Meat that is not meat begins to sneak into the plate

[Inkriql]

Same color, almost same texture. The fake burgers of Beyond Meat have landed in Spain after the success harvested in the United States, where this company has been released on the Stock Exchange with a revaluation of 163%. This vegetable substitute, with a somewhat sweeter taste and without the typical juice that falls when biting a vaccine burger, is already considered one of the best achieved examples of “lying meat”. Not only does it yearn to gain a foothold in the market, it also promises to improve human and animal health and reduce environmental impact. "Who said meat has to come from cows?" Reads the product presentation video.

Beyond Meat (beyond meat, in Castilian), which also produces sausages and substitutes of shredded and minced meat - without soy and gluten-free - is neither the first nor the last company that has launched into the veggie world. So have fast food giants like McDonald's or Burger King.

There is cake for everyone: the appetite for alternative meat products increases and this market is expected to reach 4.5 billion euros by 2020 worldwide, according to Lantern consultancy. The demand is driven by vegetarians, vegans and especially flexitarians (who consume meat sporadically).
Alba Santaliestra, president of the Scientific Committee of the Spanish Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, says that products based on plant ingredients represent a “great way” to achieve a healthier diet, but advises that their elaborations are homemade as far as possible. "Products from plant foods are increasing in supermarkets, and under the claim 'of plant origin', the consumer believes they are healthier, but they are also processed foods," he warns. "Sometimes it is very difficult for the consumer to discern whether they are nutritionally adequate."

Estefanía Erro, Marketing and Commercial Director of the National Center for Technology and Food Safety (CNTA), explains that these new hamburgers are usually made from vegetable proteins mainly from soybeans and peas, to which ingredients such as oil are added of coconut, cocoa butter, vegetable fibers, aromas and dyes.

The difference with those of tofu or other vegetables, he explains, is that they seek a sensory experience similar to that of meat so that we cannot distinguish them. "Obtaining a fibrous texture from vegetable proteins has become one of the biggest challenges for the food industry," he says.

Although I have not yet arrived in Europe, there is already a vegan hamburger capable of bleeding. It is the one that produces the American start-up Impossible Foods. Your secret? Leghemoglobin, a protein contained in legumes that participates in the symbiosis between the plant and nitrogen fixing bacteria. “It is used as an additive to give a color and flavor similar to that of meat,” explains Sandra González, an R&D researcher at CNTA. "However, to achieve it in a sustainable way, it is necessary to resort to a genetic modification of a yeast, which includes the gene responsible for the synthesis of soy leghemoglobin." Therefore, in the EU they are prohibited.

In the last 50 years, global meat consumption has skyrocketed, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an evolution fostered both by the increase in po[CENSORED]tion and the improvement in purchasing power. Today, developing countries boost consumption, but industrialized countries are still the ones who eat the most meat.

This August, the international panel of experts that advises the UN on climate change (IPCC) warned that the current food model is unsustainable and urged the world po[CENSORED]tion to change their diets. In 2018, Spaniards reduced their meat intake by 2.6% compared to the previous year, in line with the decline that began in 2008, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. However, per capita consumption remained high: 46.19 kilos in 2018 (12.6 kilos of them of chicken), compared to the recommendation of no more than 26 kilos of WHO.

According to Alma Palau, president of the General Council of Official Associations of Dietitians-Nutritionists, this decrease registered in Spain is due to greater consumer awareness rather than price - meat usually loses weight in the shopping basket in times of crisis at be more expensive compared to other foods.

"Consumption is reduced by the constant message that it improves our health and that of the planet," he says. In 2015, WHO stated that processed meats such as hamburgers or sausages increase the risk of cancer, and that red meat is probably carcinogenic. Palau recalls that the recommended consumption is 500 grams per week (two or three servings), “mostly white meat, and two or three servings per month of meat