People who eat a vegetarian diet tend to consume more ultra-processed foods (UPFs) than those who eat meat, a study has found.
Researchers at Imperial College London looked at data on the eating habits of 200,000 people taken from the UK Biobank.
They found vegetarians consumed a “significantly higher” amount of UPFs compared to the diets of low red meat eaters, flexitarians, and pescatarians.
UPFs often contain high levels of saturated fat, salt and sugar and additives, which experts say leaves less room in people’s diets for more nutritious foods. Examples include ice cream, processed meats, biscuits, crisps and mass-produced bread.
These UPFs also tend to include additives and ingredients that are not used when people cook from scratch, such as preservatives, emulsifiers and artificial colours and flavours.
Previous studies have linked UPFs to an increased risk of obesity, heart disease, cancer and early death.
The team at Imperial found that consumption of UPFs represented more than 20 per cent of daily food intake and more than 46 per cent of daily energy intake in all types of diet among those studied.
Consumption of UPFs among vegans was not “significantly different” from those of regular red meat eaters, the authors wrote, but their consumption of minimally processed foods was 3.2 percentage points higher.
Researchers also warned that the increasing consumption of plant-based milk and meat alternatives was “concerning”, as UPFs “produced purely from plant-derived substances are increasingly promoted by the UPF industry as healthy and sustainable alternatives to mobilise consumers’ transition away from meat-based diets”.
They added: “It is, therefore, important that urgently needed policies that address food system sustainability also promote rebalancing diets towards minimally processed foods away from UPFs.”
Meat tends to undergo less processing as it looks and tastes good in its natural state, the authors said, though eating meat has a significantly more harmful impact on the climate.
The findings come amid a fierce debate over the increasing consumption of UPFs.
Last month, two experts from the universities of Aberdeen and Liverpool co-wrote an article which warned that research around UPFs is still in its infancy and more needs to be known before people are told to stop consuming them.
The article, written by Professor Eric Robinson of the University of Liverpool and Professor Alexandra Johnstone of the University of Aberdeen, states there is a potential “social cost for many people with more limited resources” of removing convenient food options.
They also claimed that “avoiding some types of UPFs” could lead some people to choose alternatives “that are higher in energy or macronutrients of concern”.
But Robert F Kennedy, the controversial nominee for US Health Secretary in the incoming Trump administration, has pledged to crack down on ultra-processed food and accused the food industry of carrying out the “mass poisoning” of the American public.
The paper was published in eClinicalMedicine on Wednesday.
