Nutrition showdown: ProVeg Netherlands’ study on animal and plant-based meats reveals surprising results

07 Sep 2023 --- ProVeg Netherlands has released its research findings with the Netherlands Nutrition Center (Voedingscentrum) about a broad spectrum of nutritional values in plant-based meat alternatives, including the critical markers salt and protein.

One of the main findings shows that vegetable burgers, minced meat, meatballs, smoked sausages and bacon score better on average than comparable animal meat products. Plant-based shoarma and nuggets have a similar score to animal products. However, the values of salt and protein vary significantly and need to be revised for nutritional credibility.

“There is currently a lot of controversy surrounding ultra-processed food, but the jury is still out on whether processing makes foods unhealthy or whether the real problem is the bad nutritional values of many processed foods,” Martine van Haperen, nutrition and health expert at ProVeg, tells Nutrition Insight.

“We know foods high in salt, sugar and saturated fat have adverse health effects, whether ultra-processed or not. Some of the ultra-processed meat substitutes in this study have excellent nutritional values.” 

“I hope future discourse on this topic will become more nuanced so health-conscious people can make educated choices. Fear-mongering about ‘natural’ and ‘processed’ foods is not the way forward,” Van Haperen underscores.

Vegetable burgers, tofu, tempeh and seitan were left out of the analysis because there is no direct animal equivalent to which they can be compared. 

On the wheel of comparison
ProVeg compared the nutritional value of 130 plant-based meat substitutes from Dutch supermarkets with that of their corresponding meat products. The products were tested against the Wheel of Five (Schijf van Vijf) criteria, a benchmark model of the necessary food groups for optimal health developed by the Netherlands Nutrition Center. 

About 33% of the meat substitutes met all criteria related to the risk of lifestyle diseases such as salt, sugar and saturated fat compared with 17% of the animal reference products.

On average, animal meat products scored better for chicken pieces, chicken filet and schnitzel.Meat alternatives are holding up well to their meat components but food formulation should continue to progress in salt, protein, iron, and vitamin B12 content. 

Of the alternatives examined, 85% met the center’s protein criterion for meat substitutes. The nutrition center’s analysis observes that when the requirements for entirely replacing the nutritional value of meat products are also considered – iron, vitamin B12 and protein – 15% of the meat substitutes meet the criteria of the nutrition center compared with 17% of the animal reference products. 

Van Haperen notes: “Animal meat is an important source of protein, iron and vitamin B12 in people’s diets. For this reason, the nutrition center states that meat substitutes should be fortified with iron and vitamin B12 and should have at least 20% calories from protein.”

The salt and protein discussion
On average, meat substitutes are as salty as animal meat from the same category, but they contain less saturated fat, fewer calories and significantly more dietary fiber. They also have a similar percentage of energy from protein. 

“Since meat products are often high in saturated fat, it is to be expected that meat substitutes that mimic the flavor of these products would be similar, but ProVeg was pleasantly surprised to find that 84% of the plant-based products were low in saturated fat, versus only 20% of the animal meat products,” Van Haperen says. 

Consumers want to recreate well-known recipes such as smoked sausage with stew traditionally made with bacon and sausage, which are naturally fatty and salty. This presents a challenge for meat alternative formulators. 

“That is why, in our research, we compared the meat substitutes with comparable animal meat products. It then turns out that meat substitutes often have a slightly better composition, especially red and processed meat, in terms of risks of lifestyle diseases,” says Van Haperen. 

Consumers are not diminishing their health by choosing meat substitutes over processed animal meat products. The researchers also find that meat substitutes are less salty than processed meat but saltier than unprocessed meat.

“This is good news, especially since consumers often flavor unprocessed meat with salty marinades and spice mixes, whereas meat substitutes are generally already flavored by the manufacturer, decreasing the likelihood that consumers will add more salt during preparation,” Van Haperen explains.

About 85% of the meat substitutes examined met the protein criterion of the nutrition center versus 88% of the animal reference products. Approximately 55% of the substitutes of the substitutes analyzed are enriched with iron and vitamin B12. 

Making informed choices
Not all factors influencing the health of meat and meat substitutes could be included in the current study. For example, nitrite, cholesterol and trans fat, which occur almost exclusively in animal meat and not in meat substitutes, were not examined. 

On the other hand, the nutrition center notes that the current criteria for meat substitutes do not look at the degree to which these products have been processed and the digestibility of the proteins.Breaded chicken nuggets are among the plant-based meat alternatives that do not meet the nutrition standards laid out by the Netherlands Nutrition Center and their Wheel of Five. 

An underlying issue is that different meat alternative brands produce plant-based products with varying nutritional value, and the differences are tangible. It was, therefore, essential to look at the meat replacements at a product level to see which ones were the healthiest, which the current study did. 

One tool to help consumers make more informed choices when shopping is the nutrition center’s “Choose Healthy” app.   

ProVeg’s current research points to the question often raised by nutrition experts of whether meat substitutes made from processed vegetable proteins are a healthy alternative to animal meat because there has been a lot of attention on the health risks of ultra-processed food. 

Van Haperen points out: “According to the current definition, meat substitutes are considered ultra-processed food, but it doesn’t make sense to lump meat substitutes together with products such as sweets or crisps. Just like with animal meat, there are healthy and less healthy products. How processed a product is does not indicate whether it is healthy or unhealthy.”

The Dutch meat vs. plant-based saga
The share of animal proteins in the diet of the average Dutch person has fallen in recent years from 61 to 58%. The government has set the goal that 50% of consumed proteins should be plant-based by 2030. 

If the current trend continues, that percentage will not be reached in 2030. “This much-needed change in our diet is very difficult to achieve, even among consumers who are aware of the benefits of more plant-based foods. Meat substitutes such as vegetable minced meat, chicken pieces and burgers make it easier for consumers to reduce their meat consumption,” says Van Haperen.

“As the consumption of meat substitutes increases, it is very important that they have a good nutritional value and are preferably healthier than animal meat. This is also because meat substitutes are becoming more affordable – some variants are now even cheaper than the cheapest animal meat.” 

Although meat substitutes contain less protein than the animal reference products (16 g and 20 g respectively), the average percentage of energy from protein is virtually the same – 37% for vegetable products and 38% for animal reference products. The majority of meat substitutes contain sufficient proteins.

The products that do not meet the criterion are the plant-based alternatives to breaded chicken (nuggets and schnitzels), smoked sausage and other sausages and some types of bacon.

By Inga de Jong