The flame hit through the charred grill grate, licking at the Burger Patty, while the fat sizzles. Visually, the ads are not that different from the PR-films of large Fast-Food chains. However, the reveals hidden Text: This Burger is completely herbal.
The Californian Start-Up “Beyond Meat” has triggered with its vegan burgers a Hype. As Lidl took the Patty’s to offer, they were sold out within a very short time; meanwhile, the Discounter markets like Aldi’s own products. Also of meat, sausage or Steak vegetable imitations often find themselves in the super market shelves. The demand is great to do in part with the hope of something Good for the body. But how healthy is meat set products?
Matthias Riedl’s opinion is clear: “You should not believe that you take a healthy food,” says the Hamburg-based nutritional medicine. “It is a Non-meat contains no vitamins in any significant Form, and also no secondary plant substances that make up the healthy vegetables, Yes.”
“If the ingredients list is so long, you have to be noisy.”
Imitation meat contains about flavor enhancers, preservatives, dyes, artificial flavors. And so, Riedl, don’t get the people permanently and in large quantity. However, there are good and bad products. “If the ingredients list is as long as Beyond Meat, then you have to be noisy,” says Riedl.
In a comparison of, among other things, a high fat content, stabilizers, and yeast were the nutrition practitioner at Beyond Meat extract as a flavor enhancer negative. Other products had a high salt content. “But there are also manufacturers who make do with less additives,” he says. A glance at the list of ingredients can be worth. Beyond Meat gave to the criticism, on demand, initially no opinion.
That vegan or vegetarian does not automatically mean healthy, also shows the evaluation of Antje Gahl, an expert of the German society for nutrition (DGE). Among the meat-free Alternatives, some “highly processed, be finished products, with sometimes high in sugar, salt and fat content,” she says. “Also, many of the additives can be present.”
In principle, the vegan Alternative must be not worse than the meaty original: “It depends on the individual product. Meat replacement products can be the better Alternative, but it is not. In General it is difficult to assess,” says the nutritionist.
Chicken hui, pig ugh
The consumer organization food watch had a rating for a report of three vegan barbecue-replacement products with the so-called Nutri-Score, of the food materials depends on their content on a scale of a (green, healthy) to E (red, unhealthy) files.
The Beyond-Meat-patties was awarded, among other things due to its many calories in a yellow C. of The vegan Incredible Burger from Nestlé, however, cut with a green A. For comparison: products with marinated chicken meat reached in the sample, a green, A and B, the tested products from pig meat, however, performed only with C, D, or even the worst, a E,.
More natural foods
For diet doctors Riedl anyway, the answer to excessive consumption of meat is not in recombinant foods that imitate meat. “But the answer is that we eat more natural foods. We don’t need extractions of vegetables, because vegetables Throughout.” It is not the isolated protein of pea alone, the be healthy, but the entire pea.
Such isolates would be stirred, for example, with Beetroot-dye, a little sugar, smoke flavor and other. He advises not to eat these kinds of products more than once or twice a week. For daily consumption they are also suitable, as little as meat. For those who eat for ethical or moral reasons, no meat, but the taste and consistency that is likely to be sufficient.
Those who avoided meat, you should consume according to Riedl, at least, fish, eggs or dairy products. This is the best Alternative. “We need animal products for Vitamin B12, without which we cannot live.” And if one was a Vegan, stay a little option, as Vitamin B12 feed artificially – but that would be no Problem. Veggie burgers are not provided in any case, this Vitamin.