I’m trying to quit cold turkey.
Hey there meat wads, Julian here for DNews.
For many of us in the United States, Thanksgiving means putting up with our relatives long enough
to grab some of that sweet, sweet turkey and honey glazed ham.
But for someone who has dietary restrictions or objections to eating animals, even that
simple holiday pleasure is denied.
Unless of course, they replace it with a turkey made of tofu (a tofurky) or a ham made of
some sort of meat analogue (a hamalogue).
On a nutritional level though, do these meat substitutes have the chops to replace the
real thing?
It’s hard to pin down exactly how healthy meat analogues are because there are quite
a few ways to skin a cat… or cow… or tofurkey.
There’s risofu made of rice, tempeh made of soy, and a wheat-gluten product called
seitan, so yes, some vegetarian dishes are literally the spawn of seitan.
But the one most familiar to non-vegetarians is tofu, made from coagulated soy milk that’s
pressed into blocks.
For nutritional value, tofu and meat can trade punches all day long.
Meat is the muscle tissue of an animal and contains a lot more protein than tofu.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, gram for gram 80% lean ground
beef has more than double the protein of tofu, while chicken contains over triple the protein.
On the other hand, both those meats have nearly triple the fat as tofu, and processed meats
like sausage have way more fat, sometimes even more fat than protein.
Plus tofu’s fat is mostly unsaturated, which is better for lowering cholesterol.
Your body can happily use tofu to make proteins because tofu contains the 9 essential amino
acids you can’t make on your own, but there are some things faux meat can’t do as well
as the real thing.
For instance, tofu is higher in iron than chicken, but the iron in chicken and other
meat is bundled up in heme, aka the red pigment in your blood that binds to oxygen and gives
hemoglobin its name.
I think it goes without saying that plants don’t have blood, so the iron in tofu is
nonheme and isn’t as easily used.
To get the most iron out of non-meat sources, it’s necessary to supplement them with vitamin
C, which combines with the iron in a form your body more readily absorbs.
Speaking of vitamins, a meat-free diet makes it really difficult to get enough vitamin
B12, so if you’re eating tofurky or the Ham of Seitan you’ll need a way to supplement
it.
A B12 deficiency can have a host of symptoms like tiredness, numbness, tingling, vision
loss, constipation, and diarrhea (though obviously not at the same time for those last two).
A vegetarian won’t necessarily have to worry about that because B12 is still present in
eggs and dairy products but vegans eat absolutely no animal products.
There are dairy substitutes like soy or almond milk but they’re still missing that essential
vitamin unless they’re fortified with it.
As long as they’re careful about filling in the gaps of a meat-free diet, vegetarians
and vegans should be able to feast with their carnivorous relatives and still have a balanced
diet.
One day though, there may be meat that’s completely cruelty free because it was grown
in a petri dish, eliminating the need for the president to pardon a turkey ever again.
Now whether or not vegetarians and vegans will accept these meat clones because of their
“unnatural” nature is another matter altogether.
So you're body can get along just fine without the real meat but your tastebuds know the
difference.
Unless we can trick them!
To find out more about meatless meat, check out Seeker Stories video right there.
Have you tried the faux fowl or would you rather talk and eat real turkey?
Let us know in the comments, subscribe for more and I will see you all next time on DNews.
Happy Thanksgiving!