Just because something edible is plant-based doesn’t mean it isn’t as highly processed as the carnivore equivalent.
It’s the cynical greed that gets me. Turn on prime-time television or allow the ads to slide on to YouTube, and every food processor and retailer seems to be cashing in on the Veganuary movement, pushing their products as healthy and virtuous.
“Join the Goodness Movement” cajoles one, advocating a swap from grilled chicken for something called “plant chicken goujons BBQ” made with rehydrated soy and wheat.
I’ve nothing against veganism or Veganuary. Giving up animal products altogether isn’t for me, but few would disagree that we should be eating less meat and more vegetables. While there are persuasive arguments that pasture-raised free-range meat can have positive effects on the planet, avoiding intensively farmed meat makes good sense for the damage it does to the environment as well as the animal welfare issues involved. Experimenting with eating meals without meat is not a bad plan.
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.
Plant-based chicken is an ultra-processed food.
A grilled chicken breast would count as minimally processed, or possibly “processed” if you include a bit of salt and oil. But those “plant chicken goujons BBQ” are indubitably ultra-processed, containing more than 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”. 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?
Bron : https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/food-and-wine/why-vegan-meat-is-the-worst-junk-food-of-all-20220119-p59pj5
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