Background: the growing awareness of the health and environmental benefits of plant-based diets has increased interest in plant-based
meat analogues (PBMA), which are nowadays broadly available on the Italian market. Nevertheless, there is a lack of their complete
composition data. The aim of the work is to present the newly developed food composition database on PBMA and apply it to 2 hypothetical
meal scenarios.
Methods: the food composition database was created from 255 commercial products whose label information was previously collected1.
It includes the mean energy and nutrient composition of 37 PBMA, grouped based on typology, main ingredients, and nutritional profile.
Food composition was imputed using food label information combined with the standard recipe approach2. A fast-food meal with burger
and bacon, and a meal containing steak developed according to dietary guidelines3 were analysed for energy and nutrient content when
meat products were replaced with 2 versions (low and high protein content) of PBMA counterparts.
Results: regardless of meat or PBMA presence, all fast-food meals are higher in lipids and lower in fibre than the guideline-based meals.
However, the fast-food meal with meat has higher energy (812 vs. 761 and 793 kcal), lipid (43 vs. 36 and 32% En) and β-carotene (155
vs. 645 and 198 μg), and lower fibre (4.7 vs. 12.4 and 11.0 g) than the fast-food meals with low and high protein PBMA, respectively.
The composition of the guideline meal with steak is similar to the corresponding meal where steak was replaced with high protein PBMA
(729 vs. 765 kcal; 22 vs. 23% En from proteins; 27 vs. 25% En from lipids; 3168 vs. 3189 μg of β-carotene). The meal where steak
was replaced with low protein PBMA has lower energy (686 kcal) and protein (13% En), higher lipids (31% En) and β-carotene (4977
μg) than the steak meal.
Conclusions: when PBMA are chosen as alternatives to meat, their nutritional composition needs to be considered. Therefore, the
recommendation of reducing meat consumption and its substitution with plant-based foods may be misleading if not associated with
adequate nutritional literacy.
1Cutroneo et al. Front. Nutr. 2022,9:852831.
2Fiori et al. Nutrients 2022,14:4171.
3CREA. Linee Guida per una sana Alimentazione Italiana 2018.
