Which Bandwagon-Jumping Vegan/Veggie Burger Will Kill You Off Quickest?
With the whiff of Veganuary still in the air, the world’s crappiest fast-food joints have been predictably piling onto the vegan and vegetarian bandwagon.
Sure, it’s excellent news for cows and chickens - and having a few less farting cattle can’t be a bad thing for the climate.
But in their pursuit to recreate the taste of a beef burger or chicken nugget, they’ve also managed to replicate the crappy health levels of hyper-processed fast-food.
The question is: just how bad are these new meat-free offerings? Could they actually be even worse for you than the usual Big Macs and Whoppers?
We eventually managed to cajole the burger chains to send over full lists of ingredients which we passed onto Dr Aseem Malhotra, a leading cardiologist and food campaigner.
In-between performing heart transplants, Dr Aseem ranked these meals - the original and the vegetarian/vegan alternatives - into which was most likely to give you a cardiac, if you had to subsist off them.
Battle of the Bad Burgers
Ten meals from McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and Greggs were compared, as Dr Aseem explored the differences between the animal-free alternatives and their meat equivalents.
Shockingly, it was found that despite being widely assumed to be healthy alternatives, the meat-free meals are unhealthier for the heart.
Our key findings revealed:
🍔 The three meals most likely to cause heart disease are all vegetarian or vegan
🍔 The worst offender is the McDonald’s Veggie Dippers
🍔 The three meals least likely to cause cardiac damage are all meat-based
The Killer Risk
The key factor for Dr Malhotra - the biggest cardiac risk - is the carbohydrate to protein ratio in these foods. The higher this ratio is, the more likely it is to cause insulin resistance - meaning that the cells of the body become resistant to insulin, which Dr Malhotra describes as “the single biggest risk factor for the development of heart disease”.
This meant bad news for our meatless fast foods, all of which scored badly on the carbs to protein count, particularly when compared to their animal-equivalents.
For example, the McDonald’s Veggie Deluxe burger contains 52g of carbohydrates and 9g of protein - a noticeable difference to the Big Mac’s 46g of carbohydrates and 25g of protein.
Other health dangers in the ingredients list included high levels of sugar and ‘toxic’ oils - industrial vegetable or seed oils (such as sunflower, soybean and corn) high in omega 6 fatty acids which when heated produce compounds called aldehydes that "are strongly linked to heart disease, cancer and dementia”.
All of the foods, except Greggs Vegan Steak Bake, contain these oils, though the meat-free lattice has added sugar, unlike the original Steak Bake.
Vegan Hijacking
When it was more niche, vegan (and vegetarian) used to a decent indicator that something was going to be nutritious. But the recent explosion of veganism - and big companies now getting in on the animal-free act - means there’s a risk consumers are being lulled into thinking that ‘vegan’ equals healthy. Something that concerns the British Heart Foundation - with the charity noting some of these plant-based products can be laden in high levels of fat, salt and calories.
Perhaps the term vegan is now a red herring. The Vegan Society’s steer is to look for plant-based whole foods - whole grains, nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables. With no hyper-processing in sight.
When The Fast-Food Urge Strikes
But for when that fast-food urge does kick in, what advice does our cardiologist have for us? Well, it’s basically try not to succumb - whatever the make-up of the burger.
“People need to choose whole foods and avoid the ultra-processed stuff - which now makes up 50% of the British diet. There's nothing wrong with occasional treats but if we could keep these foods to under 10% then we'd go a long way to reducing the burden of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and obesity,” says Dr Malhotra.
When asked what he would choose to subsist on if he found himself trapped in a McDonald’s during a storm, Dr Malhotra replied: “I think you just fast and wait for the storm to pass. If you REALLY have to - and you can't fast and you don't want to wait for the storm to finish - then absolutely, if it was me, I'd eat the Big Mac.”
>> More on this: Awful Ultra-Processed Foods - Why They’re Sooo Bad For You
Quite like this? Sign up for the regular All Hail Kale newsletter
What does the UK government say?
Their recommended maximum daily amounts for adults are:
Energy: 2,000kcal
Total Fat: less than 70g
Saturates: less than 20g
Carbohydrate: at least 260g
Total sugars: 90g - this includes sugars from milk and fruit and added or free sugars.
Protein: 50g
Salt: less than 6g
(Source: BHF)
What Do the Companies Say?
Greggs: “Our Vegan Steak Bake is a further step towards expanding our Vegan Friendly range at Greggs whilst providing greater dietary choice in the food on-the-go sector. None of our vegan friendly options are positioned as the healthier alternative; they offer customers who are following a meat free or reduced meat diet a great tasting savoury snack. We display product nutritional information for all menu items on our shelf edges as well as on our website so that our customers are able to make more informed dietary choices.”
Subway: “The Subway menu offers guests a wide variety of Subs, salads and wraps to choose from. Everything is made to order in front of guests so they may change the bread, add or remove sauces, veggies and toppings, or turn any Sub into a salad. Full nutritionals are available on the Subway website.”
