How healthy are meat and dairy alternatives?
12:56 Share

Hello, and welcome to Zoë Shorts, the Bite Size podcast where we discuss one topic around science and nutrition. I'm Jonathan Wolf, and as always, I'm joined by Dr. Sarah Berry. And today's topic is meat and dairy alternatives. Are they healthier than the real deal?

So Jonathan, imagine your local supermarket for a second and think about how many more meat-free items and dairy-free items are available compared to, say, five years ago. And the demand for milk alternatives, plant-based proteins and vegan snacks has doubled in the last five years. And it's soaring year on year. And this is as consumers look to eat healthier products for both human and planetary health. So are these alternatives really healthier or is this all just clever marketing?

Not all of these plant-based substitutes are made equally. And with such a diverse range of meat and dairy alternatives out there, there's a few sides to this story. Fantastic. Well, we've done a little bit of research, so let's get started.

First of all, why have we seen such an increase of demand for vegan products? Yes, the proportion of people following either a vegetarian or a vegan diet has quadrupled in the UK and the US in the past five years alone. We need to recognise that the rise in numbers of people seeking these plant-based alternatives to meat or dairy or eggs or fish is largely motivated by a combination of factors, so a combination of human and planetary health as well as animal welfare.

Last year, a study was released that confirmed that farm animals produce more emissions than cars and vans combined.

So reducing the demand for meat and dairy is going to have a positive impact on the planet. But just how beneficial is a vegan diet for your health? So there's an abundance of evidence that shows that healthy plant-based diets, which are the foundation, obviously, of vegan diets are associated with lower risk of obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. We also know that low intakes of whole grains, nuts,

fruits and vegetables, which again are the foundation of a vegan and plant-based diet, are among the leading dietary risk factors which are associated with global deaths and disability-adjusted life years, so the quality of life. And it's actually been estimated that if we can adhere to a plant-based diet, we could reduce cardiovascular mortality by about 20%. So as you mentioned the supermarket earlier, but let's actually zoom in a little narrower and let's look in our own house and

maybe let's open the refrigerator. So around a third of people in the UK are going to have a plant-based milk inside their fridge. And it's now a similar situation in the US.

This is a huge increase, even just over the last 10 years. In the old days, I remember going to the shops with my mother and you got three options, right? You had full fat, skimmed or semi-skimmed milk or 0% and 1%, as they would say in the States. Yeah, me too. Now we have this amazing range of different milks to choose from. What's

What's happened? Probably several factors have created this kind of perfect storm for this rapid rise that you mentioned. I do think the leading factor is the perception that anything animal-based is bad for our health.

I do think there's also, we know, an increase in lactose intolerance in the population alongside the fact that an allergy to cow's milk is one of the most common food allergies in young children. So I go to a coffee shop and I think this will be familiar to many of our listeners. The barista asks me what milk I'd like to add and suddenly I've got a list of a dozen alternatives.

How do I decide what's the right one for me? And do certain of these milk alternatives have particular benefits over using milk? So whilst plant-based milks are typically lower in saturated fat and calories than cow's milk and provide some of the nutritional benefits of the whole plant that they may have originated from, much of the favourable part of the plant has been destroyed and many new ingredients have also been added in.

So it's also worth considering what additional ingredients are also in the product other than the plant that it claims to be originating from. So many of these products are presented as healthier than dairy. But I think you're saying that if I drink almond milk, that's not exactly the same as just eating an almond? Absolutely. So almond milk, rice milk, oat milk, dairy.

These aren't milks typically where the original plant has just been ground down or added with water to make it into milk. A lot more has gone on. A lot of these are presented as healthier for me than dairy. Is this what the science says? Clever marketing pictures this, but actually there's no research today to pack up these claims.

So I think that's a bit shocking because I feel as though I've definitely picked up the idea that a whole bunch of these alternatives are definitely better for me than milk. You're saying that's not necessarily the case? Yeah. So if we take rice milk, for example, rice milk contains very little protein, very little calcium and lots more carbohydrate than cow's milk. If we take oat milk as well, it contains

so much added ingredients and doesn't contain a lot of the beneficial structural components that make oats good when we eat them outside of their milk matrix. I think that's going to be a little shocking to many people looking at their fridge based upon what we just said. So let's turn to meat substitutes now and maybe start with what's the reason why we might want to reduce our meat consumption in the first place? We know that

that to prevent climate change, we need to be globally reducing the consumption of meat by 30%. So we know that we need to reduce animal-based products, but particularly meat. But we also know that some types of meat are bad for us. We know that processed meat, we know that red meat, for example, actually has unfavorable health effects on us.

Now, a little bit in moderation doesn't have harmful effects. But if we're over consuming these meats, they're bad for human health, bad for planetary health. And so I guess the logical thinking is, well, I'm going to have this meat alternative that says like red meat or it's like chicken, but actually made from a plant. Interestingly, I read that the CEO of the grocery chain Whole Foods said that some of these plant-based meat alternatives were outright unhealthy due to how processed they were.

So it's a bit more complicated than just that. I wouldn't say they're all healthy or all unhealthy. There is studies showing, interestingly, that a higher avoidance of meat is associated with a higher intake of ultra-processed foods in many individuals.

But there's huge variability in the dietary quality of these processed alternatives. So, for example, many meat-based alternatives can be higher in fiber and lower in saturated fat, which is good, but their salt content tends to be higher than the animal equivalent, which is bad. And you're thinking here about things that you can buy that are packaged as a meat alternative and have been processed properly.

to sort of look and taste like meat, right? You're not saying, hey, I swap out my meat and I replace it with a whole bunch more beans and other vegetables. Is that what you're saying here? Yeah, so I'm talking about these substitutes. So I'm talking about going to the supermarket and trying to find a plant-based burger, a plant-based sausage to put on your barbecue, for example. I'm not talking about replacing your traditional beef burger with a giant mushroom.

Got it. So looking at snacks on the shelf, if we see that little symbol that says it's vegan, are you telling me that's not enough to determine if a snack is healthy? Because I think lots of people say, hey, you know, that means it's plant-based and I keep hearing that I should be eating more plants. So are you crushing their dream, Sarah?

If we were talking 100 years ago, I wouldn't be crushing the dream. I would say, yes, it would be healthy because we'd be consuming mostly plant-based foods in their original state. But actually now, sadly, I am. Unfortunately, we know that just because it's got that vegan symbol on it, just because it's plant-based doesn't mean it's healthy, that there's lots of added ingredients in it. The structure of the plant is often destroyed, which is also really important for health. So it's really worth taking a closer look at the packaging. ♪

Right then, Sarah. So we've heard both sides of the argument here, and I'd love to get your verdict. Maybe let's start with the meat first of all.

Meat substitutes? So I think meat substitutes have a really important place for people transitioning from a meat-based diet to a plant-based vegan vegetarian diet. I think this is because ultimately we need to be able to eat the food that we're used to eating. And so if I was to go to a barbecue, I'm sorry, but I actually wouldn't want a burger that had just a tomato sliced in

up in it. I would actually want something that represents a typical burger. And a burger bun and just a tomato, frankly, could not be very good for you either, is it? No, and I think it would taste pretty rubbish.

And so I think given that there is this increase in awareness of planetary health and human health with moving away from particularly red meat, I think it's a really good way of enabling people to transition of maintaining the typical taste, the typical texture of foods that they're used to. And actually, a lot of these meat-based alternatives are actually very accessible and affordable. They're in nearly all mainstream supermarkets. And I

often are actually cheaper than some of the original meat-based products. - I was in a fast food chain recently, and I was really struck that they had all of these meat alternatives. These were still part of meals which were incredibly unhealthy, so it was a meat alternative

with chips and a highly processed burger bun. There was no plant or any fiber. And I think I could easily have come away with the idea, hey, well, this is really healthy. I was eating this plant-based meal. I think if you've been wearing any of the continuous sugar monitor at the time from Zoe or any of these things, you'd have seen that this was

Yeah, I think we can think of it in a graded way. So we can think of it with the original meat-based products as being the least healthy, the substitutes, the plant-based substitutes, even if they are processed, of being...

a little bit healthier obviously than the meat-based products. And then the third and best option is obviously to go with the plants in their original form. What about milk? Okay, so personally I would opt for dairy milk if I was choosing a milk based on human health. If I was choosing a milk based on planetary health, then I think this is where it gets a little bit more complicated and where it might be better to adopt a plant-based milk.

But I think that there's so much variability in the plant-based milks in terms of the ingredients, the added ingredients, the amount of fiber, fat, and other nutrients in there that we can't really package all plant-based milks together.

I think lots of people would be really surprised by that because I think most people already have sort of given up. When you say milk, you mean like full fat milk, not processed milk that has become skimmed or semi-skimmed. Is that correct? So I'd refer to all three actually. And I know that lots of people are debating what's healthier. Is it the skimmed? Is it the semi-skimmed? Or is it the full fat? Personally, I think based on the evidence that's out there, I'd categorize them all

as being moderately healthy. Why can't I swap that for my oat milk? Like, why is it that you're saying that actually you take the dairy milk over the oat milk for your health? So it depends on the kind of plant-based milk that you're swapping it with. I think that the main issue I have with the plant-based milks isn't necessarily that they're bad for our health because I don't believe that they're inherently bad for our health. What worries me is that people are consuming these milks thinking that they have wonderful health benefits.

And I think that we need to caution people that, yes, they're not bad for health, but I don't think they're delivering quite the benefit that people think. So ultimately, I think you're saying if you're adding this to your coffee, mainly worry about taste. And if you're thinking about health, then actually based upon the evidence we have today, you would be selecting milk over one of these processed milks. Is that right? Yes, for health.

Well, thank you for helping us to demystify a particularly complicated topic today. And I hope that our listeners have learned something about substituting both dairy and meat. If you'd be interested in understanding exactly the right answer for you, then do give Zoe's personalized nutrition program a go. Understand how it can improve your health and manage your weight. And you can get 10% off by going to joinzoe.com slash podcast.

I'm Jonathan Wolfe. And I'm Sarah Berry. Join us next week for another Zoe podcast.