Is Vegan / Raw /Natural Healthier ?
Plant-based sundae with strawberry and chocolate sauce, and chocolate buttons. Melted before I even managed to take a pic.
Catch words like plant-based, vegan, natural, raw, freeze dried, healthy, etc. are an easy way for companies to charge premium, but are they really healthier? Not always.
It can take more processing and require a longer list of ingredients, such as emulsifiers to achieve a certain consistency when using alternative products, e.g. gluten-free, vegan.
Honey, agave, maple syrup, date extract and brown sugar are just sugar with a fancy name. However, your body doesn't recognise the name, only your wallet does, because they are simple sugars that are all metabolised in the same way.
Also, there is some research suggesting that calorie-free sweeteners and emulsifiers often used in healthy-marketed products negatively interfere with the gut microbiota.
I hate talking about calories, because food is so much more than that, but things like plant-based desserts often contain more calories than normal desserts. This is because of a heavy reliance on nuts for example, e.g. cashew cream used for plant-based cheesecake and many other desserts. Nuts are great, but they are calorie-dense, so it is better to eat them whole rather than processed, as you can easily consume more than intended. Similarly like fruit is better consumed whole than juiced.
Talking about fruit, freeze-dried fruit is just a more expensive, fibre-poor and sugar-dense version of fruit.
There is no evidence proving that organic is always healthier or more nutritious. It depends on so many things, like the quality of soil, the season, what is being grown, where in the world, etc, etc.
At the end of the day, we are spending more because we are worried-well. This means worrying about health when you are healthy and nothing is really wrong. While in a way it is good to be cautious and preventative, this whole spiral has gone too far, resulting in people splashing money left, right and centre for things that have no legitimate, supported health claims.
Maybe it’s time to think of our wallets’ health too?
