How healthy is your plant-based burger? Experts weigh in on meat substitutes

It's not hard to be an unhealthy vegan... Photo / Getty Images

From shroomballs to "sheese"-burgers, plant power has become cultural currency, with meat-free eating now the biggest flashpoint of a generation. Over the past few years, veganism has grown in popularity.

Last week the United Nations released a report detailing our "code red" climate crisis, stating that a shift to vegan eating is the main way consumers can hope to stem the tide of carbon emissions.

With committed carnivores now looking to de-flesh their diets – 92 per cent of meat-free meals were consumed by non-vegans in 2018 – substitutes have become ubiquitous on our supermarket shelves, pub and restaurant menus and even takeaways. Up and down the country, summer barbecues are being increasingly infiltrated by cauli-wings and mushroom steaks.

Plant-based eating is all very well if you're whipping up a sweet potato curry from scratch, say, or an aubergine daal – but experts point out that the ever-growing range of processed meat substitutes are not as perfectly healthy as they might seem.

"You can be an unhealthy vegan, easily," explains Dr Giles Yeo MBE, principal research associate at Cambridge University's Metabolic Research Lab in the UK.

Many meat replacements have twice the salt content of their meat forebears, with the worst offenders being "saltier than seawater," analysis from campaign group Action on Salt has found.

Indeed many of the bestsellers on the meat-free market, which has grown in size over the past few years, are in fact ultra-processed foods (or UPFs) – a category of growing concern for our health and waistlines. Sometimes, more than half of the calories we eat come from these products, defined as containing ingredients you wouldn't find in your fridge or kitchen cupboards.

Research shows consumption of UPFs significantly raises your chance of early death; they're associated with obesity, hypertension, diabetes, depression and heart disease, among other conditions.

"I think there's every reason to believe that in terms of health, an ultra-processed vegan fake meat product is probably worse than a minimally processed meat product," says Dr Chris van Tulleken, the researcher and TV presenter who earlier this year ate an ultra-processed diet for a month – an experiment that left him with anxiety and sleeplessness, low libido and piles from constipation.

"Go to a butcher's, for instance, and those pork and apricot bangers are, for the most part, just that. Vegan iterations, meanwhile, featuring concentrates and extracts, flavour enhancers, emulsifiers and stabilisers, are "at the far end of the ultra-processed spectrum", says van Tulleken.

We don't whack sausages on the barbecue thinking they're good for us – but many are unaware of what exactly constitutes their reconstituted faux meat.

Both a Quorn Quarter Pounder and Move Over Meat Free Revolution Burger contain 1.8g of salt – almost a third of the daily recommended intake of 6g – far in excess of that of the carnivorous equivalents.

Many are lower in calories and saturated fats than their predecessors – yet reformed vegan products remain just that. Heck's Beet Goes On sausages, which are made from beetroot, carrot, horseradish and sunflower seeds, do not qualify as one of your "five a day".

Van Tulleken calls the ultra-processed vegan food market a "massive, booming investment opportunity" – one designed to engineer over-eating.

Once you grind a series of ingredients that do not exist independently, such as pea protein, "and combine it with lots of other stuff, you're essentially pre-chewing it, and jumbling up all the nutritional signals," he says. "The more you do that, the less your body's able to understand when to stop eating."

Cutting out animal products can undoubtedly be good for you as well as the planet. But experts are urgently calling for a more honest conversation about what many fake meat products have in them.

"There is inherently nothing wrong with [UPFs]," says Yeo, "but there's something wrong with them when you eat a whole heap of them. I think that's probably true whether you're having a Chicken McNugget or an [meatless] Impossible Burger."

Van Tulleken suggests considering flesh-free fare as we would drink or other illicit substances; "alcohol is pure physical harm, it's extremely bad for your body, but there is a social benefit to drinking", he points out - the same can be true of a lab-grown burger patty enjoyed with friends.

"I don't want to tell anyone how to live their lives or how to eat, I just want to say that this is not healthy food," he says. "It's arguably not food [at all]."

What's inside your vegan dinner?

Dietitian Helen Bond, of the British Dietetic Association, assesses five leading plant-based products

Beyond Meat Burger

Per 100g: 252 kcals, 17g protein, 5.6g saturated fat, 0g sugar, 0.75g salt, 1.3g fibre

(Compared with Tesco Finest British beef burger – Per 100g: 272 kcals, 22.1g protein, 8.6g saturated fat, 0.1g sugar, 0.8g salt, 0.1g fibre)

Made with pea protein, this competes well in terms of the protein content, but unlike some plant-based burgers, it doesn't provide much in terms of fibre. Plant-based protein alternatives often don't provide vitamin B12, important for a healthy nervous system, and they're generally lower in iron when compared with meat burgers.

Heck Vegan Italia Sausages

Per 100g: 90 kcals, 6.6g protein, 0.3g saturated fat, 0.6g sugar, 1.6g salt, 8.9g fibre

(Pork sausages – Per 100g: 250 kcals, 11.6g protein, 5.2g saturated fat, 2.9g sugar and 1.48g salt, 1.7g fibre)

These are a much more heart-friendly proposition than pork sausages, with only 0.3g saturated fat per 100g, and they score well for fibre, too. However they fall down a bit on salt, with 14 per cent of the maximum recommended 6g limit in two sausages – and have only around half the protein content of two meat ones. They're made from pea protein but would not count as one of your five a day.

Plant Pioneers Vegan Steak

Per 100g: 170 kcals, 13.8g protein, 2,3g saturated fat, 2g sugar, 1.08g salt, 4.9g fibre

(Sainsbury's Taste The Difference Fillet Steak – Per 100g: 234 kcals, 26.4g protein, 8.2g saturated fat, <0.5g sugar and 0.25g salt. <0.5g fibre)

Made with 21 per cent mushrooms, these contain nearly 10 times the amount of fibre as a fillet steak and are fortified with vitamin B12 and iron. However they contain four times the amount of salt, and carry an "amber" label for saturated fat, thanks to the addition of coconut milk (though still three-and-a-half times less than you would find in a fillet steak).

A fillet steak, with double the protein content, would keep you satisfied for longer and is an unprocessed food - unlike the vegan steak, which has 20 ingredients on the label.

Waitrose Vegan Veggie Balls

Per 100g: 148 kcals, 8.5g protein, 1.5g saturated fat, 1.6g sugar, 0.82g salt, 5.3g fibre

(Waitrose Aberdeen Angus Beef Meatballs – Per 100g: 262 kcals, 21.8g protein, 6.9g saturated fat, <0.5g sugar, 0.81g salt, 0.5g fibre)

Made with mushrooms, seitan (or wheat meat) and jackfruit, these provide around 10 times the amount of fibre as traditional beef meatballs – important for gut health.

Jackfruit is a good source of the nutrient potassium and supplies some vitamin C, but its protein level is low and doesn't contain the iron, zinc or vitamin B12 found in meat.

This Isn't Bacon Plant-Based Rashers

Per 100g: 164 kcals, 25g protein, 0.3g saturated fat, 1.1g sugar, 2.7g salt, 5.2g fibre

(Tesco unsmoked streaky bacon rashers – Per 100g: 267 kcals, 13.1g protein, 9.1g saturated fat, 0g sugar, 2.8g salt, 0g fibre)

These are high in protein and are free of nitrites, the ingredient in bacon and ham that contribute to increased bowel cancer risk. They are also fortified with vitamin B12 and iron, providing 27 per cent of your daily needs for both. On the downside they have comparable amounts of salt to unsmoked bacon.