Meatless Burgers: Ain’t What They Claim

By now I’m sure everyone has heard about those meatless burgers, they seem to be all the rage. They are supposed to be much better for you than meat burgers and are supposed to taste just like meat. Once again people just jump on the bandwagon without even knowing what is inside of these meatless wonders.

A while back I wrote 2 posts titled “Do You Really Know What’s Good For You?” and “The Food Nazis Are After You”  where I talk about people who jump on a certain food or a diet just because someone tells them it’s good for them without even knowing if it is or not.

Well I tried one of these burgers and at the end of this post I will give you my opinion, but first let me tell you a few important facts I learned about these meatless burgers.

From what I understand there are two reasons that people start eating these meatless burgers? If they are trying to cut back on red meat consumption, or it is better for the environment, that’s of course if you believe that cow farts are destroying our planet.

So, from everything that I have read, they are not the healthiest food that you can eat. As a matter of fact, there are many nutritionists who say if you eat them because you think you are saving the planet from cow farts that’s fine, but if you are eating them for health reasons, you might want to think again.

The two most popular meatless products are “Beyond Burger” and “Impossible Burger,” at least right now. But these burgers may not be the no-brainer they appear to be because they still have significant amounts of saturated fat — 6 g in the Beyond Burger and 8 g in the Impossible Burger. By comparison, a burger made with 90 percent lean beef has about 4.5 g of saturated fat and a burger made with higher-fat beef (80 percent lean beef) has 9 g of saturated fat, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). “If reducing your intake of saturated fat is a goal, then choosing one of these burgers over a 90 percent lean beef burger is not a beneficial choice,” says Allison J. Stowell, RD, who is with Guiding Stars, a company that labels food as nutritious, and is based in Bethel, Connecticut.

Stowell adds that a glaring issue with these burgers is their sodium because, as the AHAs point out, most Americans overconsume sodium. These burgers (and grocery store veggie burgers, too) have more sodium than traditional beef or turkey burger, with 390 milligrams (mg) in the Beyond Burger and 370 mg in the Impossible Burger (about 16 percent of your daily value). Sodium-laden toppings such as ketchup and pickles can bring that count even higher. “Once you account for the sodium in the bun and condiments, these burgers can quickly add up to 600 mg or more of sodium per serving,” McGrane says. It isn’t a major issue if you otherwise limit processed foods, but consuming too much sodium over time can lead to high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke, according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

So should these meatless burgers become a staple in your diet?

“As the nutritional facts of meat alternative burgers make clear, these options may not be the best choice despite the ‘health halo’ that surrounds them,” Stowell says.

After looking at the ingredient list and nutrient breakdown of both meatless burgers, it’s certainly clear that it takes many ingredients to create these meatless burgers. According to Dr. Linda Shiue, Director of Culinary Medicine at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco, “Aside from the possibility that eating meatless burgers might help people reduce their consumption of red meat, I don’t consider meatless burgers to be a health food per se, as they are a highly processed food.”

Like Cording, Alissa Rumsey, owner of Alissa Rumsey Nutrition and Wellness, believes that we benefit from eating more plants — but she isn’t sold on these plant-based options.

“They are not necessarily healthier than beef burgers,” Rumsey, a registered dietitian, said. “They’re totally fine to eat, but there’s no need to replace your beef burger if you don’t enjoy these.”

Rumsey pointed to the amounts of sodium and saturated fat in plant-based burgers, which is roughly the same as that in a traditional beef burger.

Except for the spokesman for these meatless companies, I didn’t find many food experts that say they are a healthier choice than a regular burger.

Now for my opinion: I did try a meatless burger and was surprised that the taste was pretty close to eating a meat burger, to be honest, I wasn’t able to tell the difference. The only thing is that it left an after-taste in my mouth that I don’t get from a regular burger.

My conclusion, I’ll stick with the regular meat burgers.