Plant-based meat substitutes taste and chew remarkably similar to real beef, and the 13 items listed on their nutrition labels—vitamins, fats and protein—make them seem essentially equivalent.
But in a new study from Duke University, researchers found they are quite different.
Meat-substitute manufacturers have gone to great lengths to make the plant-based product as meaty as possible, including adding leghemoglobin, an iron-carrying molecule from soy, and red beet, berries and carrot extracts to simulate bloodiness.
The texture of near-meat is thickened by adding indigestible fibers like methylcellulose.
And to bring the plant-based meat alternatives up to the protein levels of meat, they use isolated plant proteins from soy, peas, and other plant sources. Some meat substitutes also add vitamin B12 and zinc to further replicate meat’s nutrition.
However, in the study, the team found that many other components of nutrition do not appear on the labels, and that’s where the products differ widely from meat.
The metabolites that the scientists measured are building blocks of the body’s biochemistry, crucial to the conversion of energy, signaling between cells, building structures and tearing them down, and a host of other functions.
There are expected to be more than 100,000 of these molecules in biology and about half of the metabolites circulating in human blood are estimated to be derived from our diets.
The researchers compared 18 samples of a popular plant-based meat alternative to 18 grass-fed ground beef samples from a ranch in Idaho.
The analysis of 36 carefully cooked patties found that 171 out of the 190 metabolites they measured varied between beef and the plant-based meat substitute.
The beef contained 22 metabolites that the plant substitute did not. The plant-based substitute contained 31 metabolites that meat did not.
The greatest distinctions occurred in amino acids, dipeptides, vitamins, phenols, and types of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids found in these products.
Several metabolites known to be important to human health were found either exclusively or in greater quantities in beef, including creatine, spermine, anserine, cysteamine, glucosamine, squalene, and the omega-3 fatty acid DHA.
These nutrients have potentially important physiological, anti-inflammatory, and or immunomodulatory roles. They are important for the brain and other organs, including the muscles.
Besides, the plant-based meat alternative contained several beneficial metabolites not found in beef such as phytosterols and phenols.
The team says it is important for consumers to understand that these products should not be viewed as nutritionally interchangeable, but that’s not to say that one is better than the other.
Plant and animal foods can be complementary because they provide different nutrients.
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The study is published in Scientific Reports. One author of the study is Stephan van Vliet.
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