Are plant-based meat alternatives the steppingstone to healthier and more sustainable diets?
Dietary changes are considered essential for feeding a growing global population within planetary boundaries. In high-income countries, shifts towards diets lower in meat and higher in plant-based proteins have been proposed as a win-win for both environmental and human health. While diets rich in whole plant foods such as legumes, nuts, and seeds are supported in the literature as key components of healthy and sustainable diets, less is known about the role of plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs) in such dietary patterns. PBMAs are manufactured products made from meat-free ingredients designed to replicate the taste, texture, and functionality of animal meat. Due to the ultra-processed nature of most PBMAs, little is known about their role in healthy and sustainable diets, as well as the adequacy of these foods as replacements for meat from a nutritional, health, environmental, and acceptability perspective. This webinar will explore PBMA consumption trends within the UK and Irish context, as well as how the nutritional profiles of PBMAs compare with animal meat, and the implications of full or partial replacement of meat with PBMAs from a nutritional, health, and environmental perspective. The webinar will close with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities associated with PBMAs.
What will I gain from this webinar?
- You will be able to describe the trends in consumption of plant-based meat alternatives in the UK and Ireland
- You will understand how plant-based meat alternatives compare nutritionally with animal meat and their implications on health and sustainability
- You will explore the challenges and opportunities of incorporating plant-based meat alternatives into the human diet.
Curriculum
- 1 Section
- 2 Lessons
- Lifetime
- Are plant-based meat alternatives the steppingstone to healthier and more sustainable diets?2
Instructor
Leona completed her bachelor’s degree in food studies and nutrition at the University of Leeds in 2013 and went on to work within the food industry as a Nutritionist, then as an Assistant Food Technologist at Sainsbury’s. She left Sainsbury’s to pursue a master’s in Global Health at The University of Gothenburg, Sweden. During the two-year master’s course, Leona undertook an internship at the Manhiça Health Research Centre in Mozambique where she completed qualitive data collection for her master’s thesis on mothers’ health literacy related to malnutrition in under 5-year-old children in southern Mozambique, with the findings published in Public Health Nutrition.
Upon completing her master’s, Leona began an internship at an Ethiopian based research consultancy company and went on to obtain a role there as a Programme Development Assistant. Keen to expand her knowledge in nutrition, Leona went on to start her PhD at Queen’s University, Belfast in 2020 under the supervision of Professor Jayne Woodside and Dr Anne Nugent. Her PhD is centered around the development of food-based dietary guidelines for sustainable and healthy lifestyles with a focus on the role that plant-based meat alternatives. Leona has presented her research at four Nutrition Society conferences, IUNS-ICN (2022) and FENS (2023), with abstracts published from each of the conferences.
