If you’re a hardcore wholefood herbivore who prides yourself in making home-prepped, colorful meals full of vegetables and whole grains, or legumes – and never touch those store-bought meatless alternatives – you likely turn your nose up at the fake meats out there. But before you dismiss the value of pea-based patties, it turns out that they may have some powerful health benefits for people who would otherwise be eating red meat.

These plant-based meat brands like Beyond, Impossible, and others often get a bad rap from both meat-eaters (who point to the long list of added ingredients) and health-conscious vegans (who says they would rather eat whole foods, thank you) for being ultra-processed, equally high in saturated fat as the real thing, or using genetically modified ingredients to recreate the taste and texture of meat. If ‘eat real food’ is your mantra, then chances are you are avoiding them.

Study finds plant-based meat alternatives can help shift the microbiome

A new study has found that swapping just five meat-centric meals a week for plant-based alternatives has the surprising effect of benefiting your gut bacteria – in just four weeks. This is encouraging news for anyone who considers themselves a flexitarian or who is gradually trying to transition to a more plant-based approach for their health, the environment, or ethical reasons.

The researchers who conducted the study, published in the journal Foods, witnessed beneficial changes in the microbiome that previous health research suggests may help to prevent obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and inflammatory bowel disease among other conditions related to inflammation and gut health.

The study sheds new light on the health profile of plant-based meat alternatives and whether we should regard them as ultra-processed foods or as a better choice than actual meat.

The PBMA [plant-based meat alternatives] increased the butyrate-producing pathways, which research suggests is beneficial for reducing inflammation and decreasing the risk of Irritable Bowel Disease, diabetes, CVD [Cardiovascular Disease], and obesity, concluded the study’s lead author, Miguel Toribio-Mateas, a clinical neuroscientist with a background in nutrition, gut microbiome, and brain health at the School of Applied Sciences, London South Bank University.

The meat alternatives are meant to help people transition off of eating meat

When asked for advice for anyone considering a flexitarian diet, or who is trying to eat less meat but enjoys the plant-based meat alternatives on the market, Toribio-Mateas answered: “I would say that there’s a whole health halo or lack thereof around many products.”

“The kind of PBMAs included in the study were convenience products that can make people’s lives easier,” he told The Beet in an exclusive email interview. “I wouldn’t recommend that people eat them at every meal every day, but I would hope that those who read the study understand that even food that’s seen by many as ultra-processed can be okay for your microbiome.”

“On that basis, Toribio-Mateas added, “I hope these people relax a little because we are very anxious around food, and we need to focus on enjoying it instead of overanalyzing it.”

An extra 19 grams of weekly fiber increased short-chain-fatty acids

The study was a relatively small randomized controlled trial involving 40 participants with no underlying health conditions. Half of the participants had plant-based meat alternatives (PBMA) delivered to them in a ‘real world’ flexitarian scenario of being able to choose how many meals to swap themselves. The scientists analyzed stool samples before and after the four-week intervention to see if their microbiome had changed.

On average, participants ate five PBMA per week and this increased their fiber intake by 18.98 grams. Compared to the control group who ate their usual diet, the 20 participants who ate PBMA’s had an increase in the pathways that produce a short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) called butyrate.

Butyrate regulates body weight, prevents diabetes, and boosts the immune system

Our gut microbes ferment fiber in foods to produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). These are fatty acids with fewer than 6 carbon atoms that get produced when the “good” gut bacteria ferment fiber in the colon. One particular SCFA, butyrate, plays a critical role in boosting health and fighting disease.

Butyrate is the main energy source for cells in the colon, keeping the gut lining and bowels healthy and preventing inflammation. Furthermore, research indicates that adequate production of butyrate regulates body weight and energy, prevents obesity, diabetes, and fatty liver, and boosts the immune system.

A plant-based diet rich in legumes, vegetables, and whole grains provides the soluble and insoluble fiber that the gut bacteria need to make this hugely beneficial SCFA. The PBMA products in the study provided contained a range of soluble and insoluble fibers from chicory root, carrot, pea, and potato. In addition, the phytonutrients in pea protein and pea flour which were the base ingredients of the PBMAs, modulate the gut microbiome and help the production of short-chain fatty acids, commented the authors.

Are plant-based meats ultra-processed or healthy?

As a nation, we eat too many ultra-processed foods and they contribute a shocking two-thirds of children’s diets. Health experts such as the American College of Cardiology warn us that each additional serving of ultra-processed foods increases the risk of cardiovascular mortality by nine percent.

The NOVA classification by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines ultra-processed foods as formulations of ingredients created by a series of industrial techniques and processes. This usually means using cheap high-yield ingredients such as corn and wheat, adding sugars, fats, additives, and colorings, and molding and pre-frying into likable and addictive products.

Although some manufacturers use these processes to make plant-based meat alternatives, the authors of the new study argue that the mere industrial processing of ingredients of vegetable origin does not make the resulting plant-based meat alternative fall into the category of “ultra-processed” foods that are full of added sugar or other ingredients that hurt gut health.

What about saturated fats in fake meat?

The ingredients in fake meat products vary widely according to brand, and some contain higher amounts of saturated fats, salt, and added sugar than others, or than meat products. The plant-based burgers, sausages, meatballs, and mince that the scientists used in the new study were mostly made of pea protein but some products included rice and soy protein, and their saturated fat (from coconut oil) ranged from 11.9 grams to 14.8 grams per 100 grams.

The American Heart Association recommends we limit sat fat to no more than 13 grams a day, based on a diet of 2,000 calories. However, if you’re swapping out a regular burger for a plant-based alternative, you will probably be reducing your overall sat fat, and some experts suggest that although coconut oil raises LDL (so-called “bad”) cholesterol, it also boosts beneficial HDL (good cholesterol) and may be heart-protective if part of a balanced diet.

Bottom Line: Plant-Based Meat Alternatives Appear to Promote Gut Health

Swapping meat products for plant-based meat alternatives five times a week could boost your gut bacteria, help you maintain a healthy weight, and help lower the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

If you’re transitioning to more plant-based with a flexitarian approach, include fiber-rich vegetables at each meal, and don’t be scared of including some healthy plant-based burgers and sausages!

The post Study: Eating 5 Plant-Based Meat Meals a Week Can Improve Gut Health appeared first on The Beet.

So who is CCF? According to its website, it’s a nonprofit “devoted to promoting personal responsibility and protecting consumer choice.” Its executive director Rick Berman, president of PR and lobbying firm Berman and Company, is well-known for his tactic of starting nonprofits to aggressively attack activists and public interest groups whose claims run contrary to the goals of his corporate clients. Speaking as a nonprofit, instead of a PR firm or a corporation, gives the information his company disseminates a veneer of neutrality and authority. Plus, there’s another compelling benefit: nonprofits do not have to disclose their donors, so corporations can support these campaigns without being identified.

In reality, these nonprofits are not separate from Berman’s for-profit company. According to Charity Navigator, Berman is the CEO of his nonprofits, which include CCF,  Employment Policies Institute Foundation, American Beverage Institute, and many others. They all live at the same address as his PR firm, and each charity pays Berman and Company for services. “We find the practice of a charity contracting for management services with a business owned by that charity’s CEO atypical when compared to how other charities operate,” says the site, which has flagged all the charities as of “moderate concern.”

Each nonprofit set up by Berman is meant to battle a specific set of issues. According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which itself is a Berman target, CCF is also known as the Center for Organizational Research and Education and was initially called the Guest Choice Network. Philip Morris provided the seed money. Still, the group has since evolved beyond fighting smoking bans and “seeks to undermine public support for greater food-labeling, food-safety, and anti-obesity proposals…. Claiming to act in the name of consumer freedom and choice, CCF attacks the credibility of public health advocates, academics, and medical experts.”

An examination of CCF’s 2017 990 form, which nonprofits file annually, shows the organization managed fourteen sites that year, all attacking food, environmental, and animal interests, including activistfacts.com, humanewatch.com, petakillsanimals.com,  environmentalpolicyalliance.org, biggreenradicals.com, accountablescience.com, epafacts.com, and greendecoys.com.

“CCF is a dark money front group that is widely considered one of the sleaziest organizations and spewers of disinformation,” says Rachel Konrad, spokesperson for Impossible Foods. “The fact that they are going after us is actually the ultimate validation that big beef believes plant-based meats are an existential threat.”

Here’s a breakdown of the claims CCF is making:

Claim 1: Decreasing red meat consumption has little to no effect on reducing the risk of heart disease, cancer, or stroke.

Coggin bases this contrary claim on research from a consortium called NutriRECs and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (AIM). The group re-analyzed data from existing nutrition studies to determine the links between eating red and processed meat and life-threatening conditions. They also did a review of people’s beliefs and preferences regarding meat consumption. In all, they released six papers that collectively challenge current recommendations from the World Health Organization, American Heart Association, and the American Cancer Society to limit red and processed meats.

The CCF op-ed neglects to mention the controversy surrounding this research. It began even before the papers published, in response to AIM’s press release touting the analysis with this sensational headline: “New guidelines: No need to reduce red or processed meat consumption.”  The True Health Initiative (THI), a global coalition of experts dedicated to preventing disease through lifestyle changes and medicine, wrote to the editor expressing its concerns with the press release and the research. The editor agreed to reissue the release. The group followed up with a second letter signed by 14 prominent scientists, doctors, and professors asking to see the revision and restating its request that AIM “preemptively retracts publication of these papers pending further review by your office.” One of the signers, John Sievenpiper, MD, Ph.D., FRCPC, associate professor, Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Toronto, actually participated in the NutriRECs research but believes the conclusions were wrong.

Around this same time, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a nonprofit public health advocacy organization, and another Berman target filed a petition with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to stop AIM from publishing.

But publish they did.

Healthy eating advocates swiftly responded, pointing out the importance of looking beyond the hyperbolic headlines of the media coverage. Many noted that NutriRECs findings and the researchers’ conclusions seemed at odds.  Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health said:  “Among the five published systematic reviews, three meta-analyses basically confirmed previous findings on red meat and negative health effects.”  And the American Institute for Cancer Research wrote: “The NutriRECs research results are not significantly different from what World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research’s 2018 report found, and indeed seem to verify WCRF/AICR’s findings. However, the NutriRECs researchers have made what is a confusing interpretation of the results, which has led to this unnecessary recommendation to the public.”

Others, such as THI, questioned the methodology used, “The Annals analyses are not a new development in science, they are simply using an ill-fitting measuring tool (GRADE), which is built to evaluate pharmaceuticals and not lifestyle intervention.”

According to one of the NutriRECs co-authors, Dr. Gordon Guyatt, a distinguished university professor in the faculty of health sciences at McMaster University, who helped develop GRADE, the tool was created to distinguish what is true from what is speculative or untrue. Since not all types of research are the same when it comes to showing cause and effect, how we know what we know is not equal across all fields of health inquiry. GRADE ranks studies by the quality of the evidence they produce. Randomized clinical trials (RCTs)—in which there is a test and control group—are deemed by GRADE to be of high quality because the only variable is what is being tested. Observational studies are considered to be of lower quality because they rely on self-reporting. Nutrition studies are often observational because diet and health are so tied up in overall lifestyle; there are simply too many variables to control for. Also, it takes years to see the health effects of what we eat—too long a time to sequester and monitor someone.

Even so, some of the most well-respected nutrition RCTs were left out of NutriRECs analysis because they didn’t meet the eligibility requirements for length of time or differences in the amount of meat eaten by the control and test groups. “I think the nicest word to explain it is arbitrary,” says registered dietician Susan Levin, the director of nutrition education for PCRM.

Shortly after publication, the New York Times found the lead on the study had some undisclosed conflicts of interest. Bradley C. Johnston, an epidemiologist at Dalhousie University in Canada, “was the senior author on a similar study that tried to discredit international health guidelines advising people to eat less sugar. That study, which also appeared in the Annals of Internal Medicine, was paid for by the International Life Sciences Institute, or ILSI, an industry trade group largely supported by agribusiness, food and pharmaceutical companies and whose members have included McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Cargill, one of the largest beef processors in North America.”

Claim 2: Lean beef burger has an average of nearly 20% fewer calories and 80% less sodium than the two most popular fake-meat burgers, the Impossible Burger and the Beyond Burger.

Less fat in a burger makes it drier. While the op-ed uses a burger that is 90% lean (so-called 90/10) as the basis for comparison, chances are the burgers people eat (and the ones they are looking to replace) are 80/20, which is the ratio of lean-to-fat chef Bobby Flay recommends for the juiciest burger. Here is that comparison:

• 4oz 80/20 patty: 80 mg cholesterol, 23 grams of total fat, 9 g of saturated fat, and 290 calories.
• 4oz Impossible Burger: 0 mg cholesterol, 14 grams of total fat, 8 g of saturated fat, and 240 calories.
• 4oz Beyond Burger: 0 mg cholesterol, 19 grams of total fat, 6 g of saturated fat, and 250 calories.

For a full comparison, check out the beet chart comparing nutrients in meat patties versus plant-based alternatives here.

While the plant-based meats have fewer calories, zero cholesterol, and fewer saturated fats, beef does have less sodium—3 percent of the recommended daily allowance compared to 16 percent for both the Beyond and Impossible Burgers.

Of note, in response to customer concerns about sodium, Impossible introduced a newer formulation in January 2019, which has 30 percent less than its predecessor.

“Big picture, we do not and have not and will not identify the product or market the product as a health food,” says Impossible Foods Konrad. “We wanted to make a product that satisfies true omnivores or carnivores. We market this product as a juicy, delicious alternative for meat lovers, one that is at least as nutritious as the product it replaces.”

Claim #3 Fake meat is an “ultra-processed” food, filled with unpronounceable ingredients.

Says registered dietician Levin: “We call plant-based alternatives transition foods. Are they as healthful as eating whole beans? No, but we want to get people to good, to better, to best. The American diet is not good. If we can transition people up the ladder and get them thinking about healthier alternatives, that’s great.”

Konrad points out that much of the food we eat, including bread and yogurt, is a marriage of science of nature. Plus, she says, “there is nothing natural about ground beef from cows. It starts with artificial insemination. Cows are fed a lifetime of hormones and antibiotics. They are killed in a slaughterhouse rife with fecal contaminates, processed in a plant, and trucked in a freezer truck to your grocery store. There is nothing natural about it except the red barn door and grass depicted on the label.”

Claim # 4 Meat production is a relatively minor contributor to our overall GHG levels.

With 2019 on course to be the second or third warmest year on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization, every little bit matters. In 2017, greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture economic sector accounted for 9 percent of total US emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That is an increase of 8.8 percent since 1990. It’s also not the full picture. Management of croplands and grasslands can also lead to emissions, but the EPA counts those in another sector called Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry. Worldwide, agriculture is responsible for 24 percent of GHGs.

Of course, GHGs are just one part of the climate impact. There is growing concern that industrial meat production contaminates water with animal waste and that raising livestock leads to deforestation. According to the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, cattle ranching is the most significant driver of deforestation in every Amazon country, accounting for 80 percent of current rates.

Says Konrad: “Beef has no option to make their product better, so they have to go on a soviet style disinformation propaganda campaign to try to taint plant-based meat. It’s a classic move by a desperate incumbent on the wrong side of history. And it’s sad, honestly. The shift to a plant-based diet is inevitable.”

The post Meat Wars Heat Up: Lobbyists Have It In for Plant-Based Meat Alternatives appeared first on The Beet.

The law, called the Real MEAT Act, is backed by cattle producers and the meat industry and was introduced into Congress by Representatives Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) and Anthony Brindisi (D-New York). Formally known as The Real Marketing Edible Artificials Truthfully Act, if passed into law, the bill would require that all plant-based meat alternatives be clearly labeled “imitation meat.” The proposers state that consumers need this label to combat the “confusion” caused by plant-based alternatives. While it is unclear if this confusion truly does exist amongst consumers, labeling a product “imitation” will almost certainly cause consumers to believe that a product is more processed and less healthy.

“This bill is a bald-faced attempt to get the government to police food labels to benefit the conventional meat industry, not consumers,” a spokesperson for The Good Food Institute told  Food Dive. This is a potential set back for the plant-based meat companies like Impossible and Beyond. “Rather than let consumers decide the winners and losers in a free marketplace, this bill attempts to stigmatize plant-based foods”

For more on the debate about burgers, and whether the plant-based ones are healthier for you than the real deal, read about which ones are healthiest by the numbers, on The Beet.

The post New Law Will Require “Imitation” Label on Plant-Based Meat appeared first on The Beet.