Full Ingredient List:
>Water, Textured Wheat Protein, Coconut Oil, Potato Protein, Natural Flavors, 2% or less of: Leghemoglobin (soy), Yeast Extract, Salt, Soy Protein Isolate, Konjac Gum, Xanthan Gum, Thiamin (Vitamin B1), Zinc, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Vitamin B12.
I shouldn't even have to post about "Textured Wheat Protein" but it's essentially another denatured protein, one that is completely doused in glyphosate right before harvest. That's the main ingredient of these "burgers."
Check out the chart on page two...
http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/ITX_2013_06_04_Seneff.pdf
These "vegan" foods are nowhere near healthy.
Then there's Soy Protein Isolate:
>But high-temperature processing has the unfortunate side effect of so denaturing the other proteins in soy that they are rendered largely ineffective.23 That's why animals on soy feed need lysine supplements for normal growth.
>Nitrites, which are potent carcinogens, are formed during spray-drying, and a toxin called lysinoalanine is formed during alkaline processing.24 Numerous artificial flavorings, particularly MSG, are added to soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein products to mask their strong "beany" taste and to impart the flavor of meat.25
>In feeding experiments, the use of SPI increased requirements for vitamins E, K, D, and B12 and created deficiency symptoms of calcium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, copper, iron, and zinc.26 Phytic acid remaining in these soy products greatly inhibits zinc and iron absorption; test animals fed SPI develop enlarged organs, particularly the pancreas and thyroid gland, and increased deposition of fatty acids in the liver.27
People do usually eat 'real food' when they eat meat products. That's the problem.
Danihan's criticism is wrong and projecting onto an imaginary strawman because he pretends that the only reason anyone could ever care about vat meat or fake meat is for the possible health benefits and accuses them of hypocrisy for endorsing processed foods in one case but not in hypothetical others - which is bizarre because that reason is literally not even in the laundry list of reasons in OP or other coverage (suggesting he didn't even read OP). Read through the article again, health is never mentioned, all the reasons are moral, environmental, or economic. I am perfectly willing to say that maybe vat meat or fake meat are not exactly as healthy as eating some tomatoes or something, but you know what, I really don't give a shit about minor issues or cherrypicked chemistry as I am far more concerned about whether it will soon be possible for me to continue eating tasty meat (possibly even for less cost) without killing hundreds of animals a year.
Nonetheless, point taken.
If fake meats were as dangerous as the real thing, they'd be illegal to sell. Concerns about the safety of these new foods are pure status-quo bias.
1. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/safe/food...
2. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/d...
You can keep all of that aforementioned "meat" afaic.
[1] more on that for example here: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/acrylamide.html
It's not that processed foods are particularly safe, but that meat is unsafe in a way we're accustomed to. Again: every year, meat-borne pathogens kill 5,000 Americans and cause illnesses in 1% of the population. Fake meats simply don't cause those rates of illness or death. If they did, the FDA would not allow them to be sold.
Who is to say that eating an equivalent amount of this fake meat product wouldn't cause a far greater number of deaths and reduction in quality adjusted years? It will be much harder to tell, because the problems aren't as obvious/acute, and there are always a huge number of confounding variables when it comes to nutrition.
Unless the problems it causes are acute, the FDA isn't going to have a very good way of comparing the safety of these with normal meat.
Among other things, sodium nitrate (included in the above description of fake meat) is, by itself, known to be more carcinogenic than red meat itself. But you don't see the FDA ensuring new foods don't use it.
You have to worry about that with vegetables as well. Certainly here in Sweden the nr 1 source of food borne salmonella is spinach, arugula and similar leafy greens.
No way. Everyone knows the field of nutrition has been considered settled for decades.
As for protein isolates:
> That's why animals on soy feed need lysine supplements for normal growth.
No wonder eating a mono diet requires supplements. How can we expect protein isolates from a legume to be a super-powerful all in one food?
>Nitrites, which are potent carcinogens, are formed during spray-drying.
Cool thing to leave out that nitrites are used as preservatives and colorings in meat and consuming them without the added phytonutrients (available only in plants) removes the blocking effect and cancerous nitrosamines form.
Just check out google scholar for nitrosamines and meat. It's all over the place, hundreds of studies.
So, Stephanie Seneff is just scaremongering without sufficient evidence. Just like any food/ingredient demonization.
> Phytic acid remaining in these soy products greatly inhibits zinc and iron absorption
"phytic acid cancer" on google scholar, good thing it blocks heme iron absorption, wouldn't like to over-absorb it and get cancer.
> test animals fed SPI develop enlarged organs, particularly the pancreas and thyroid gland, and increased deposition of fatty acids in the liver.
Just like feeding mice 20% calories from casein protein (in milk) gets them cancer, and you can turn it off and on by lowering/increasing the casein amount. should we now scaremonger and tell that milk should be avoided, maybe whey protein also because it's filled with casein?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure there are crazy people out there willing to eat just whey powder and soy protein isolate all day long. For the sane folks, it's probably safe.
You can list out all the negatives, leaving positives out and make a demonizing picture out of any food/ingredient.
It is extremely frustrating gow you spread confusion and conflate concepts that have nothing to do with each other, with the end result being that all you accomplish is to spread propaganda about efforts that will literally save the planet from environmentally destructive, excessive meat production.
How are you certain about 'doused in glyphosate'?
It should be noted that making meat substitutes out of wheat protein is nothing new, and it's accessible to the home cook, not something that has to be done in a lab. If you don't believe me, look up recipes for homemade seitan.
It's really unfortunate all the meat "alternatives" take the organic/healthy but huge premium approach as this makes it very inaccessible to your standard consumer. Maybe for 6+ figure earning HNers it's not an issue but for the majority of the country it is.
It keeps being priced and pitched as a premium organic healthy food and not something everyone can afford.
Tesla is another example.
And economics should force price down, if the costs of manufactured protein decrease substantially.
I don't mean to be petty but it's not "economics" that drives prices down but rather competition. The thing about smartphones is while they all had dramatically different surface behavior, underneath they all shared very similar technological cores (Qualcomm processors, iOS/Android/Windows OS, etc...) and were able to utilize those same innovations.
Artificial meat on the other hand doesn't seem to be like that. Every product is unique and requires significant investment in R&D to make a reality.
They have been selling it for a long time now, it's not like this stuff is brand new. My only point was that we have not seen the effects you are describing happening yet which is worrisome. It feels like they are happy with product positioning at the moment.
At least in cooked form, the smell is more distinctly of beans, not cat food.