| > It turns out the answer may depend on whether your priorities lie with your personal health or the health of the planet. This article never addresses the environmental claims beyond this introduction. It focuses entirely on the human health impact. > The bad news: Meatless burgers are heavily processed and high in saturated fat It's worth knowing the definitions of "processed" and "heavily processed", rather than simply reading "processing" as a bogeyman to be feared. • Processed foods: Added salt, sugar, and/or fats • Heavily/ultra processed: Artificial colors, flavors, and/or preservatives That's all there is to it. Bread is processed. Putting salt and pepper on your steak is processing. If you drop some food coloring into the icing for your Christmas cookies, they're heavily processed. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/processed-foods... Now, I'll grant that these meat alternatives have a truckload of sodium, in the ballpark of 20%+ of your recommended intake. And while the subheading complains about the saturated fat, the following paragraph admits that Impossible and Beyond are both comparable to a typical beef burger, then argues for minimizing saturated fats. That's not an unreasonable course of action, but I think there's a disconnect in claiming that they're high in sat fats when the context is a comparison against the traditional burger—in that arena, they're neutral. |