Tag Archive for: vegetarian

The Bottom Line on Meatless Burgers

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There are a couple more differences between the meatless burgers and beef burgers. To get the red color, the Impossible Burger uses soy leghemoglobin from the roots of soy plants, while the Beyond Burger uses beet juice. Both are vegan and give the burgers their red color. The Impossible Burger also adds some B vitamins and minerals. The Beyond Burger seems to add only some iron.

Are the meatless burgers healthy or not? From a strict look at fat content, no. Cholesterol level, yes. Sodium content, no, depending on how much salt you add to your beef burger; if you add more than one-sixth teaspoon of salt to your burger, you’ve lost that advantage. In effect, they’re very comparable to 80-20 burgers you would cook.

The real difference is that the meatless burgers are sourced from vegetable protein. Even that may strike up a debate because one uses soy protein while the other uses pea protein. Some people try to avoid soy, although there’s no real reason for it with the exception of being allergic to soy. (Check The Bottom Line on Soy Protein in the Store).

The other difference is that they both have carbohydrates and fiber because they’re sourced from plants. While there’s not a lot of fiber, that’s an advantage over beef.

The critical factor is how the burgers are prepared and presented. The final fat count will depend on how long the burgers are cooked: the longer any burger cooks, the more fat it loses to the grill. The presentation also matters. Buns, mayonnaise, cheese (for vegetarians who eat dairy), ketchup, and other condiments can take a 250 calorie burger and explode it to 700 calories or more.

There’s no information available about the environmental effects of meatless burgers, but usually vegan foods are environmentally friendlier than animal products even with the shipping and processing necessary for faux foods.

Beyond Patties

You can find Beyond Meat burger patties in some grocery stores in addition to their brand of plant-based bratwurst sausage, Italian sausage, and meat crumbles. Would your chili or meatloaf taste different with faux beef? We’ve tried cooking with other brands of vegan “beef” and noticed only a lack of fat, although if we use beef, we usually rinse it after browning it to remove most of the fat. The lower cholesterol in the meatless beef would be a big nutritional plus, but of course all this scientifically created food comes at a price: expect to pay two or three times as much as for plain old ground beef.

The Bottom Line

On paper, the meatless burgers could potentially be healthier than beef burgers. Whether they’re healthy or not is a different story. I haven’t seen research on how the meatless burgers respond to flames and whether they may produce undesirable chemicals. On top of that, the presentation mentioned earlier also matters.

Most likely whether they’re successful or not depends on the taste. I haven’t tasted either yet but I’ve planned a tasting barbecue soon, and I’ll let you know what I find out. Until then, it’s beef burgers for me. It would be exciting to have a plant-based burger that meets the taste test. Let me know how you feel if you try them.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Defining Healthier Burgers

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Other than being plant-based, how do these burgers compare for being healthy? In order to know that, we must define “healthy.” Beef is criticized, no matter how it’s raised and processed, for having too much unhealthy fat. How about the Impossible and Beyond Meat burgers?

A burger generally uses 80/20 beef, which means 80% protein to 20% fat by weight. That isn’t how it turns out in calories. A typical four-ounce beef patty has 280 calories with 20 grams of protein and 22 grams of fat. There’s also 80 mg of cholesterol.

Both faux burgers offer 20 grams of protein, but then the differences begin. The Impossible Burger has 14 grams of fat in a four-ounce burger with no cholesterol. The Beyond Burger has 18 grams of fat and no cholesterol. There’s a little less fat in the vegan burgers, but it’s fat that makes a burger a burger so they’re about tied.

One difference is in sodium levels. Beef does not have sodium added, so it starts with about 80 mg of sodium while the vegan burgers come in with close to 400 mg of sodium each—but you know you’re going to salt that burger before you eat it, so to be fair, you need to factor in whatever salt you add. What I don’t know is whether the sodium is critical to the vegan burgers or not. Because it’s a manufactured product, does the sodium have to be there as a preservative or something to that effect? Could they be manufactured with less sodium without sacrificing taste?

I’ll finish this up this weekend so you can get the menu set for the 4th of July.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Are You Ready for Meatless Burgers?

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Grilling season is here and that means all kinds of meat get char-broiled. I love a good burger, but that leaves a growing segment of the population out of luck: vegans and vegetarians. Grilled vegetables are great, from asparagus to zucchini, but some people love the sensation of chowing down on a burger. They miss out.

There are veggie burgers out there. I’ve had Boca Burgers and black bean burgers as well. They may be shaped like a burger, but the taste often leaves me feeling cheated. That may not be the case any more with two new additions: the Impossible Burger and the Beyond Meat Burger. Even before I could dig into the background of each, there have been a number of articles questioning whether these burgers are actually healthier than regular burgers. That’s what we’ll focus on this week: what’s in these burgers and whether they’re healthier than a regular burger.

In checking the labels, one difference is the protein source. The Impossible uses soy-based proteins while the Beyond uses pea protein. One thing to note is that they’re both proteins because they have all the necessary amino acids or can make them from the essential amino acids contained within. I’ll get into the rest of the ingredients on Thursday to check whether they’re healthier than beef burgers.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

All Signs Lead to Vegetables

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In the past couple of weeks, I’ve had many questions about vegan diets. Coincidentally Paula recommended a couple of HuffPost articles on rising CO2 levels and the effect on crops. Then someone asked me what I thought about the movie “What the Health” available on Netflix or online; it’s purported to be a documentary on the food industry and why a vegan diet is the best. When this confluence of events happens—when the universe gives me this many signs—it’s time to write about it.

I’ve spent the better part of two weeks researching the background on the movie and the articles. This was not easy reading, but I wanted to provide the most recent information so you can make an informed decision. Coming Memos are going to be related to issues surrounding vegan and vegetarian diets that were covered in the movie and the articles.

To get things started, I recommend that you watch the movie. When I review the movie next week, I want you to watch what they said and then what the research says. You can watch it on Netflix; if you don’t subscribe to Netflix, you can take advantage of their free trial, which is what we did. If you don’t like those options, you can watch it on your computer, tablet, or phone. That will cost you $9.99 but you can stream it any time. www.whatthehealthfilm.com.

On Thursday, we look at exactly what a vegan diet is. Reminder for Insiders: conference call is tonight!

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

Can Vegetarian Protein Help You Build Muscle?

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People often ask me which is the best type of protein to build muscle when weight training. The reason for the question is bodybuilder and weight-training websites that condemn vegetarian protein as not good enough to build muscle. In the same issue of Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise as the paper from Tuesday, a research study examined that question.

Researchers divided 54 men into three groups. One group got a vegetarian protein blend of soy and dairy, a second group got dairy-only protein, while the third received a maltodextrin placebo. They all performed the same weight training program for 12 weeks. The researchers then tested their strength as well as evidence of muscle growth after taking muscle biopsies.

All participants gained strength and muscle. Those who took the protein supplements gained slightly more muscle than the placebo group, but there were no differences in muscle gains between the soy-dairy blend and the whey-protein group.

This contributes to the body of research showing that it’s the protein that makes the difference, not whether it’s a vegetable or animal source of the protein. Use whichever fits your lifestyle better, but it’s doing the lifting that makes the real difference.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

Reference: MSSE. 2017 Feb 13. DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000001224

 

Research Update: Protein

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Two recent studies on protein mean it’s time for a research update. Let’s begin by covering a couple of basics about protein.

By definition, a protein contains all nine essential amino acids. That includes all animal sources of protein. It also includes most beans and nuts; that’s how vegetarians get enough protein. When you have the nine essential amino acids, your body can make the other 11 amino acids you need to make everything from hormones to muscle. The benefit of getting protein from plant sources is that you also take in the phytonutrients you can’t . . .

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The Cause of Obesity: Vegetarian Diet

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Last week I talked about the causes of obesity as it related to food choices. It all comes down to calories in versus calories out. There are a couple of more points I want to make so I decided to continue the message arc this week.

Let’s begin with vegetarians. Do they have any advantage in the calories in versus calories out? Yes and no. Based on the available research, mostly done on 7th Day Adventists, vegetarians have lower average BMIs than non-vegetarians. The more vegetarian the diet, the lower the BMI, with complete vegans having the lowest . . .

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Just Be Honest

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One of the problems that I have with many websites and health gurus is that they won’t tell you what they’re really about. This isn’t the same as reposting websites; they get paid for getting you to click on links and thus don’t really care what they post as long as it’s eye-catching. The people and websites that bother me write most frequently about the food supply and what is and is not healthy for you. Fine. I do that, too. What isn’t apparent is why they do what . . .

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How to Reverse Heart Disease

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In this final message of the week on reversing heart disease, I’m going to tell you why I think the program was successful, a couple of problems that I have with it, and the bottom line.
 
The Training
The key to this program in my opinion was education. The program began with a five-hour seminar with limited participation: no more than 12 participants. Here’s what they did in the training:

  • Explained the relationship between diet and heart disease in other cultures throughout the world.
  • Showed the damage to arteries in very young . . .

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