firm cake. A fungus – either Rhizopus oligosporus or Rhizopus oryzae (commonly known as tempeh starter) – is used during fermentation. This process allows tempeh to retain much of the nutritional properties of soybeans without extensive processing or additives, giving it an edge over more processed alternatives such as veggie burgers. The study also presented other surprises. For example, the data suggested that lab-grown meat is not yet a competitive product compared even with conventional meat. At current technology levels, its emissions can be as high as those of beef burgers and its production costs can be up to an eye-watering 40,000 times higher. Although future investments and technological advances might lower these figures, significant financial commitment would be required. For Springmann, given that affordable and effective alternatives to meat and milk already exist, the prospect of public investment in lab-grown meat and ultra- processed burger patties is a tough sell. “Our previous research strongly suggests that adopting predominantly plant-based dietary patterns –
Ingredients Insight /
www.ingredients-insight.com
from vegan and vegetarian diets to flexitarian diets with low to moderate amounts of animal products – can substantially reduce environmental footprints and lower the risks of developing diet-related diseases such as heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes compared with the average Western diet,” he explains. “Instead of completely overhauling one’s diet, many people find it easier to start by reducing the most impactful sources of meat and dairy. That is why we focused specifically on meat and milk alternatives in our study. We found that minimally processed legumes such as beans and peas consistently outperformed most other alternatives on metrics including nutrition, dietary health, environmental impact and cost.” More processed alternatives, such as veggie burgers and plant milks, performed less well – except in terms of cost, where they were about 10% more expensive – yet they still performed better than the meat and milk they are designed to replace. In contrast, lab-grown meat fared poorly across all dimensions, matching conventional meat in its lack of nutritional and health benefits while remaining prohibitively expensive even when factoring in the potential for future technological improvements.
Changing consumer habits and market trends
Old habits die hard, and consumer dietary resistance remains a significant barrier. Trends in high-income countries like the UK, US and across Europe show that meat and milk consumption is largely steady, with only tentative signs of decline – insufficient, however, to reduce the environmental impact of our diets to safe levels. Still, meat and milk alternatives are growing in popularity, even though recent increases in the cost of living have led to temporary dips in their uptake. “Our analysis suggests that the costs of many meat and milk alternatives are a major factor limiting their popularity,” says Dr Springmann. “Choosing basic ingredients such as beans and peas is not only cheaper
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Some meat alternatives are classed as ultra- processed foods.
Antonina Vlasova/
Shutterstock.com
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