Plant-based meat substitutes taste and chew remarkably similar to real beef, and the 13 items listed on their nutrition labels — vitamins, fats and protein — make them seem essentially equivalent.
But a Duke University research team’s deeper examination of the nutritional content of plant-based meat alternatives, using a sophisticated tool of the science known as ‘metabolomics,’ shows they’re as different as plants and animals.
Meat-substitute manufacturers have gone to great lengths to make the plant-based product as meaty as possible, including adding leghemoglobin, an iron-carrying molecule from soy, and red beet, berries and carrot extracts to simulate bloodiness. The texture of near-meat is thickened by adding indigestible fibers like methyl cellulose. And to bring the plant-based meat alternatives up to the protein levels of meat, they use isolated plant proteins from soy,…
