
The Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat aren't healthier - bookofjoe
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/impossible-burger-or-beyond-meat-aren-t-healthy-fast-food-ncna1050911
======
pkulak
God, what a strawman. No one eats fake meat to be healthier. It's about
getting away from the appalling cruelty and environmental destruction of
factory farming.

However, if you consider that fake meat doesn't create new superbugs from
antibiotics overuse, and that the environment is important to your health, you
could make a real case that it _is_ healthier.

~~~
williamstein
> No one eats fake meat to be healthier.

Beyond Meat is _marketed_ as being healthier. Go to Beyond Meat's website
[https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/](https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/)
and it begins "Imagine your favorite meaty dishes like burgers and tacos
delivering the juicy, delicious taste you know and love, _while being better
for you_..."

~~~
x3haloed
It shouldn’t be. Either way, it’s not the main reason that people (like
myself) are clamoring for plant-based meat alternatives that recreate the
meat-eating experience. pkulak is right. It’s to prevent animal cruelty and
help the environment.

The constant daily reminder from the media that Impossible Burgers aren’t any
healthier than real burgers are an irrelevant distraction from the point.
Animals don’t have to be slaughtered to enjoy a hamburger if it’s an
Impossible burger. The only way to dispute that is if you claim that
Impossible Burgers aren’t as good as a real one, and dammit if Impossible
hasn’t done an incredible job at making a tasty burger out of freakin plants.

~~~
loceng
Can you cite research to contrast the fairly well-known unsustainable
agriculture practices that industrial complexes have lead to for plant based?
I've yet to see an adequately done comparison between properly managed
agriculture and properly managed meat production, e.g. non-monocrops vs. non-
factory farming.

~~~
loceng
Hoping whoever downvoted me leaves a qualitative comment.

------
sp332
Actually I can't find any P.R. from Beyond Meat that claims its stuff is
healthier. I can't see that Subway said the new stuff was healthier either.
Here's a sample press release: [https://www.bloomberg.com/press-
releases/2019-08-07/subway-r...](https://www.bloomberg.com/press-
releases/2019-08-07/subway-restaurants-and-beyond-meat-unveil-its-strategic-
culinary-partnership-and-the-beyond-meatball-marinara-jz155em5)

Impossible Foods is pretty similar, although they do claim they looked for
ingredients that are "better for people" which implies being healthier but
isn't even that specific.
[https://www.whitecastle.com/pdfs/New_Impossible_Slider_FAQ.p...](https://www.whitecastle.com/pdfs/New_Impossible_Slider_FAQ.pdf?language_id=1)

~~~
tshannon
Yeah "Better for people" could mean that it's better for people's environment
due to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

~~~
donatj
Poe's law in full effect, I'm genuinely unsure if this is a joke. "Better for
people" reads to every layperson as "good for you".

~~~
sp332
I'm with tshannon, unsarcastically. It might even mean better for people
morally, without affecting the person physically at all.

~~~
donatj
My point though is, if that is what they meant, there is an obvious difference
between what was said and what they mean in normal interpretations, and I'm
almost inclined to believe it's purposefully deceptive.

There are much clearer ways to state that, like "better for the environment".

~~~
sp332
Yeah it's extremely weaselly no matter what. It doesn't make any particular
health claims, plus it says they "looked for" such ingredients and does not
claim that they found them or used them.

------
laughinghan
It's true that plant-based meat's health claims are overblown, but could this
article be any worse at criticizing them?

First of all, as others have mentioned, the main reason people go vegan or
vegetarian is ethical concerns with animal cruelty, not health:

[https://vomadlife.com/blogs/news/why-most-people-go-
vegan-20...](https://vomadlife.com/blogs/news/why-most-people-go-
vegan-2016-survey-results-reveal-all)

[https://faunalytics.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/Fundament...](https://faunalytics.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/Fundamentals_Why-Why-Not-Vegetarian.pdf)

And this is a worthless criticism of plant-based meat:

 _has comparable caloric and fat levels as its meat-based counterpart ... more
calories, more fat and more sodium than the meaty original_

Different fats vary wildly in how unhealthy they are. "In fact, some fats
actually help promote good health." [1] Saturated fats (mainly found naturally
in meat) is much less healthy than unsaturated fats (mainly found naturally in
plants) and Omega-3 fats (mainly found naturally in fish) [1].

This doesn't mean it's as simple as meat fats = unhealthy and plant fats =
healthy: trans fats are mainly made synthetically from unsaturated plant fats,
but are widely considered as unhealthy or worse than saturated meat fats [1].
Coconut oil, even though it comes from a plant, is actually a saturated fat,
and the evidence we have suggests it is less healthy for you than other,
unsaturated plant fats, although the same evidence also suggests that it's
healthier than typical meat fats like butter and lard [2].

[1]: [https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-
and-h...](https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-
eating/in-depth/fat/art-20045550) [2]:
[https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/coconut-
oil](https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/coconut-oil)

------
blamarvt
This article uses arguments like "Large quantities of dietary fat, with the
potential to clog arteries in an otherwise average American" so casually I'm
guessing most people would be shocked to find out it doesn't have much basis.

~~~
AndrewBissell
Which is the crux of why many people mistakenly believe fake meats are
healthier (or at least "less harmful") than real meat.

------
mikestew
You think I go to FatBurger for my health, my contrarian journalist? No,
here's what those two products aren't: made from slaughtered animals. With a
side of onion rings, please, and ranch dressing on the side. Health,
_phhhhhht_.

~~~
hirundo
I eat food from grocery stores, not from fast food restaurants. I buy burger
patties and ground beef regularly, and right next to them in the cooler is a
stack of Beyond Meat packages. I'm very influenced in my choice by which I
think is healthier for me. It's not my only criteria but it is the primary
one. So information about the relative healthiness of cow vs plant based
burgers is very relevant to me. Not everyone reading this article is a
hypocrite trying to justify their ranch dressing intake.

In the end I think that beef is healthier than pea protein isolate and canola
oil. In fact I avoid both legumes and polyunsaturated oils, so this isn't a
tough choice for me. The fat and protein profiles of beef are better, it has a
lower carbohydrate load which helps to control diabetes, and is better
tolerated by people with IBS.

I may be wrong, but don't pretend that people who disagree with you are
trivializing this choice. It has a direct effect on how many healthy years we
have left.

~~~
laughinghan
> I avoid ... polyunsaturated oils ... The fat and protein profiles of beef
> are better

I'm confused. Every source I can find says that with diabetes, saturated fats
are worse for you and unsaturated fats are better for you (same as without
diabetes):

[https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/diabetes-understanding-
fat](https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/diabetes-understanding-fat)

[https://ucdintegrativemedicine.com/2016/09/diet-diabetes-
sat...](https://ucdintegrativemedicine.com/2016/09/diet-diabetes-saturated-
fats-real-enemy/)

[https://www.joslin.org/info/5-common-food-myths-for-
people-w...](https://www.joslin.org/info/5-common-food-myths-for-people-with-
diabetes.html)

[https://www.diabetes.org.uk/guide-to-diabetes/enjoy-
food/eat...](https://www.diabetes.org.uk/guide-to-diabetes/enjoy-food/eating-
with-diabetes/food-groups/fats-and-diabetes)

[https://consumer.healthday.com/encyclopedia/diabetes-13/diab...](https://consumer.healthday.com/encyclopedia/diabetes-13/diabetes-
management-news-180/diabetes-good-fats-and-bad-fats-644047.html)

Why do you believe that because of your diabetes, the saturated fat in beef is
better for you than unsaturated oils?

~~~
hirundo
I believe that because of my diabetes lower carb amounts are better for me.
Much of the diabetes establishment still doesn't believe this, but going very
low carb has had a massive benefit to my personal health. This is a hugely
contentious issue in nutrition in recent years, and I find my self firmly on
the side of Gary Taubes, Nina Teicholz and friends.

I particularly recommend "The Big Fat Surprise" by Teicholz on the subject of
the health of various fats. Her research goes flat against a wide variety of
authorities ... and I find it very convincing. It sure changed what's on my
plate.

------
moosey
Eating at a lower trophic level reduces your energy consumption and therefore
your pollution output. If you are able to do that with foods that are close to
the general macro and vitamin content of a burger, and it tastes about as good
(or identical, as I see at times), then shouldn't it be an ethical imperative,
given what we know today about climate change?

I mean, I know that humanity will survive climate change, I have every hope &
belief, but the earlier that we work on it, both individually and
collectively, the better off we'll be. This whole thing about "individual
health" is just more tragedy of the commons, especially when the quality of
health of the food is so similar - both will get you equally obese.

If we are talking about health and human welfare, there exists a lot of lower
hanging fruit than concern about the miniscule differences between beyond meat
and that which comes from cattle, but the ecological arguments that can be
made are undeniable - impossible and beyond blow beef out of the water.

~~~
wvl
"Water, Pea Protein Isolate*, Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil, Refined Coconut
Oil, Rice Protein, Natural Flavors, Cocoa Butter, Mung Bean Protein,
Methylcellulose, Potato Starch, Apple Extract, Salt, Potassium Chloride,
Vinegar, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Sunflower Lecithin, Pomegranate Fruit
Powder, Beet Juice Extract (for color)" vs "Beef" is a minuscule difference?

~~~
notacoward
Do you realize that there are many scary-sounding chemicals in a cow's
digestive system too? That's not even counting things like artificial growth
hormones and antibiotics. Beef is a processed food too. You could feed a lot
of these same ingredients to a cow to get beef. How is that really better? One
processing system is repeatable and auditable. The other says moo. I'm not
saying the organic ambulatory processor is worse, but we need to get past
_assuming_ it's better.

------
djsumdog
> Heart disease and cases of type 2 diabetes are on the rise, no matter where
> you look, and research has suggested that cutting red meat and processed
> meats (like bologna and other deli meats) might help people facing these
> conditions.

> And an excessive amount of salt in one's diet has been linked in several
> different ways to

There are so many massive food myths in here. Sugar, carbohydrates and the
resulting inflammation are what leads to excessive weight gain, not fat. If we
ate similar levels of fat and way fewer carbs, we would be healthier. That's
what the diet use to be in many western nations before the obesity trend that
started just a few decades ago.

I think what this article highlights more than anything is that people still
have no idea what is and isn't healthy in America and the west. It's so
difficult to find food in groceries stores in America that isn't loaded down
with sugar, starch or high fructose corn syrup.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
> Sugar, carbohydrates and the resulting inflammation are what leads to
> excessive weight gain, not fat.

Weight gain comes from excess calories. Fat has 9kcal/gram, carbs have
4kcal/gram. There are arguments to be made about physiological reactions to
certain foods re: gut microbiome, ghrelin, dopamine, etc. but saying "carbs
bad, eat fat!" is the kind of over-simplification that marketers love and
keeps fat people fat because they want so badly to believe they don't have to
suffer to lose weight.

Source: lost and kept off over 150lbs, no thanks to fad diet bullshit.

~~~
CREwert
see [https://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Gary-Taubes-
ebook/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Gary-Taubes-
ebook/dp/B000UZNSC2/)

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Is this an appeal to the authority? Gary Taubes, as far as I can tell, has no
background in nutritional science whatsoever. In fact, the wikipedia article
on him states rather matter-of-factly "Some of the views propounded by Taubes
are inconsistent with known science surrounding obesity."

------
Steven_Vellon
I speculate that veganism and vegetarianism is strongly correlated with food
health consciousness in general, thus fostering a sense of equivalency between
veganism and vegetarianism with "healthy". French fries are vegan. Maple syrup
is vegan. Chocolate is vegan (as long as it doesn't have animal fat added to
it). I can have a very unhealthy vegan meal that consists of french fries
dipped in maple syrup and chocolate.

~~~
Havoc
>French fries are vegan.

Not if from McD ;)

~~~
Steven_Vellon
True, if animal based oil is used then anything that gets fried is rendered
non-vegan.

------
blueadept111
It's healthier for the planet and your conscience.

~~~
kardos
Which is worse for the environment: growing one burger's worth of cow, or
burning 15 min of propane to cook the burger?

~~~
magduf
Growing one cow requires many acres of the Amazon rainforest to be chopped
down.

You can cook a burger with electric heat, which can be generated with solar or
wind power.

~~~
VBprogrammer
To say it _requires_ many acres to be chopped down is a stretch.

~~~
magduf
No, it's not a stretch, because that's literally what they're doing in the
Amazon right now. They're razing enormous swathes of forest so that they can
grow more cows.

~~~
VBprogrammer
Yeah. And that's bad. But it's not required to raise beef. See for example
British and Irish beef.

~~~
magduf
Yes, but the worldwide beef demand keeps growing, and places like Britain and
Ireland are likely tapped out, so now operations are expanding elsewhere.

Your comments is like saying "we don't _have_ to do fracking!", when the
answer is, yes, you do, to satisfy the ever-growing demand for oil.

------
nbst
I'll just leave this here for anyone interested in being informed:

[https://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-
meat/en/](https://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/)

~~~
wvl
[https://chriskresser.com/red-meat-cancer-again-will-it-
ever-...](https://chriskresser.com/red-meat-cancer-again-will-it-ever-stop/)

------
taylodl
As a vegetarian I can tell you "vegetarian" doesn't always equate to
"healthy." But vegetarians also like junk food occasionally and so it's nice
that we have more options now. I see it as progress.

------
larryzoumas
I used to have a weight problem when I grew up in an American suburb of
Philly. I felt guilty eating fast food burgers, etc. Three decades later I
live in a European capital and walk nearly everywhere. According to my watch I
average over 10km per day, mostly without even trying. Now I eat burgers
whenever I want and I'm normal body weight. Living in the city is better for
the environment. So is eating plant-based food. The lesson here? You will
probably always crave the same food but you have a choice where you live, how
much you exercise, and what impact you have on the future of the planet. Fast
food is never going to healthy enough for suburban couch potatoes who drive
everywhere. That's not what it's for.

------
seiferteric
I do think we need to decouple healthy food and vegetarian/vegan food. After
all no expects burgers to be healthy in the first place, and people enjoy
eating unhealthy food occasional. Isn't there room for vegan junk/fast food?

~~~
opencl
A lot of junk food is already vegan. Oreos, Doritos, potato chips, most candy
other than milk chocolate, etc.

------
gexla
Can't get past reading the headline because my BS alarm goes off when I hear
"healthier" or "health food."

I have always thought of "health food" as a marketing term selling a lifestyle
to people who can afford to pay for premium branded packaged stuff in a
grocery store.

If you get past the headline (I peaked), the next thing you see is a KFC
bucket. Do people walk into a fast food restaurant thinking they are going to
get anything healthy?

------
octocode
Really tired of people thinking "healthy eating" is just calorie count and
salt content. There's so much more to nutrition than these two numbers.

~~~
azhenley
I'm guilty in that I use the sugar content as a proxy for healthy-ness when
I'm at the grocery store.

~~~
yellowapple
That's certainly a much better proxy than fat or sodium, from what I
understand.

I'm actively trying to cut sugar (and carbohydrates in general, but especially
sugar), and have already noticed I feel a lot better. I don't know if it's
actually contributing to weight loss, but not feeling completely worn out
after eating a big meal is a benefit in and of itself.

One thing that makes it difficult is how much sugar is in everything (even in
things that you'd think shouldn't need it, like jerky). Pork rinds have been a
godsend for properly-carb-free snacking.

------
anyfoo
Weird article. Next up: Electric cars don’t give you more exercise than
combustion ones?

------
notacoward
I see a constant drumbeat of these kinds of stories/columns, and I've been
wondering _why_. I guess there might be a few shills and short-sellers, but
that can't be all of it. Ditto for the "contrarians" trying to get clicks or
feel smarter by defying what by now is conventional wisdom.

The one group who _really_ seem to take it personally are the long-time
vegetarians/vegan advocates who would prefer that everyone switch to a
completely unprocessed fat-free salt-free diet. Yeah, sure, wonderful, ain't
gonna happen. It's almost like they feel they'll lose their identity if they
allow these mere "vege-tourists" to enjoy their Beyond/Impossible burgers, so
they do everything they can to maintain some separation and the "it's not
really healthier" schtick is just a means to an end.

------
thorwasdfasdf
I wouldn't say it's completely not healthier. Red Meat is a class 2 carcinogen
(WHO) and replacing it with plant based materials is a great strategy. The
problem is all the Oil and sodium they add. I mean, the sodium might be
balanced out by the rest of your diet. But, all that oil isn't good for you.
Oil, even the best kind, still causes inflammatory effects: everything from
canola oil to coconut oil or even olive oil will have an adverse effect on
your enothelial cells that line your arteries.

So, on the one hand, removing red meat reduces your succeptibility to cancer.
But adding in all that oil will increase inflammation and thus expose you to
other health risks.

------
bjowen
So we re-word this headline to “The Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat are no
less unhealthy” and a substantial portion of this content becomes redundant.

It’s scarcely news that marketing and PR exist, nor that the world of pop
nutrition is an indescribable mess of self-contradiction and snake oil sales.
The author (scratch that — “ personal trainer and certified nutritionist
behind a popular weight loss blog”) doesn’t mention the fibre content, lipid
profile or nitrate content, all of which are relevant risk factors for
significant disease.

The only actual nutrition claims seem to be Fat Bad and Salt Also Bad, which
are 1980s nutrition touchstones, but don’t reflect the current state of
research.

------
yellowapple
I love how all the comments here are bagging on the article, while completely
ignoring:

1) The article does acknowledge that being "healthier" is not meant to be the
goal of meat-replacements like Impossible/Beyond

2) The article serves as clarification for those who erroneously conflate "not
made of meat" with "healthy"

3) At least one of the companies (Beyond Meat) does claim on its website that
its products are meant to "improve human health" \- ergo, are healthier than
eating meat:
[https://www.beyondmeat.com/about/](https://www.beyondmeat.com/about/)

------
djsumdog
Of course they're not. Look at the low fat trends. Low fat foods are entirely
unhealthy for you because they're loaded with sugar to make them more
palatable (which ironically turns into more fat than just eating the high fat
variant since sugar is so much more energy dense).

I don't think these companies ever marketed them as healthier though. They
marketed them as more sustainable by not using animals. I feel like a better
argument/study is to see how much fuel is used to generate the plant biomatter
for this stuff and compare it to the energy/water needed for beef. That's be a
more compelling article.

~~~
m0zg
>> sugar is so much more energy dense

Nope. Sugar and protein are 4kcal per gram, fat is 9kcal per gram. So fat is
over twice the energy density of sugar. It's just not absorbed as easily, and
it does not cause insulin spikes.

------
cfv
The author is fairly active on twitter and I understand she replies to
questions rather often. Let's ask her? Maybe there's more to her point than
what was published.

------
tobr
I thought this dumb hot take had been debunked enough times already? People
aren’t eating this stuff to be healthy, but to avoid being complicit in
cowicide.

~~~
jjtheblunt
I agree, and that reality, that many people partake to vote against killing
animals, scares the shit out of meat "farmers", who have tons of money
(government subsidies too) to fight plant-burgers in a full on media war.

At least that seems to be happening.

------
alanwreath
"healthy" is a loaded word. The article brings up a few statistics about salt,
fat, etc content, but that isn't the whole story about how meat consumption
affects the human body.

That said. Yeah, I'm not eating a burger for a healthy lifestyle, but I do
like alternatives.

------
atonse
Uhhh this seems like a silly article. Nobody has ever claimed these things are
healthier. It's always been about producing this "food" without slaughtering
animals and all the extremely inefficient processes involved (feedlots,
methane emissions, inhumane conditions).

In other news, LED lightbulbs still run on fossil fuels!

~~~
aeturnum
I agree with your first critique but I think the LED comparison isn't helpful.

Unlike these burgers, which aren't aiming to be healthier, LED lightbulbs aim
(and succeed) at using less energy than their competition and thus contribute
less to climate change. If the burgers both were healthier and similar to beef
then they'd be like LED bulbs!

~~~
atonse
The analogy I was going for:

LED bulbs have the same effect (same brightness), while using 85% less energy.
But in spite of that it's like still complaining that they run on fossil fuels
as if that invalidates the efficiency gains.

Impossible burgers have the same effect (having a fatty, juicy burger) while
ultimately being much less destructive to the environment. (They actually use
something like 85% less water). But complaining about the fact that they
aren't healthier is an attempt to take away from the other amazing advances
involved.

I've had "lab-grown meat" (as I've called it) on my future-world wishlist for
at least a decade. It seems like we could get rid of a host of problems
(inefficiency, suffering, potential for bacteria and diseases like mad cow
from meat, etc), by engineering our meat.

I suspect the health aspects will follow, as the next frontier, now that this
stuff tastes close enough to meat, will be to reduce cholesterol and other
effects.

After all, if you really think about it, 99% of the sensations related to
eating food are before we swallow it. If we can replicate all those things
(the touch, the smell, the taste, the sight) and start to engineer the
internal effects, we could have our (artificial) cake and eat it too, correct?

I say this as someone who LOVES hamburgers, who is a big foodie. Apart from
lack of food poisoning, there is fundamentally no difference in feeling in
your stomach between fine dining food and a homemade sandwich. And the same
goes for the effects on your health. So we should absolutely try to engineer
these things for their effects on our bodies. But first you have to convince
people to want to even put this stuff in their bodies. And that's what the
appeal to the other 4 senses is.

------
arc2
Wow, what a garbage journalism

------
ykevinator
One has cholesterol

~~~
AndrewBissell
Extracted vegetable oils and soy protein are worse for you.

~~~
Japhy_Ryder
[citation needed]

