Sadly, there came a time when the commercial production of plant-based meats and other vegetarian foods descended into actions which are now eroding the market due to an overzealous desire to make as much money as possible from their products.
In short, profit is damaging or destroying the vegetarian commercially prepared foods market.The reason for this is that in order to make the foods really tasty and appealing to consumers commercial manufacturers add ingredients which are bad for health such as salt, sugar and fats.
They’ve got to sell their products and they do it by degrading their products in the hope and expectation that consumers will not notice but they have noticed and the marketplace is shrinking as a result.
It is started with Martin Freeman, the actor, who, in a report in The Sunday Times, said in a pod cast that he had gone vegetarian as a teenager in 1986 because he wasn’t comfortable with eating animals but he is now return to eating real meat because he wants to avoid processed foods.
Of course, real meat foods are also processed very often so his problem is not about either being vegetarian or non-vegetarian but processed foods.
Being vegetarian is much easier nowadays because there are lots of products on the shelves of supermarkets but most of these products are heavily processed.
The world knows that we need to avoid processed foods because the ingredients are unhealthy.
For example, there has been quite a lot of discussion about emulsifiers added to foods. These additives are unhealthy and as I recall have been proved to be unhealthy in a study.
Many ultra processed foods are very soft which makes them more palatable. Fake meats are low in fibre and low in nutrients. They have added ingredients to create meaty taste and texture. There is strong evidence that eating heavily processed meets can lead to colorectal cancer.
There are still a lot of people who think that plant-based meats are healthier than regular meets but when you include the unhealthy additives you cannot say that vegetarian meat is healthy.
They become addicted because of the additives which are there simply to sell more products not through them being healthier but because they are tastier.
There is now greater awareness of the unhealthiness of ultra processed foods which is turning people away from what was once healthy plant-based meats to now unhealthy products.
Back in the day, when Paul and Linda McCarthy championed the veggie lifestyle it was a very popular option but not so nowadays as demand for profit has eroded the appeal.
Veggie diets are no longer automatically better than eating genuine meat. But it depends on the added ingredients. Rob Hobson writing in The Sunday Times provides some advice on this topic. He said: “If you get the right balance of nutrients, including iron and B12, vegetarianism can be a healthy option. But eating a bit of good quality meat is too. I eat meat myself,” he said.
The obvious conclusion is that you cannot count on plant-based meat products made commercially to be healthier than genuine meat products. You have got to be selective about the kind of commercially made vegetarian foods that you eat.
Ultimately, from my perspective, the best foods are ones that are not processed at all such as avocados and fruit. That, to me, would seem to be the only way you can totally remove food processing from your menu.
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