Meat Substitutes Worst Junk Food

organic

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Powys

May be behind pay wall so here's some of it:

The problem is, while it’s possible to eat a healthy vegan diet (with care and vitamin B12 supplements) many of these vegan meat substitutes or meat analogues, as they are known in the industry, aren’t healthy at all. They fall into the category of ultra processed food, first identified by Brazilian academics as part of the NOVA classification. UPFs are now widely accepted by food experts to be unhealthy and probably addictive, blamed for the increasing incidence of obesity and poor health worldwide.


NOVA divides all food into four categories. ‘Unprocessed food or minimally processed’ is for raw ingredients like fruit, vegetables and meat. The second category, culinary ingredients, covers the likes of flour and oil, while the third, processed food, includes cheese, for example, tofu, or bread if it’s made with just flour, yeast, salt and water.


The final category is ultra processed food, the products that generally comes in a packet and include ingredients and processes you wouldn’t use at home, according to NOVA, “in particular flavours, colours sweeteners, emulsifiers, and other additives used to imitate sensorial qualities of unprocessed or minimally processed foods and their culinary preparations or to disguise undesirable qualities of the final product”. In other words, products - I hesitate to call them food - that are manipulated to fool us, to make ingredients seem more appetising, or longer lasting, or somehow better than they actually are.


While a grilled chicken breast would count as minimally processed, or possibly “processed" if you include a bit of salt and oil, those “plant chicken goujons BBQ” are indubitably ultra processed, containing over 30 ingredients, including methylcellulose, maltodextrin and dried glucose syrup. Not that appetising, but it’s not simply a matter of taste. UPFs don’t just trick our palates, they confuse our bodies too, triggering hormones which encourage us to overeat.


Yet, somehow, the food industry is determined to sell us the message that vegan products are intrinsically healthy and wholesome. Even the word vegan has been sidelined, presumably because it has connotations of abstinence and dinners that taste like hair shirts. These days it’s all about ‘plant’. Tesco has named its vegan range Plant Chef, M&S opted for Plant Kitchen, Morrisons has Plant Revolution, Waitrose’s is called PlantLife. Asda has chosen Plant Based. The other day I came across some chutney proudly labelled ‘plant based’. Yes, chutney, as if chutney is ever not made exclusively from plants. What next? Plant-based jam? A plant-based apple?


That lovely word ‘plant’ has a whiff of nature, countryside, health, fresh air, natural leafiness. Sainsbury’s Plant Pioneers range even sports a cheeky green leaf peeking out from the logo, although there’s nothing green about the beige Cumberland shroomdogs or oddly orange Smokey vacon rashers, both of which have over a dozen ingredients. Yes, some of the ingredients are derived from plants but, other than the herbs in the shroomdogs, you’d be going a long way back to find many green leaves. Plant as in manufacturing plant feels like a closer association.
 

mixed breed

Member
Mixed Farmer
This I don't understand, why don't they just eat the Beans and Lentils , why mulch them up and call them meat
My daughter, 9, came home from school last monday with news of a boy sat next to her at lunch. He was eating a chicken sandwich, but he told her it wasn't actual chicken, as he is vegan, she was, (like the marority of us), totally baffled by the logic of calling it a chicken sandwich! She then had a rant about the school, as on they're vegan days they have meat-free meatballs, how? She exclaimed.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
Scientists or epidemiologists are realising that low fat (replaced with sugar) is causing an obesity epidemic, so the food processing industry is now moving onto meat free or plant based - to save the planet and stop climate change, as the next great idea to persuade everyone to buy ultra processed food. And the "influencers" (or useful idiots) are using social media to encourage everyone else to do the same.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
All this “plant based” nonsense is just so much marketing spin.
We just don’t have the digestive system to rely on an entirely plant based diet, let alone the sludge they make those plants into. We evolved to eat meat.
Like it or not meat is just about the most natural thing we can eat and most attuned to our needs. It’s about the only thing I am not allergic to, although green leaf and root vegetables do me no harm. Beans of any sort, coffee, chocolate or baked beans worsen my vascular problems considerably actually causing my veins to leak, gluten blows me up. We are just not evolved to eat that stuff in any quantity.
 

Lofty1984

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South wales
My daughter, 9, came home from school last monday with news of a boy sat next to her at lunch. He was eating a chicken sandwich, but he told her it wasn't actual chicken, as he is vegan, she was, (like the marority of us), totally baffled by the logic of calling it a chicken sandwich! She then had a rant about the school, as on they're vegan days they have meat-free meatballs, how? She exclaimed.
Hope on those days you send her in with a juicy steak sandwich and a bacon roll
 

jondear

Member
Location
Devon
Noticed that the veg burger at McDonald’s was the same price as the meat version…. Wayyyyy more profit selling beans as meat … wayyyyy less value for the customer
I saw the advert for MC plant last night not realising what it was !The close up looked disgusting all greasy .I thought that looks like a horrible burger !Then mcplant and beyond meat logo appears!
 

Yosemite Sam

Member
Location
Wiltshire
This I don't understand, why don't they just eat the Beans and Lentils , why mulch them up and call them meat
They are trying to fool people into buying it. Shoppers will see Chicken, meat, burgers, sausages, or what ever they choose to call this muck in the hope that people will not recognise that it is plant based. They take it home and eat it, perhaps thinking, it’s not too bad , and go and buy it again, or try some other product. It’s just trickery because the majority of people wouldn’t eat it out of choice.
 

TheTallGuy

Member
Location
Cambridgeshire
They are trying to fool people into buying it. Shoppers will see Chicken, meat, burgers, sausages, or what ever they choose to call this muck in the hope that people will not recognise that it is plant based. They take it home and eat it, perhaps thinking, it’s not too bad , and go and buy it again, or try some other product. It’s just trickery because the majority of people wouldn’t eat it out of choice.
It's not about tricking the customer, but tempting people away from their traditional choices. People take comfort in the familiar & so by using familiar names and formats people are more likely to "give it a go"
 

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