Clinical and consumer market interest is increasingly directed toward the use of plant-based proteins as dietary components aimed at preserving or in

There is wide scale concern about the effects of red meat on human health and climate change. Plant-based meat alternatives, designed to mimic the sensory experience and nutritional value of red meat, have recently been introduced into consumer markets. Plant-based meats are marketed under the premise of environmental and human health benefits and are aimed appeal to a broad consumer base. Meat production is critiqued for its overuse of water supplies, landscape degradation, and greenhouse gas emission, and depending on production practices, environmental footprints may be lower with plant-based meat alternatives. Life-cycle analyses suggest that the novel plant-based meat alternatives have an environmental footprint that may be lower than beef finished in feedlots, but higher than beef raised on well-managed pastures. In this review, we discuss the nutritional and ecological impacts of eating plant-based meat alternatives vs. animal meats. Most humans fall on a spectrum of omnivory: they satisfy some nutrient requirements better from plant foods, while needs for other nutrients are met more readily from animal foods. Animal foods also facilitate the uptake of several plant-derived nutrients (zinc and iron), while plant nutrients can offer protection against potentially harmful compounds in cooked meat. Thus, plant and animal foods operate in symbiotic ways to improve human health. The mimicking of animal foods using isolated plant proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals likely underestimates the true nutritional complexity of whole foods in their natural state, which contain hundreds to thousands of nutrients that impact human health. Novel plant-based meat alternatives should arguably be treated as meat alternatives in terms of sensory experience, but not as true meat replacements in terms of nutrition. If consumers wish to replace some of their meat with plant-based alternatives in the diet (a “flexitarian approach”) this is unlikely to negatively impact their overall nutrient status, but this also depends on what other foods are in their diet and the life stage of the individual.

Background: It has been demonstrated that protein ingestion before sleep increases muscle protein synthesis rates during overnight recovery from an ex

A new generation of plant-based meat alternatives—formulated to mimic the taste and nutritional composition of red meat—have attracted considerable consumer interest, research attention, and media coverage. This has raised questions of whether plant-based meat alternatives represent proper nutritional replacements to animal meat. The goal of our study was to use untargeted metabolomics to provide an in-depth comparison of the metabolite profiles a popular plant-based meat alternative (n = 18) and grass-fed ground beef (n = 18) matched for serving size (113 g) and fat content (14 g). Despite apparent similarities based on Nutrition Facts panels, our metabolomics analysis found that metabolite abundances between the plant-based meat alternative and grass-fed ground beef differed by 90% (171 out of 190 profiled metabolites; false discovery rate adjusted p < 0.05). Several metabolites were found either exclusively (22 metabolites) or in greater quantities in beef (51 metabolites) (all, p < 0.05). Nutrients such as docosahexaenoic acid (ω-3), niacinamide (vitamin B3), glucosamine, hydroxyproline and the anti-oxidants allantoin, anserine, cysteamine, spermine, and squalene were amongst those only found in beef. Several other metabolites were found exclusively (31 metabolites) or in greater quantities (67 metabolites) in the plant-based meat alternative (all, p < 0.05). Ascorbate (vitamin C), phytosterols, and several phenolic anti-oxidants such as loganin, sulfurol, syringic acid, tyrosol, and vanillic acid were amongst those only found in the plant-based meat alternative. Large differences in metabolites within various nutrient classes (e.g., amino acids, dipeptides, vitamins, phenols, tocopherols, and fatty acids) with physiological, anti-inflammatory, and/or immunomodulatory roles indicate that these products should not be viewed as truly nutritionally interchangeable, but could be viewed as complementary in terms of provided nutrients. The new information we provide is important for making informed decisions by consumers and health professionals. It cannot be determined from our data if either source is healthier to consume.

Background: Protein consumed after resistance exercise increases postexercise muscle protein synthesis rates. To date, dairy protein has been studied