Pat Brown: Critics are missing the point. Our product is substantially healthier for the consumer than what it replaces: A burger made from a cow, not a kale salad.
JADE SCIPIONI: What does the founder and CEO of Impossible Foods have to say to critics who say his and other plant-based burgers are really just vegan junk food? “It’s bulls—-,” Pat Brown tells CNBC Make It. Impossible Foods, along with Beyond Meat and other plant-based meat competitors, tout their products as healthy alternatives to animal protein. And people are eating it up, literally — according to new data from Nielsen, sales of plant-based meat alternatives have grown nearly 25% from July 11, 2019 to July 11, 2020, bringing in roughly $601.4 million in sales during that period.
But a chorus of critics from health experts to food industry executives say plant-based meat is heavily processed and high in sodium and fat… But such critics are missing the point, according to Brown: “Our product is substantially better for the consumer than what it replaces,” he tells CNBC Make It. “What it replaces is a burger made from a cow, not a kale salad. So, if you’re saying this is not like the ultimate ‘superfood,’ you’re right,” he says. “But it’s intended to be a product that is healthier for the consumer than a burger made from a cow [and] better for the planet than a burger made from a cow. And for many consumers, more delicious. “That’s the goal,” Brown says…
Dr. Frank Hu, chair of the nutrition department at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, says that while some of the Impossible burger’s stats are the same or better than a beef burger, plant-based meats do have “higher amounts of sodium”… However, Hu believes plant-based meat can offer a “viable option” for individuals who want to reduce their meat consumption. Diets high in red meat (especially processed meats) are associated with a range of health problems like obesity, Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers. “For some people, they can be used as ‘transition foods’ to a healthier diet with less animal foods and more plant foods,” Hu says…
(In response to critics, a spokesperson for Beyond Meat points out its products and ingredients are non-GMO, hormone- and antibiotic-free and designed to “meet, if not exceed, the nutritional profile of their animal protein equivalents….”) Brown, a renowned geneticist, left his job as a professor emeritus of biochemistry at Stanford in 2011 to launch Impossible Foods. He was was nearly 60 at the time, but Brown says he took the leap because he was increasingly alarmed by the destructive impact meat production was having on the environment and wanted to create a solution. SOURCE…
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