Impossible and Beyond: How healthy are these meatless burgers?
health.harvard.edu
health.harvard.edu
This article never addresses the environmental claims beyond this introduction. It focuses entirely on the human health impact.
> The bad news: Meatless burgers are heavily processed and high in saturated fat
It's worth knowing the definitions of "processed" and "heavily processed", rather than simply reading "processing" as a bogeyman to be feared.
• Processed foods: Added salt, sugar, and/or fats
• Heavily/ultra processed: Artificial colors, flavors, and/or preservatives
That's all there is to it. Bread is processed. Putting salt and pepper on your steak is processing. If you drop some food coloring into the icing for your Christmas cookies, they're heavily processed.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/processed-foods...
Now, I'll grant that these meat alternatives have a truckload of sodium, in the ballpark of 20%+ of your recommended intake. And while the subheading complains about the saturated fat, the following paragraph admits that Impossible and Beyond are both comparable to a typical beef burger, then argues for minimizing saturated fats. That's not an unreasonable course of action, but I think there's a disconnect in claiming that they're high in sat fats when the context is a comparison against the traditional burger—in that arena, they're neutral.
At a cursory search, it seems that evidence for notable effect from flavonoids is mixed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoflavone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoestrogen#Effects_on_human...
And, it sounds like Impossible may have made a conscious decision to minimize isoflavones in their products. They have a page dedicated to discussing the safety of soy, and yes, an Impossible Burger contains "under 2 mg of isoflavones" whereas a "traditional soyfood" of the same mass might contain 25 mg.
https://impossiblefoods.com/ca/blog/soy-facts-myths-and-why-...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5188409/
This, though, is a much better discussion than simply dismissing them as processed.
… but not all:
> one serving contains less than 8% of the isoflavones found in one serving of whole soy foods (one serving is roughly a quarter of a block of tofu or 1 cup of soymilk)
Which is still better than 0. The article also doesn’t bother to mention that the meat burgers have substantial cholesterol, while the meatless burgers have none
> The biggest influence on blood cholesterol level is the mix of fats and carbohydrates in your diet—not the amount of cholesterol you eat from food.
> The types of fat in the diet help determine the amount of total, HDL, and LDL cholesterol in the bloodstream. The types and amount of carbohydrate in the diet also play a role. Cholesterol in food matters, too, but not nearly as much.
> The discovery half a century ago that high blood cholesterol levels were strongly associated with an increased risk for heart disease triggered numerous warnings to avoid foods that contain cholesterol, especially eggs and liver. However, scientific studies show a weak relationship between the amount of cholesterol a person consumes and his or her blood cholesterol levels
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you...
On the other hand, saturated fat raises blood cholesterol levels (both the desirable HDL and the harmful LDL):
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-truth-abo...
That just means it’s “keto friendly”. The same way my generation (millennials) like to make fun of boomers for being fat phobic, someday our kids will make fun of us for unwittingly clogging our arteries.
Beyond burgers have 5g net carbs [0] for a quarter pound patty. So not the worst, carb wise but way less Leto friendly than a 0g beef patty.
[0] https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-US/products/the-beyond-burger
https://1bps6437gg8c169i0y1drtgz-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...
If that link doesn't work, https://foe.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/072717_Impossible...
There are so many good quality fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes that provide all I need.
The dangers of supermarkup and fast food are that they are full of salt and manufactured flavours. They are designed around profit and patents over consumer health.
Last time I did buy a 'vegan' bean burger from a supermarkup it made me sick. I got a pounding headache. Just stick to the real food that has served us for centuries and learn how to cook it well. India does vegetarian/vegan food really well (not in western Indian restaurants though).
The stats on the Impossible/Beyond are not too bad - though I wonder where they get the saturated fat from? If I wanted saturated fat I would use butter or ghee - it does taste good!
Why is there nothing about the heme, and its 40 other by-product compounds that they self certified as safe instead of getting FDA approval as part of their bio-reactor process?
You know they can't extract enough of it from beets to be economically viable, they have to use that bio-reactor process and 40 compounds that weren't previously known generally certified as safe on their say so.
There's good reason to never willingly eat this.