03 Oct 2017
The faux meat phenomenon
Posted by 2142 2142 on Tuesday, October 03, 2017
Faux (fake) meats have progressed in leaps and bounds since the days of Tofurky roasts. Even devoted meat lovers are being drawn over to the veggie side of life by convincingly tasty ‘not-meats’. Is facon better than bacon? Or are we better off sticking with the real deal?
What in them?
Vegetarian ‘meats’ are made from a variety of non-animal food such as beans, fungi, grains and nuts, and mostly the protein parts. The result is a mass of chewy textured plant proteins with meat-like savoury flavours. Some faux meats are designed to resemble their animal food counterparts, such as soy-protein shaped to look like prawns or even pork belly with the layer of fat and crispy skin to boot- which is pretty amazing work by food technologists although vegans don’t like it much, preferring not to eat anything that even looks like an animal.
Lab-grown meat
Food scientists are working on lab-grown meat and have produced convincing burger patties with meat cells grown in a test tube, removing the need to raise or kill livestock. While this futuristic scenario is now a reality on a small scale, it is super expensive and won’t be meeting the world’s needs for meat anytime soon.
Nutrition
With the rise in popularity of plant-based diets, faux meats are now finding a wider market with people wanting a healthy and sustainable option. However, although they are made from plants (or fungi) their nutritional composition can fall short of ‘superfood’ expectations. Like real bacon and sausages, some faux meat products are highly processed and contain high levels of sodium (salt) and other food additives.
We compared 2 faux meat products and one vegan ‘bacon’ recipe with their real meat equivalents to give you their nutrient profiles. Just a few mouthfuls of Coconut Bacon will use almost your entire daily saturated fat allowance (21.4g out of 24g). The two commercial products we looked at had no Vitamin B12 added, which is a problem for vegans as fortified foods are the only source in a vegan diet.
|
BACON |
SAUSAGES |
CHICKEN |
|||
Nutrient |
(60g serve) |
Shortcut Pork Bacon (60g serve) |
(50g serve)
|
Beef Sausages (50g serve) |
The Alternative Meat Company Chicken Free Strips (67g serve) |
Chicken Stir Fry Strips (67g serve) |
Energy - kilojoules |
1235kJ |
786kJ |
276kJ |
551kJ |
590kJ |
294kJ |
Energy - calories |
295 calories |
188 calories |
66 calories |
132 calories |
141 calories |
70 calories |
Protein |
3.4g |
9.2g |
6.0g |
7.5g |
13.3g |
14.9g |
Fat - Includes saturated fat |
26.8g 21.4g |
16.9g 6.4g |
1.9g 0.3g |
10.3g 4.7g |
4.6g 0.5g |
1.1g 0.3g |
Carbohydrates - Includes sugars - Includes starches |
7.9g 7.4g 0.4g |
0.2g 0.2g 0.0g |
5.0g 0.0g 5.0g |
2.3g 0.2g 2.1g |
9.2g 4.2g 5.0g |
0.0g 0.0g 0.0g |
Sodium |
389mg |
689mg |
200mg |
394mg |
367mg |
27.5mg |
Fibre |
6.3g |
0.0g |
2.0g |
0.7g |
4.3g |
0.0g |
Iron |
1.0mg |
0.3mg |
0.3mg |
0.7mg |
1.9mg |
0.3mg |
Vitamin B12 |
0.0μg |
0.4μg |
0.0μg |
2.2μg |
0.0μg |
0.5μg
|
Sustainability
Its often said vegetarian diets are more sustainable because plant foods require fewer inputs (e.g. water, feed, energy etc) than meat to produce; however there is more to this story. Highly processed foods require more energy and have long supply chains that add transport inputs and emissions. Smaller animals have a lower eco-footprint than larger ones, and even cattle and sheep can be raised on land than can’t be used for cropping. Not to mention the social benefits of keeping farming communities around the world viable. Eating some animal foods within a plant based diet produced with more sustainable and fair farming practices can be better for people and planet.
If you want to eat more sustainably, there are much lower hanging protein solutions. We could eat the whole animal (not just the prime cuts); swap some meat for legumes; and choose more sustainable meat sources. In Australia we are catching on to eating our national emblem, kangaroos as a wild and free-range source of lean meat rich in iron. And of course we could waste less food generally, which is simply throwing away everything that went into producing it, and creating greenhouse gases from food rotting in landfill.
The un-plugged truth
- You do not need to go meat-free to be healthy; lean unprocessed meats are rich in essential nutrients.
- Faux meats can have more fibre but can contain more saturated fat and sodium than unprocessed meats- check the label.
- Be a more sustainable consumer by eating just enough meat, eating nose-to-tail, and don’t waste food.
