Espinosa et al., 2024
- A systematic review of 93 studies on the health benefits of novel plant based foods published between 2016 and 2022
- NPBFs had substantially lower environmental footprint #Environment/GHG
- Health benefits were mixed, but studies generally showed that substituting them for animal products improved health
- plant based milks had weakest evidence for benefit, being occasionally linked to micronutrient deficiencies.
- Found grey literature using GFI, Green Queen and Google
- Only studies in high income countries
- Plant based meats generally had higher sugar, higher fibre, lower fat, similar calories and salt. A few NPBFs had extremely high levels of salt
- micronutrient values varied massively, but slight trend towards lower B12 but higher iron in NPBFs (particularly legume based). There were some that had higher B12 than animal foods.
- For PB mylks, lower levels of sat fat, lower calories, similar salt and in some cases lower sugar
- They typically matched dairy for calcium but not for iodine
