Vegetarians consume more ultra-processed food than those who regularly eat meat, study finds

A small team of public health officials at Imperial College London, working with colleagues from the University of São Paulo, and the France-based International Agency for Research on Cancer, has found evidence showing that people in the U.K. eating a mostly vegetarian diet, tend to eat more ultra-processed food than do those who also eat meat.

In their paper published in eClinicalMedicine, the group describes how they studied data in the UK Biobank project and what they learned from it about consumption of ultra-processed foods in the U.K.

Prior research has shown that consumers in many Western countries are cutting back on the consumption of meat, and in so, are moving to a more plant-based diet. Reasons for the move range from a desire to eat healthier to wanting to eat more ethically, or because the price of meat has risen to the point where it is too expensive.

Unfortunately, such a move is not always healthier. In this new effort, the research team found that vegetarians and vegans in the U.K. are eating more ultra-processed food than people who also eat meat.

Vegetarianism is often equated to eating a lot of fruits, nuts, and vegetables. In practice, that might be the case, but often it also includes the consumption of ultra-processed foods such as breakfast cereals, candy bars, noodles, fake meats, and pizza.

Such foods have been found to contain a host of added, sometimes unhealthy, compounds and chemicals to enhance taste, improve texture, help with freshness, or simply make them look more appetizing. Meat, on the other hand, tends to undergo less processing because it looks and tastes good in its natural state.

To learn more about eating habits in the U.K., healthy and otherwise, the researchers looked at data from 200,000 people whose patient information about eating habits are stored in the UK Biobank project. They found that people eating a vegetarian or vegan diet were also eating more ultra-processed food than those who regularly ate meat. Such a finding suggests that the health gains made by eating less red meat were being lost due to the health hazards found in ultra-processed foods.

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