Plant-based burger vs. red meat burger: Auburn professor weighs in on the popular food trend

Drew Frugé, a registered dietitian and assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Hospitality Management in the College of Human Sciences at Auburn, offers his expertise on the plant-based meat phenomenon.

Drew Frugé is a registered dietitian with a doctorate in food science, nutrition and health promotion from Mississippi State University. He conducts cancer prevention and control research as an assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Hospitality Management in the College of Human Sciences at Auburn.

What is your take on the concept of plant-based meat products?

I think plant-based meat products are the latest in a series of food trends that enjoyed years and/or decades of success under the auspice of a health claim. Most notable are the low-fat products of the 80s and 90s, low-carbohydrate products when the Atkins diet re-emerged alongside the South Beach Diet in the 2000s and over the last decade with gluten-free foods. While fruit is a healthy low-fat food, nuts are a healthy low-carbohydrate food and both are gluten-free, profitability off of foods in their least processed forms is minimal. I do appreciate the innovative spirit of the food scientists and the market forces that generate demand for these products, but while there will always be a demand for plant-based meat products, I do not see it offsetting more of the already-decreasing demand for meat.

Is this trend really a way for people to eat better?

Nutrition science is controversial because food is intertwined with our cultures and values, and the inherent bias of many of us conducting this research has shaped the landscape of what is agreeably healthy. If our standard is the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, increased plant protein and less red meat would be two boxes to check toward a healthier diet. Conversely, these plant-based meat products carry ingredient lists longer than processed meats and can have higher sodium and saturated fat contents while still having lower protein than a comparable burger. In the grand scheme of things, a daily diet of a supersized fast food combo meal containing fries and a sugar sweetened beverage in addition to the non-beef burger on a bun is marginally (if at all) healthier than the same meal with beef. From a whole diet perspective related to improving public health, this is simply exchanging one brand of cigarettes for another.

If you conduct research in this area, what have you found?

We conducted a nationwide survey of 990 adults in the summer of 2018 to assess habitual dietary intake and attitudes toward decreasing meat consumption and increasing green leafy vegetable consumption for disease (colon cancer) prevention purposes. We found that 55 percent of men and 50 percent of women were generally unwilling to forego red meat consumption, though roughly half of them acknowledged reduced consumption could decrease their risk for colon cancer. The opportunity, then, from a public health perspective is to improve overall diet quality, recognizing that there are substitutes for the supersized fast food combo in which a hamburger steak and a side or two of veggies is consumed with water—a potential best case scenario for the blue plate enthusiasts.

The irony of the Impossible Burger is that they actually add heme to the patty to give it the meaty mouthfeel, red color and flavor of beef; heme is the major molecule in meat that contributes to its potential to be carcinogenic. My research is translating a decade of basic and preclinical studies (conducted by scientists in the Netherlands) indicating that chlorophyll from green leafy vegetables prevents the DNA damage and cytotoxicity induced by heme added to (mice and rat) chow.

In the fall of 2018 we recruited 50 adults that habitually ate higher red meat and lower green leafy vegetable diets to a randomized controlled trial in which they spent four of 12 weeks consuming a cup of cooked green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, collards, kale, turnips and mustard greens, daily. We collected blood samples from the participants throughout the study and a plasma marker of DNA damage significantly decreased over the course of the intervention period, compared to the control period. We need to validate this benefit in a much larger study but this suggests that green leafy vegetables mitigate the DNA-damaging potential of red meat in the diet.

I am also working with food scientists here to reduce the potential carcinogenicity of processed meat products. We know that families and individuals with low socioeconomic status consume the greatest proportion of processed meats because they are some of the least expensive ready-to-eat protein sources available. This population also has the least access to and utilization of health care and thus experiences the highest mortality rates from cancer and cardiovascular disease. If we can improve the healthfulness of these products without significantly increasing costs, low income families and producers—farmers, processors—all benefit.

The Impossible Burger is reportedly in 5,000+ restaurants while Beyond Burger is in 35,000+ restaurants and grocery stores. KFC tested its plant-based chicken in a Georgia store recently. Can we expect to see more plant-based meat products in stores and restaurants?

Most of the people at the forefront of the plant-based diet trend are not the people that frequent fast food restaurants, so from an economic perspective, all of these businesses can stock the products—since they are highly processed and shelf stable—and enjoy the increased business/profits until everyone has tried these burgers and most have returned to their normal diet. I have no doubt that these plant-based meat alternatives are here to stay and will always be in demand to at least a small sector of the population, but I would be surprised if KFC or Burger King have these alternatives on their menus nationwide a year from now.

What would you attribute to this trend? Are people just eager for something besides a soy burger, or do they think this is a way of satisfying their meat cravings without digesting red meat?

I truly believe this trend is more about environmental health concerns than human health concerns. Our agricultural systems are amazingly efficient at producing animal protein, but we are extremely wasteful at the retail and consumer level, so we literally throw away half of what is produced on an annual basis. This inefficiency makes livestock a prime target for reducing greenhouse gases and water use, so these alternative protein sources including lab-grown meat proteins and insect proteins are a means to shift consumer demand to less resource-demanding solutions.

Regarding vegetarian/vegan food options, there was a period where soy products were thought to be estrogenic and fell out of favor, so pea protein has mostly filled that void in the market. For those who truly believe red meat is unhealthy but enjoy it, these products are a solution to their dilemma.