Real vs fake meat: How nutritional, environmental impacts compare

Labels claim plant-based “meat” is the ethical option, but the real thing wins on water use and food miles. Get the full picture.

Trying to compare red meat and plant-based proteins is a bit like comparing apples to oranges.

And advocates from either side of the divide will passionately tout the health and nutrition of both products for consumers.

Debate between the two has kicked off in recent weeks following the announcement of a Senate inquiry into food labelling laws, with claims consumers are being hoodwinked into buying fake meat products instead of real meat.

But a number of submissions to the inquiry are calling for the same scrutiny of plant-based labelling be applied to red meat.

Attempting to directly compare these two food groups is complex.

The Weekly Times has analysed the nutrition, ingredients, water use, labelling regulations and food miles of a number of fake meat and red-meat products, including Woolworths lean beef mince, Woolworths BBQ Classic Beef Burgers, vEEF burger patties, and V2mince plant-based mince.

Red-meat and plant-based patties are difficult to compare in terms of their ingredients and fat content.

INGREDIENTS

A packet of Woolworths lean beef mince has an equally lean label: 100 per cent Australian beef.

It’s a slim list of ingredients when compared to a product such as V2mince plant-based mince, the list of ingredients including water, soy protein, vegetable oils, thickeners, flavours, colours, salt, yeast extract and more.

However, some meat products such as Woolworths BBQ Classic Beef Burger also include a myriad of ingredients, including 85 per cent Australian beef, water, onion, rice flour, maize flour, preservative 223, antioxidant, fermented red rice and more.

Plant-based vEEF burger includes water, soy protein, vegetable oil, thickeners, pea protein, yeast extract, salt, herbs, spices, and more.

NUTRITION

The health benefits of eating red meat has been heralded often in recent weeks.

A number of submissions to the Senate inquiry into plant-based product labelling are calling for equal scrutiny be applied to red meat products and their nutrition.

Woolworths lean beef mince nutritional values per 100g include 4.1g of fat, 68mg sodium, and 22.9g of protein. V2 mince nutritional values per 100g include 13.1g of fat, 270mg sodium, and 17.7g of protein.

But looking at a pre-made red meat burger pattie is different to a lean mince product.

The fat content per 100g of Woolworths BBQ beef burger is 13.8g, with a sodium content of 336mg.

Compare this to a packet of vEEF Plant Based Classic Burger Patties, with about 15g of fat per 100g of product, and about 412mg sodium per 100g.

The Australian Heart Foundation recommends consumption of unprocessed red meat be limited to less than 350gm a week. Processed meat is not part of a heart healthy-eating pattern, according to the foundation, and “should be limited or avoided”.

WATER USE

The red-meat industry has made bold strides in reducing the amount of water required to produce a kilogram of beef, by almost 70 per cent in 30 years.

According to RMAC, it takes 3.3 litres of H2O-equivalent per kilogram of live-weight cattle at the farm gate.

And while there’s no data regarding plant protein’s water use in Australia, according to Food Frontier, a study by the University of Michigan puts water use for a beyond burger at about 14 litres per kilogram of plant-based burger made in the US.

FOOD MILES

Woolworths lean beef mince, being 100 per cent Australian, has less food miles than a product such as V2 mince, with only 65 per cent of listed ingredients from Australia.

LABELLING LAWS

Food Standards Australia and New Zealand labelling provisions for red meat vary according to what the product is.

Manufactured meat means processed meat containing no less than 660g/kg of meat, while processed meat means a food that has “undergone a method of processing other than boning, slicing, dicing, mincing or freezing”.

For the labelling of minced meat, “a statement of the maximum proportion of fat in minced meat, in g/100g, is required if a claim is made in relation to the fat content of minced meat”.

When it comes to plant-based products, according to Food Frontier the food standards code enables plant-based meat alternative products to be named with widely understood terms describing a food’s format, such as “sausages”, paired with a qualifier such as “plant-based” or “meatless”, to clearly communicate the product is meat-free. Food Frontier calls this a “commonsense and evidence-based formula”, ”just as animal protein industries say chicken sausages, pork mince or lamb burgers”.

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Originally published as Real vs fake meat: How nutritional, environmental impacts compare