Is being a vegetarian really good for your health?

November 25 is International Vegetarian Day. Actress Zhang Jingchu posted a message on social media calling on everyone to eat more vegetarian food, and said frankly: "After eating vegetarian food, my body and mind feel lighter than ever before." She was supported by Tao Hong, Shu Qi and others. But her remarks caused controversy among netizens. Why? After all, as an omnivore, if you force yourself to become a herbivore, you are challenging evolution, don't you know?

So today, let’s talk about which is healthier, plant meat or animal meat, from the perspective of monks’ health, the advantages and processing of plant meat, etc.?

01. Is a vegan diet healthier?

In fact, I have written about the issue of pure vegetarianism before, because there happened to be a study on monks. The answer is that in general, pure vegetarian monks are not necessarily healthier than ordinary people, and their sub-health level is higher than the average level in Nanjing.

This article "A Survey on the Relationship between Health Status and Nutrition of Monks in Nanjing" gives us a good survey result:

First, the research group.

It basically covers the three generations of old, middle-aged and young people.

Then looking at the Body Mass Index (BMI), overall, the normal ratio is 57.3%.

The overall obesity rate is 10.3%, slightly lower than the national average (12%).

The proportion of emaciation was relatively low, at 6.2%, and only occurred in Jiming Temple and Qixia Temple.

In terms of nutrition, BMI and carbohydrates are closely related.

Regarding the influence of age factors, it can be seen that age has a relatively obvious impact on weight.

Monks also suffer from sub-health conditions, mainly including fatigue and lack of concentration.

Another thing is the proportion of the same person suffering from multiple sub-health symptoms.

The main nutrient deficiencies include vitamins and minerals.

02. What is vegetarian meat/plant-based meat?

As for the issue of vegetarian meat, em. Actually, I still don’t understand why plant-based meat is so popular?

Hasn't this thing been around since ancient times? It's still part of our daily diet. If you go to a vegetarian restaurant, you'll find that it's all plant-based meat.

Oh, no, some people say that it is vegetarian meat, but vegetarian meat is plant-based meat.

Let’s first talk about what plant-based meat is. Personally, I think that strictly speaking, it should be called: plant-based meat.

Please note that plant-based is the key, that is, this piece of meat, the most important component, is of plant origin. Then other ingredients are added to make it like meat.

Plant-based meat is essentially still plant-based. This has not changed at least for now, and I personally don’t think it will change much in the future.

Plant-based meat focuses on modern synthetic biology, making plant-based meat more like animal meat. This step is mainly to synthesize some key factors that affect the flavor of meat through synthetic biology, such as hemoglobin.

This is also the business that some new technology companies have been engaged in in recent years. Of course, they are also working hard to synthesize other animal proteins. For example, milk is more than 90% water, and the rest is protein. In the past, milk production required plants-cows-milk proteins. Now, through synthetic biology, plants-yeast-milk proteins are being produced.

They're taking a step away from animals, but they haven't changed the core of being plant-based.

In fact, to put it bluntly, plant-based meat is a product made of soy protein, etc. Some may use pea protein or wheat protein, etc. Seeing this, some people may still not understand it. To put it bluntly, the beans we eat, such as tofu, soy milk, etc., are all made of soy protein.

This thing, in essence, does not have anything beyond existing knowledge, and is basically a basic ingredient in our daily diet.

03. Why is plant-based meat being brought up again in recent years?

There are two main points:

1. Progress in flavor simulation of traditional meat

Although traditional vegetarian meat can be made to be very similar to animal meat, it is difficult to simulate meat like beef, pork and mutton (the so-called simulations currently on the market actually involve the addition of animal fats).

Research has found that hemoglobin plays a key role in the flavor of meat.

In recent years, synthetic biology has made it possible to produce hemoglobin through fermentation, and then add it to plant ingredients, which has greatly improved the taste of vegetarian meat. Therefore, the name was changed.

2. Save energy, or use a fashionable term called low carbon.

This is what I personally think is the biggest advantage of plant-based meat, and it is also what all plant-based meat companies basically mention: environmental protection.

Plant protein can be extracted directly from plants, while animal protein requires animals to ingest plants before further producing protein, which adds an extra food chain process and increases a lot of waste. For example, the feed a cow eats during its growth may be many times its own weight. Not to mention the many environmental impacts in the production process (such as Australian cow dung?)

From a long-term perspective, reducing costs is inevitable.

Coupled with the impact of animal meat itself on a series of factors such as breeding sites, feeding management and cycles, this gives plant meat a space, which is to reduce the cost of human protein intake to some extent.

Therefore, I have always believed that the biggest advantage of plant-based meat is that it can reduce production costs and is environmentally friendly (many times I think the two are unified).

04. Is plant-based meat healthier than animal meat?

If you insist on emphasizing that plant-based meat is healthier than animal meat, I think it is debatable.

Plant-based meat does contain some plant fiber, and the proportion of fat can be adjusted during the processing process to make it appear to be more concerned about everyone's health.

However, in fact, in order to make the flavor of plant meat close to real meat during the processing, it is often necessary to add ingredients and additives to change its flavor. As a result, the sodium content of plant meat is much higher than that of animal meat. Too high sodium is not friendly to the cardiovascular system.

Not to mention, pure plant meat is actually not very tasty. In order to make it taste better, various oils need to be added during the processing. Just imagine the taste of boiled vegetables and you will know that it is difficult to make delicious food without adding oil (personal experience shows that the air fryer without adding oil tastes far less delicious than deep-fried food).

If you buy plant-based meat and cook it as usual, it will be difficult to reduce the fat.

It's hard to believe that plant-based meat is low-fat.

In addition, plant meat cannot completely replace animal meat. After all, some animal-specific contents, such as vitamin B12, some polyunsaturated fatty acids and some trace elements, are very different between animals and plants, so animal meat cannot be completely eliminated.

In summary, plant-based meat is not necessarily healthier than animal meat. However, for people who eat too much meat and fish, they can try plant-based meat to balance it out. However, for people who normally eat meat, it is not necessary. Maybe eating a piece of tofu and drinking a bowl of soy milk will have a better effect.

Also, the key is to use less oil when cooking.

After all, beans were domesticated by our ancient Chinese. They were used to supplement protein from plants to meet the protein shortage at that time. So, from the perspective of eating plant meat, we are the world's strong point and there is no need to make special adjustments.

Moreover, in order to prevent everyone’s diet from being too monotonous, our ancestors developed n kinds of beans.

[1] Luo Kang, Liu Yuxin, Wang Xiadong, Liao Lisha, Xie Sirou, Wang Yu, Cai Yunqing. Investigation on the relationship between health status and nutrition of monks in Nanjing [A]. Public Nutrition Branch of Chinese Nutrition Society. Proceedings of the 10th Conference of the Public Nutrition Branch of Chinese Nutrition Society Academic Seminar on Advances in Public Nutrition Research [C]. Public Nutrition Branch of Chinese Nutrition Society: Chinese Nutrition Society, 2010: 7.