Is plant-based meat ultra-processed?

Most are. A plant burger is usually built from a protein that’s been pulled out of soy or peas, held together with a thickener and seasoned with flavorings, and any one of those puts it in group 4. In a 2023 count of German supermarkets, 88% of plant-based meat products had at least one marker, against 52% of the meat products they copy. But in a US trial, swapping them in for red meat still lowered LDL cholesterol.

People switch to plant-based meat to eat better, then see a headline saying it’s ultra-processed and feel tricked. Others see the same headline and decide a beef burger must be the healthier pick. Both mix up two questions. The group says how the burger was made. Whether it’s a good swap depends on what it replaces and what’s in it.

We’d treat plant burgers and sausages like any other packaged staple. They’re a fine swap for red and processed meat a few times a week, and beans, lentils and tofu are better still. If you eat plant-based every day, build most meals on tofu, tempeh, beans, lentils and whole grains, and use the packaged versions for the nights you want a burger.

It’s like the difference between a bean and a bean chip. Both come from the same plant, and only one of them still looks like it.

Why most of them are group 4

NOVA’s list of ingredients a kitchen doesn’t use names “soya protein isolate” among the proteins that mark a food as ultra-processed, next to whey and casein. Flavorings and thickeners are on the list of cosmetic additives. A plant burger usually has at least one of the three.

In the German count, flavors were the most common marker, on 70% of the plant-based products. 77% had at least one ingredient a kitchen doesn’t use, like an isolate, and 63% had another cosmetic additive, like a thickener. The same count found dextrose was the most common marker in the meat versions, on 41% of them. These were German shelves in 2022, so for the pack in your hand, the label checker will tell you.

What happened when people swapped

In the SWAP-MEAT trial at Stanford, 36 adults ate at least two servings a day of plant-based meat for 8 weeks and the same amount of red meat for 8 weeks, keeping the rest of their diet as similar as they could. On the plant-based weeks, their LDL cholesterol averaged 110 mg/dL against 121 on the meat weeks, and they weighed about 2 pounds less. A plant-based meat company paid for the trial with a research gift, and the people chose the rest of their own food rather than eating on a ward, so the result is less exact than a ward trial’s.

The bigger picture

In a 2024 study of 126,842 adults in the UK Biobank, every extra 10% of calories from plant foods that weren’t ultra-processed went with 7% less heart disease. Every extra 10% from plant foods that were ultra-processed went with 5% more. Meat alternatives were a tiny part of that second group, about 0.2% of calories. Most of it was packaged bread, pastries, cakes and cookies.

The US Dietary Guidelines say the same thing in plain words. Their advice for vegetarians and vegans is to eat a variety of whole foods, “especially protein-rich foods, such as dairy, eggs, beans, peas, lentils, legumes, nuts, seeds, tofu, or tempeh”, and to “significantly limit highly processed vegan or vegetarian foods”.

The plant aisle, by label

What we’d do

• Use plant burgers to replace red and processed meat, not beans or tofu.
• Build most plant meals on whole foods, like beans, lentils, tofu and tempeh. protein.guide shows how to get enough protein from plants.
• Check the pack, since some plant products have much shorter lists than others, and the label checker lights up the markers.
• Judge it by what’s in it too. Compare protein, fiber, salt and saturated fat with what it replaces. Processing isn’t the same thing as nutrition explains why.