You can’t help but notice all the talk about plant-based meats. You can see them in any grocery store aisle: burgers that “bleed,” sausages that sizzle, and chicken nuggets that taste almost exactly like the real thing. For a lot of people, these foods are a way to enjoy familiar flavors without feeling bad about it. They are also better for their health and the environment. But as the excitement dies down, things are starting to look more complicated. Are these highly processed foods really the healthy options they are said to be?
It’s a good question to ask. When you look past the clever advertising and really look at the nutrition label, you often find a surprisingly long list of ingredients, including a lot of sodium and a lot of additives. This has led to more and more people talking about whether we’ve traded one set of problems for another and whether a diet based on whole, unprocessed foods might still be the best way to go.
What do you put in a plant-based burger?
You need to know how these things are made before you can understand the possible downsides. It’s an interesting, though complicated, piece of food science. The goal is “biomimicry,” which means using only plants to make meat that tastes, feels, and looks like animal meat.
- Most of the time, the process starts with a protein source, which is usually soy, pea, or wheat gluten. This protein is taken out and separated, and then it is given a texture to make it look like muscle tissue.
- Manufacturers use advanced methods like high-moisture extrusion, which uses heat and pressure, or shear-cell technology, which stretches plant proteins into layers that look like muscle fibers. This is the step that makes a plant-based patty chewy and satisfying.
- But protein by itself doesn’t make a good meat substitute. Adding fats like coconut and sunflower oil makes the food juicy and gives it a marbled look like animal meat, which keeps it from being dry or crumbly.
- Then there are the binders and emulsifiers, like methylcellulose and different starches, which are very important for keeping everything together so the burger doesn’t fall apart on the grill.
- Lastly, taste and color are important. Yeast extract is often used to give food a savory, umami flavor. Some brands use heme, a molecule that comes from soy leghemoglobin, to give food a taste that is similar to iron and beef. To get that familiar reddish color, people often add natural colorants like beet or pomegranate juice.
When you put it all together, it shows how far food engineering has come. But is it food like nature meant it to be?
The Salty Truth: A Closer Look at Sodium
The amount of sodium in plant-based meats is one of the biggest worries people have about them. You might think that a product made from plants would be healthier by nature, but the data tells a different story. Researchers have found that many plant-based meat substitutes have “unnecessarily high” levels of salt.
It’s really a mix of things. Some research has shown that, on average, plant-based foods have less saturated fat and sodium than animal-based foods. One study found that they had, on average, about 22% less sodium. But other studies tell a very different story. A study in the UK found that more than 75% of the plant-based meat products they looked at did not meet the government’s goals for lowering salt levels. Another study found that plant-based mince could have up to six times as much sodium as real beef mince.
The difference can be very big. Some products have been found to have as much as 1,200 mg/100 g of sodium, while most have less than 500 mg/100 g. That’s more than half of what an adult should eat in a day in one patty. A study of products sold in Italy in 2025 found that an amazing 93% of meat substitutes had more sodium than the World Health Organization’s limit for that type of food. Plant-based “cured meats” had the most of them.
This isn’t just a little thing; it’s a big deal for public health. Diets that are high in sodium can make you more likely to have serious health problems, like heart disease and stroke. The same things that a lot of people want to avoid by switching to a plant-based diet.
A List of Ingredients You Can’t Say
There are also additives to think about in addition to the salt. To get that meat-like texture and long shelf life, companies use a lot of functional ingredients that you probably don’t have in your kitchen.
- Thickeners and stabilizers are the most common of these. Methylcellulose is a synthetic chemical compound that comes from cellulose. It is a common binder. It helps the product keep its shape while cooking and gives it a firm texture.
- There are also a lot of gums, such as xanthan, gellan, carrageenan, and guar gum, that do the same thing: they help thicken the product and keep the ingredients from separating.
These extra ingredients are what make a lot of plant-based meats fall into the category of ultra-processed foods (UPFs). Some experts call this the “health halo” effect, which means that people think a product is healthy just because it says “vegan” or “plant-based” on the label, without looking at the fine print.
“A nutritionist might say, ‘People see “plant-based” and right away think “healthy,” but that’s not always the whole story.” “They’re not paying attention to the sodium, saturated fat, or the number of ingredients they can’t say. A long, complicated list of ingredients is often a warning sign.
Whole Foods vs. Processed Foods
This leads us to the main point of the debate: the difference between eating plants and eating highly processed foods made from plants. Plant-based meats are naturally free of cholesterol and can have the same amount of protein and more fiber than animal meat. However, they are not the same as whole foods in terms of nutrition.
When you eat a lentil, bean, or mushroom, you’re getting a lot of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients all at once. When you turn a pea into a texturized protein isolate, you lose some of its original nutritional value. You end up with a product that has been put back together from its parts, and it often has less nutritional variety than the whole food it came from.
Look at it this way. A black bean burger made at home with beans, onions, spices, and a whole-grain binder is very different from a lab-made patty that is supposed to taste like beef down to the last molecule. Both are “plant-based,” but they have very different nutritional profiles and effects on health.
A lot of customers are starting to get this point. “I switched my family to plant-based burgers because I thought they were healthier,” someone might say. “But then I really did read the label. The amount of salt shocked me. We’re trying to make more things from scratch now. You know, simple things? For example, lentil shepherd’s pie or bean chili. “It just feels better.”
Making a Smart Decision
So, what do you think? Are plant-based meats a healthy new idea or a processed trap? As is often the case, the truth is somewhere in the middle.
These foods can be very helpful for people who want to eat less meat. They are “transition foods” that make it easier to switch to a diet that is mostly plant-based. They have the tastes and textures that people are used to, which can be a big help in sticking to new eating habits. They are also better for the environment and have more fiber and less saturated fat than many meat products.
But they aren’t a cure-all for health problems. People need to be careful when they buy them, read the nutrition labels carefully, and remember that “plant-based” doesn’t always mean “healthy.” These are often heavily processed foods that are high in sodium and have a long list of extra ingredients.
In the end, the best way to stay healthy is still to eat a lot of whole, unprocessed foods like fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. Plant-based meats can be part of a healthy diet, maybe as a quick fix, but they shouldn’t be the main part of it. You need to see them for what they are: an amazing feat of food science, but not a replacement for real, whole food.
