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Characterizing meat alternatives as "ultra processed" has been a propaganda coup for the meat industry, allowing for an equivocation between categorically diffe

Characterizing meat alternatives as "ultra processed" has been a propaganda coup for the meat industry, allowing for an equivocation between categorically different nutritional profiles of products like Twinkies and Pringles on the one hand, and meat alternative products which have absolutely nothing to do with refined starches, sugars, or trans fats on the other and which in fact have better cardiovascular outcomes, cancer outcomes and environmental impacts than the meats they are replacing. They're both ultra processed in the same way that a jellyfish and a California Redwood are both carbon based life forms.

dyauspitr 1y ago
Meat alternatives are stupid. Soy bean chemically mangled until it tastes like meat is an abomination. Either have real lab grown meat or change your perspective and eat like the South and East asians do, making vegetarian meals incredibly delicious.
- Orochikaku 1y ago
  Could you elaborate on why you feel as though it’s an abomination? I don’t quite see the hang ups about it.
- whycome 1y ago
  Chemically mangled? I’m all for all tastes and textures. Cheese production may be the definition of “chemically mangled milk” but I’m all for it.
ajross 1y ago
This seems likely true, but at the same time the actual science has been (1) pretty conclusive on the "processed foods are bad" top-line result yet (2) really, really bad at isolating exactly why that top-line result holds. Yes, high glycemic index foods and trans fats are bad, and high sodium is bad for at least some at-risk people. But they aren't bad enough to explain the processing result. So waving away Beyond/Impossible as safe because they don't have the stuff you list is potentially premature. Frankly I think the bigger reason these don't seem to be working out is that they aren't having the actual impact desired. The price isn't coming down. And if the price remains at higher-than-meat levels the ecological impact (which is what I personally care more about) is probably not where it needs to be either. I mean, let's be blunt: all this dithering about health effects and environmental externalities isn't actually going to change anything. Make a burger for the price of a bean dip, however, and the market will beat your door down even if they claim not to care about the hippy nonsense.
- glenstein 1y ago
  > So waving away Beyond/Impossible as safe As I said, they measurably improve health outcomes relative to the meats they're replacing in important areas. My understanding of the studies on UPF health outcomes is that their data is drawn overwhelmingly from traditional categories like junk food and processed starch and sugar. Which is all the more reason to avoid the equivocation between the two categories, lest someone get the mistaken impression that the Twinkie data is about the burgers.
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    > As I said, they measurably improve health outcomes relative to the meats they're replacing They imitate meats, but is there any evidence that, in practice, they replace them? In menus, and I suspect in actual human eating behavior, they seem to replace earlier vegetarian options like old-school TVP, not meat.
    - erikerikson 1y ago
      We have eaten impossible burgers as a replacement of beef burgers we would have otherwise eaten on burger night. Some of us even prefer the flavor but the prices are sometimes higher than beef and that reduced our consumption (at that moment we were tighter). If they were substantially less expensive we would have had to financially rationalize beef, beyond the health and environmental rationalizations.
buu700 1y ago
Well it's not like they're "ultra-processed" because they're meat alternatives. I get most of my protein from Meati (mycelium), eggs, tofu, cheese, and whey/plant/collagen protein powders, none of which I would characterize as ultra-processed[1]. I'm just not sure how you could justify calling plant-based meats non-ultra-processed under any useful definition of the term. Although I'd also add that UPF avoidance is more of a useful heuristic than an inherently reliable indicator of something's healthfulness. It's not like it's physically impossible to use complex industrial processes to create a product with high-quality nutrition that aligns with a given consumer's desired macros. I don't personally believe that plant-based meats as we know them are as healthy as meat, but that doesn't mean they couldn't theoretically be, and it doesn't mean lab-grown meat can't be (although I'll let other people be the guinea pigs on immortalized cells and check back in next century). Edit: 1: Except the powders. Turns out that they're on the low end of "ultra-processed" based on the Nova classification system, whereas Beyond/Impossible Meat is more firmly in that category. See comment below.
- jvia 1y ago
  Protein powders are an ultra-processed food.
  - adrian_b 1y ago
    Some protein powders, e.g. many of the plant protein powders, require complex processing, which is reflected in their price, which is many times greater than the price of meat (per protein content). However there are other protein powders that are obtained using minimal processing, much less than the traditional food processing, so they cannot be considered "ultra-processed" by any definition. For instance the protein concentrates that are extracted from milk or whey are much less processed than the traditional dairy products. (This is also reflected in their price, which is similar to that of the cheapest kinds of chicken meat, per their protein content.) To extract the protein powder from milk or whey, only simple (in principle) processing steps are done: centrifugation to remove the fat, ultrafiltration to remove the lactose and the water and drying to remove the residual water. This kind of processing alters the proteins of milk far less than the traditional making of cheese, which requires strong processing with enzymes and/or acid and/or heat and/or fermentation, and which causes significant changes in the structure and composition of the milk proteins. If you call milk/whey protein concentrate as "ultra-processed", you must call any cheese as "hyper-super-ultra-processed". It is true that making milk/whey protein powders requires machines that can be made only using modern technologies, while cheese and other dairy products were already made many millennia ago. However the simplicity of the old technologies is only apparent, because they exploited the work of dead animal bodies (rennet) or bacteria or fungi, which are much more complex than human-made machines. In this case, i.e. for making milk/whey protein powders, modern technology has allowed the use of much less processing for extracting the useful part of milk, keeping it in its unaltered state, than the traditional technologies, so this is clearly not an example of "ultra-processing". Similarly, extracting vegetable oils using supercritical carbon dioxide is certainly not "ultra-processing" as it allows a better preservation of the oil fraction of oily seeds or oily fruits than the traditional oil extraction methods. So the use of modern processing methods is not the same as "ultra-processing". To the latter, one should count only processing methods that cause irreversible changes in the food, removing the control of the end users on the composition of the food that they eat, i.e. processing that mixes ingredients into the food or that alters the food through heating or other treatments.
abdullahkhalids 1y ago
> meat alternative products ... have better cardiovascular outcomes, cancer outcomes Beyond meat type meat alternative products have simply not been around enough, and not consumed by enough people to enable any sort of studies that show they are better. It takes many years, sometimes decades of tracking tens of thousands of people through their lifetimes to establish any reasonable certainty that something is better than the other.
- glenstein 1y ago
  On the contrary, there are already trials pointing in the direction of better outcomes for meat alternatives. I don't have the energy at the moment to Google them up but you can find them if you try. Moreover the ingredients in meat alternatives are known quantities and they lack the specific compounds like heme iron, nitrosamines, and saturated animal fats that are mechanistically linked to cancer and heart disease in red and processed meat.
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    > Moreover the ingredients in meat alternatives are known quantities and they lack the specific compounds like heme iron, nitrosamines, and saturated animal fats that are mechanistically linked to cancer and heart disease in red and processed meat. Beyond doesn't contain heme iron, but Impossible does.
    - glenstein 1y ago
      Good point. From chatgpting about this for a moment, it sounds like the heme is chemically structurally identical, but it's soy derived and (1) there isn't yet research tying it to the same health outcomes as animal heme, and (2) there may be an important difference in the environmental and chemical context and which it's delivered, as animal heme is delivered in saturated animal fats, accompanied by nitrites/nitrates (from curing) and heterocyclic amines or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (from high-heat cooking of meat). But it could be a legit issue in terms of sharing rather than improving on a health outcomes associated with meat.
energy123 1y ago
I wish people could see through labels and categories, but it seems they can't. It's so lazy to stamp X with label Y and expect the reader to think differently about X because of your decision to apply the category Y.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
scoofy 1y ago
It really is funny and sad: "Ultra processed foods are killing us" Meaning: stop eating sugar cereals, doritos, frappuccinos, sweet granola bars, cheesy crackers, candy, and salted, processed deli meats Popular interpretation: stop eating vegetarian meat alternatives

dyauspitr 1y ago

Meat alternatives are stupid. Soy bean chemically mangled until it tastes like meat is an abomination. Either have real lab grown meat or change your perspective and eat like the South and East asians do, making vegetarian meals incredibly delicious.

Orochikaku 1y ago
Could you elaborate on why you feel as though it’s an abomination? I don’t quite see the hang ups about it.
whycome 1y ago
Chemically mangled? I’m all for all tastes and textures. Cheese production may be the definition of “chemically mangled milk” but I’m all for it.

ajross 1y ago

This seems likely true, but at the same time the actual science has been (1) pretty conclusive on the "processed foods are bad" top-line result yet (2) really, really bad at isolating exactly why that top-line result holds. Yes, high glycemic index foods and trans fats are bad, and high sodium is bad for at least some at-risk people. But they aren't bad enough to explain the processing result. So waving away Beyond/Impossible as safe because they don't have the stuff you list is potentially premature. Frankly I think the bigger reason these don't seem to be working out is that they aren't having the actual impact desired. The price isn't coming down. And if the price remains at higher-than-meat levels the ecological impact (which is what I personally care more about) is probably not where it needs to be either. I mean, let's be blunt: all this dithering about health effects and environmental externalities isn't actually going to change anything. Make a burger for the price of a bean dip, however, and the market will beat your door down even if they claim not to care about the hippy nonsense.

glenstein 1y ago
> So waving away Beyond/Impossible as safe As I said, they measurably improve health outcomes relative to the meats they're replacing in important areas. My understanding of the studies on UPF health outcomes is that their data is drawn overwhelmingly from traditional categories like junk food and processed starch and sugar. Which is all the more reason to avoid the equivocation between the two categories, lest someone get the mistaken impression that the Twinkie data is about the burgers.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > As I said, they measurably improve health outcomes relative to the meats they're replacing They imitate meats, but is there any evidence that, in practice, they replace them? In menus, and I suspect in actual human eating behavior, they seem to replace earlier vegetarian options like old-school TVP, not meat.
  - erikerikson 1y ago
    We have eaten impossible burgers as a replacement of beef burgers we would have otherwise eaten on burger night. Some of us even prefer the flavor but the prices are sometimes higher than beef and that reduced our consumption (at that moment we were tighter). If they were substantially less expensive we would have had to financially rationalize beef, beyond the health and environmental rationalizations.

buu700 1y ago

Well it's not like they're "ultra-processed" because they're meat alternatives. I get most of my protein from Meati (mycelium), eggs, tofu, cheese, and whey/plant/collagen protein powders, none of which I would characterize as ultra-processed[1]. I'm just not sure how you could justify calling plant-based meats non-ultra-processed under any useful definition of the term. Although I'd also add that UPF avoidance is more of a useful heuristic than an inherently reliable indicator of something's healthfulness. It's not like it's physically impossible to use complex industrial processes to create a product with high-quality nutrition that aligns with a given consumer's desired macros. I don't personally believe that plant-based meats as we know them are as healthy as meat, but that doesn't mean they couldn't theoretically be, and it doesn't mean lab-grown meat can't be (although I'll let other people be the guinea pigs on immortalized cells and check back in next century). Edit: 1: Except the powders. Turns out that they're on the low end of "ultra-processed" based on the Nova classification system, whereas Beyond/Impossible Meat is more firmly in that category. See comment below.

jvia 1y ago
Protein powders are an ultra-processed food.
- adrian_b 1y ago
  Some protein powders, e.g. many of the plant protein powders, require complex processing, which is reflected in their price, which is many times greater than the price of meat (per protein content). However there are other protein powders that are obtained using minimal processing, much less than the traditional food processing, so they cannot be considered "ultra-processed" by any definition. For instance the protein concentrates that are extracted from milk or whey are much less processed than the traditional dairy products. (This is also reflected in their price, which is similar to that of the cheapest kinds of chicken meat, per their protein content.) To extract the protein powder from milk or whey, only simple (in principle) processing steps are done: centrifugation to remove the fat, ultrafiltration to remove the lactose and the water and drying to remove the residual water. This kind of processing alters the proteins of milk far less than the traditional making of cheese, which requires strong processing with enzymes and/or acid and/or heat and/or fermentation, and which causes significant changes in the structure and composition of the milk proteins. If you call milk/whey protein concentrate as "ultra-processed", you must call any cheese as "hyper-super-ultra-processed". It is true that making milk/whey protein powders requires machines that can be made only using modern technologies, while cheese and other dairy products were already made many millennia ago. However the simplicity of the old technologies is only apparent, because they exploited the work of dead animal bodies (rennet) or bacteria or fungi, which are much more complex than human-made machines. In this case, i.e. for making milk/whey protein powders, modern technology has allowed the use of much less processing for extracting the useful part of milk, keeping it in its unaltered state, than the traditional technologies, so this is clearly not an example of "ultra-processing". Similarly, extracting vegetable oils using supercritical carbon dioxide is certainly not "ultra-processing" as it allows a better preservation of the oil fraction of oily seeds or oily fruits than the traditional oil extraction methods. So the use of modern processing methods is not the same as "ultra-processing". To the latter, one should count only processing methods that cause irreversible changes in the food, removing the control of the end users on the composition of the food that they eat, i.e. processing that mixes ingredients into the food or that alters the food through heating or other treatments.

abdullahkhalids 1y ago

> meat alternative products ... have better cardiovascular outcomes, cancer outcomes Beyond meat type meat alternative products have simply not been around enough, and not consumed by enough people to enable any sort of studies that show they are better. It takes many years, sometimes decades of tracking tens of thousands of people through their lifetimes to establish any reasonable certainty that something is better than the other.

glenstein 1y ago
On the contrary, there are already trials pointing in the direction of better outcomes for meat alternatives. I don't have the energy at the moment to Google them up but you can find them if you try. Moreover the ingredients in meat alternatives are known quantities and they lack the specific compounds like heme iron, nitrosamines, and saturated animal fats that are mechanistically linked to cancer and heart disease in red and processed meat.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > Moreover the ingredients in meat alternatives are known quantities and they lack the specific compounds like heme iron, nitrosamines, and saturated animal fats that are mechanistically linked to cancer and heart disease in red and processed meat. Beyond doesn't contain heme iron, but Impossible does.
  - glenstein 1y ago
    Good point. From chatgpting about this for a moment, it sounds like the heme is chemically structurally identical, but it's soy derived and (1) there isn't yet research tying it to the same health outcomes as animal heme, and (2) there may be an important difference in the environmental and chemical context and which it's delivered, as animal heme is delivered in saturated animal fats, accompanied by nitrites/nitrates (from curing) and heterocyclic amines or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (from high-heat cooking of meat). But it could be a legit issue in terms of sharing rather than improving on a health outcomes associated with meat.

energy123 1y ago

I wish people could see through labels and categories, but it seems they can't. It's so lazy to stamp X with label Y and expect the reader to think differently about X because of your decision to apply the category Y.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

scoofy 1y ago

It really is funny and sad: "Ultra processed foods are killing us" Meaning: stop eating sugar cereals, doritos, frappuccinos, sweet granola bars, cheesy crackers, candy, and salted, processed deli meats Popular interpretation: stop eating vegetarian meat alternatives