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The potential effects of meat substitution on diet quality could be high if meat substitutes are optimized for nutritional composition—a modeling study in French adults (INCA3)

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European Journal of Nutrition Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

While consumer demand for meat substitutes is growing, their varied composition raises questions regarding their nutritional value. We aimed to identify and characterize the optimal composition of a meat substitute that would best improve diet quality after complete meat replacement.

Methods

From an average individual representing the dietary intake of French adults (INCA3, n = 1125), meat was replaced with an equivalent amount of a mostly pulse-based substitute, whose composition was based on a list of 159 possible plant ingredients and optimized non-linearly to maximize diet quality assessed with the PANDiet score (considering adequacy for 32 nutrients), while taking account of technological constraints and applying nutritional constraints to limit the risk of overt deficiency in 12 key nutrients.

Results

The optimized meat substitute contained 13 minimally processed ingredients. When used to substitute meat, the PANDiet score increased by 5.7 points above its initial value before substitution (versus − 3.1 to + 1.5 points when using other substitutes on the market), mainly because of higher intakes of nutrients that are currently insufficiently consumed (e.g., alpha-linolenic acid, fiber, linoleic acid) and a lower SFA intake. The meat substitute also mostly compensated for the lower provision of some indispensable nutrients to which meat greatly contributed (e.g., vitamin B6, potassium, bioavailable iron), but it could not compensate for bioavailable zinc and vitamin B12.

Conclusion

Choosing the correct ingredients can result in a nutritionally highly effective meat substitute that could compensate for reductions in many nutrients supplied by meat while providing key nutrients that are currently insufficiently consumed.

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Data availability

The datasets of the INCA3 survey are available at data.gouv.fr.

Abbreviations

ALA:

Alpha-linolenic acid

ANSES:

French agency for food, environmental and occupational health and safety

AS:

Adequacy sub-score

CIQUAL:

French information centre on food quality

INCA3:

Third individual and national study on food consumption survey

LA:

Linoleic acid

MS:

Moderation sub-score

PANDiet:

Probability of adequate nutrient intake

SFA:

Saturated fatty acids

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Nutritional Epidemiology Research Team (EREN) at Université Paris 13, France for supplying the nutritional compositions of plant-based substitutes extracted from the food composition table of the NutriNet-Santé Study.

Funding

MS’s PhD fellowship is currently being funded in part by a research contract with Terres Univia, the French Interbranch organization for plant oils and proteins. FM is the scientific leader of this contract.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université Paris-Saclay, AgroParisTech, INRAE, UMR PNCA, 16 rue Claude Bernard, 75005, Paris, France

    Marion Salomé, François Mariotti, Alison Dussiot, Jean-François Huneau & Hélène Fouillet

  2. Université Paris-Saclay, INRAE, AgroParisTech, UMR SayFood, 91300, Massy, France

    Marie-Charlotte Nicaud & Marie-Noëlle Maillard

  3. Sorbonne Paris Nord University, INSERM U1153, INRAE U1125, CNAM, Nutritional Epidemiology Research Team (EREN), Epidemiology and Statistics Research Center—University of Paris (CRESS), Bobigny, France

    Emmanuelle Kesse-Guyot

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  1. Marion Salomé
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  2. François Mariotti
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Contributions

MS, HF and FM designed the research; MS, HF et M-CN conducted the research; MS, HF et FM analyzed data; AD, EK-G, M-NM and J-FH provided methodological support; MS wrote the first draft of the manuscript and all authors provided critical comments on the manuscript. MS, FM and HF had primary responsibility for the final content and all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to François Mariotti.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethical approval

The INCA3 study was carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki guidelines and was approved by the ‘Comité Consultatif sur le Traitement de l’Information en matière de Recherche dans le domaine de la Santé’ (Advisory Committee on Information Processing in Health Research).

Consent to participate

For the data collection of the INCA3 survey, oral consent was obtained, witnessed and formally recorded from participants.

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Salomé, M., Mariotti, F., Nicaud, MC. et al. The potential effects of meat substitution on diet quality could be high if meat substitutes are optimized for nutritional composition—a modeling study in French adults (INCA3). Eur J Nutr 61, 1991–2002 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-021-02781-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-021-02781-z

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