Are plant-based proteins really healthy?

Health has always been one of the most important issues to people, now more than ever. In fact, health is one of the driving forces behind the increased demand for plant-based food, together with the increasing awareness of environmental issues related to the excessive consumption of animal proteins. In fact, vegan and vegetarian diets have been popular for a long time now.

However, although most people believe that plant-based proteins and food are unquestionably healthy, they still doubt about their actual nutritional value. The company Mintel drew up an analysis titled “Fi Europe 2019: What’s next for plant-based diets?”, revealing that most people are confident in the health advantages of plant-based proteins, but question their nutritional value when compared to animal proteins. This issue has always sparked debates, as the general belief is that a predominantly plant-based diet cannot provide the right amount of protein and nutrition.

However, such concerns do not seem to be holding back the spread of plant-based diets, such as the flexitarian diet, which promotes larger consumption of plant-based proteins for their health benefits, combined with occasional consumption of meat and other animal proteins.

Health benefit of plant-based protein

Generally, plant proteins can be described as “incomplete” when compared to animal proteins, as they tend to have a lower amount of essential amino acids for humans. However, as stated in the research “Plant proteins as high-quality nutritional source for human diet” , if they are consumed in a complementary way bringing together the nine essential amino acids, foods containing plant proteins can provide adequate meals to meet our nutritional and protein needs. For example, legumes and cereals together make up a combination able to supply the nine essential amino acids.

Plus, although they are considered incomplete because less rich in amino acids, plant proteins generally contain much more fiber, less saturated fat and calories.

Increased consumption of plant proteins is associated with several benefits to our health. First of all, partially or completely replacing animal proteins with vegetable ones can lead to a reduction in the risk of diseases such as cancer and diabetes, for example associated to red meat. Moreover, they are indicated to fight diseases such as obesity, as they help to lose or maintain a constant body weight.

Besides being used as an alternative to animal proteins, vegetable proteins can bring health benefits that make them interesting regardless of the diet. For example, polyphenols contained in legumes have different biological antibacterial actions, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, antitumor properties as well as preventing cardiovascular diseases. Moreover, there are many scientific researches claiming that peptides of some vegetable proteins have anticancer properties. For example, according to the article “Anticancer activity of hydrophobic peptides from soy proteins”, by exposing soy proteins to a process of hydrolysis, we can obtain bioactive peptides with anticancer properties.

 

As we have seen, plant proteins have their own unique characteristics that can be beneficial to health. It is therefore easy to understand how there is an increase in the demand for foods containing proteins of plant origin, and how diets that encourage greater consumption of plant proteins are spreading. From this trend several other initiatives were born, such as Planet Based Diet, where WWF encourages the adoption and diffusion of plant-based diets, highlighting how good they are for health and sustainable for the planet, adapting to different countries and promoting local and seasonal crops.