Chef-Led Study Finds Real Beef More Nutritious and Tastier than Plant-based Burgers

Plant-based beef burgers may trump meat from cattle in the sustainability stakes, but when it comes to taste and nutritional value, the original still wins every time.

That's the headline finding of a new study conducted by U.S. food product consultancy Chew, which is headed by a chef and staffed by food scientists of various stripes.

The Boston-based firm's 'Plant-Based Burger Report Card' compared nine of the top-selling analog patties in the U.S., plus a 'control' burger by Bubba Foods made from animal-derived ground beef.

The Report Card was compiled through a combination of blind taste testing and analysis of each product's listed ingredients and nutrition facts. The original “beef” burger was consistently rated higher than its plant-based competitors.

EDITOR’S TAKE:

Rest assured that some folks will continue to prefer the plant-based alternative. They obviously have their own reasons for making that choice. In the final analysis, both plant-based burgers and real burgers are products of agriculture and benefit farmers/ranchers. That said, the research led by chefs, in this case, clearly suggests that most people, given the choice, still prefer the real thing!