Yet another reason to skip the fake meat · Mind and Body Solutions

Yet another reason to skip the fake meat

If you needed another reason to choose whole-food protein over highly processed meat alternatives, here it is. A new study published in Food Control analyzed 212 plant-based meat alternatives and beverages purchased from UK retailers and tested them for 19 different mycotoxins, which are toxic compounds produced by molds that colonize crops and are notoriously difficult to eliminate through standard food processing.

Every single product contained at least one mycotoxin, and the co-occurrence of multiple toxins was the norm across all categories. Beauvericin, an emerging Fusarium toxin with known estrogenic and cytotoxic properties, was detected in 99% of plant-based meat alternatives. Two other emerging toxins, enniatin A and enniatin A1, each appeared in 94% of samples. Critically, most of these mycotoxins are unregulated in plant-based products specifically, meaning there are no legal limits and no systematic monitoring in place.

The complexity of these products, many of which contain more than 10 distinct ingredients including cereal flours, legume proteins, oils, and spice blends, means each ingredient can contribute its own mycotoxin load. This is yet another reason I recommend choosing minimally processed, whole-food sources of protein over what I'd characterize as highly engineered products designed to simulate the appearance of real food.

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