Nikki Hart: nutritionist on the vegan products that harm the environment

Research has revealed some vegan alternative products are worse for the environment than meat and dairy.

Vegans hoping to save the planet should stick to eating beans and avoid almond milk and lab-grown meat, according to new reports from Oxford University.

Nutritionist Nikki Hart explains fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes are good for overall health and the climate - but they're best in their natural state.

"We don't want them to have been manipulated and to have been created with salt and preservatives and those kinds of things."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here we go. Research has found some vegan products are
worse for the environment than the real thing. Yeah. Oxford
University has examined twenty four foods used as substitutes for
meat and dairy and scored them on things like production
cost and land and water use. They found that almond
milk and lab grown meat like fake bacon and veggie

(00:23):
burgers aren't actually better for the environment, and in some
cases they're actually worse nutritionous Nicky Hert is with us, Now,
I killed a good evening hi cura. So just explain
to us, how are these alternative foods potentially worse for
the environment.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, it all comes down to ultraprocessing. Really. I mean,
we want you to eat a vast array of fruit
and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, all those kind of things,
but we want them mostly in their natural state. Jack.
We don't want them that they've been manipulated and have
been created with salt and preservatives and those kind of things.
So when I'm thinking about someone wanting to be a vegan,

(01:01):
I want them to look at the traditional cultures and
how they used to put their legumes and grains and
things together. That's what we're after we're not wanting all
these fake foods. That's not good at all.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah. So okay, so it comes down to the processing.
Does that mean that these foods are also worse for
your health? They're not just worse for the environment. Potentially,
they're potentially worse for your health than the real thing
as well.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Absolutely. I mean I think it all started when we
began to see this ground swell around climate crisis, and
everybody was thinking, Okay, what can I do? What's my
part to play in protecting the planet, And so there
was this huge swell of all these new products. But
we began to think, well, hang on a minute, they're
better than there's some of their parts, Like, for example,

(01:44):
a lot of these fake products don't contain adequate sources
of protein. And you know, we've got an aging pop population.
We don't want the loss of mass or their bones
to be at or compromised because they're trying to do
something right when in fact it could be bad for
their health.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Almonds are the big one for me. I mean, I
don't mind a little almond from time to time, but
it's ridiculous, like to make one almond, you just kind
of you need like topol right, it's a ridiculous amount.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Of water, exactly right. So if you're wanting to use
plant milk because you ethically don't want to eat drink
cow's milk, then the next one along that I would
suggest people try is a soy milk because at least
it is from a legum and has adequate sources of
protein and calcium. The other ones are not so much.

(02:30):
And I think there's less problems with soy than there
is the light the likes of almond.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
And I got to read the label because sometimes with
the sour milks they get a lot of sugar in
them sometimes.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Exactly right, you know, exactly. So this is more about
can people just eat a natural based food source like
I would rather you eat almonds and drink milk, Or
if you're wanting to be a vegan, then use chickpeas
and put them into a curry with rice and brown
rice and so you get all your amene acids. So

(03:00):
it's not just I mean, if I was a vegan,
I don't think i'd want to tweet something called not
bacon because that just sounds wrong. You know.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
My attitude is and this isn't really a scientific editude
but my attitude is you can't get something for nothing, right,
So anytime anytime you think you're getting something that tastes
like super delicious without the calories or like you know,
environmental or nutritional impact, is the real thing something that's
pretending to be something that isn't Nana, there's officialkin there.
That's what I reckon.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, and so for me, you know, we know jack
a Mediterranean style diet or one that's called the DASH diet,
which is dietary approaches to against hypertension. Those are the
only two diets that are actually recommended by healthcare professionals,
dietitians and nutritionists because we know that their whole and
they're natural, and it's you know, it's it's balanced, and

(03:49):
that's what we need everybody to be thinking about.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Very good. Hey, thanks for your time, Niki. We appreciate it.
Nutrition is nikiy Heart there with the Asceni. For more
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