I’m afraid that fast food businesses are ruining the idea that plant-based foods are healthier than meat-based foods because they insist on adding sugars and other unhealthy ingredients into plant-based fast food which negates any advantage one might have had in eating vegetarian fast food. And the reason why they add these bad ingredients is to make the product taste better while disregarding the negative impact on health. It is a cynical commercialisation of veganism or vegetarianism to attract more customers. It is greenwashing of the worst kind.
The Times reports that “plant-based burgers, wraps and pizzas that have appeared on fast food menus in recent years are no healthier than the traditional meat alternatives, a study has found.”
The scientists looked at 10 fast food restaurant chains. Most of the stores were located in the United States, Britain, Poland, Canada and Australia.
The scientists matched up meat-based items with plant-based item so that they were very similar products except one was made with meat and the other was made with plants. The weight difference between the vegetarian and meat-based products was no more than 10%.
They found that there were no clear benefits to eating the vegetarian option. They found that the vegetarian options had less sodium (salt) than the meat equivalents but they had more sugar, and more carbohydrates but less protein.
Also, the vegetarian options were more likely to have more fat and saturated fat than those that included meat.
On average, the vegetarian options contained about the same number of calories as the meat alternatives when they could have had less calories if they hadn’t added sugar for example.
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They concluded quite firmly it seems to me that switching to a plant-based junkfood option will not decrease the risk of diabetes and obesity. And the reason, is as mentioned namely that the commercial enterprises selling vegetarian junkfood simply do not believe in the health benefits from vegetarianism and they’ve destroyed any possibility of any benefit by messing up the production of these items in an effort to make them highly palatable; as palatable as the meat-based versions.
This is a great shame because we now know that eating plant-based foods can help prevent global warming, a major catastrophe in the making. And of course it helps to limit livestock abuse; animal abuse on a grand scale. There are many benefits to vegetarianism but the fast food businesses do not want to promote these benefits both personal and universal. They simply want to maximise their profit margins at, it seems, any cost.
The scientist who led the research said that the results were a reminder that plant-based was no guarantee of nutritional quality especially when vegetarian products are for sale in an outlet which sells highly processed foods.
They said that, “Our study shows that plant-based meals are not associated with lower calories, which consumers may not realise. This really emphasises the importance of making informed food choices, especially when it comes to consuming fast food.”
This study does shatter the illusion that vegetarian fast foods are better than meat-based fast food. They are not but that is thanks to the big businesses engaging in fast food production. They are the ones who are destroying the important concept that veganism improves health which all other studies that I have read confirm. You’ve not got to go far to find that information.
