Buying lower fat ‘vegetarian’ meals
Fat – The Basics
“Vegetarian foods often contain textured vegetable protein e.g. soya, wheat, pea or mycoprotein (Quorn®) as a meat-alternative”, explains nutritionist Pinal Patel.
She adds, “mycoprotein is a member of the fungi family and products containing Quorn® will usually contain some egg and milk too”.
“Although soya protein and mycoprotein are low fat healthy alternatives to meat, other ingredients (e.g. cheese) can considerably increase the calorie content of products containing thesevegetable protein”, warns Pinal.
“Other vegetarian foods may use nuts as the meat alternative, or they may simply contain vegetables, or cheese and vegetables – nuts (40% fat) and cheeses (up to 35% fat in Cheddar-type cheese) are both high in calories. A pasta and vegetable bake can contain 450 calories (20% fat) per item”.
2 vegeburgers (~100g) or one vegetarian fillet (~100g) is 1 Nutrition Card® portion from the Meat & alternative group
Common Fat Myths and Misconceptions
- “Vegetarian foods are low fat” – Nuts, cheese and added fat can considerably increase the fat content of any food, including ‘vegetarian’ products.
Fat -Tips and Tricks
- Grill rather than fry vegeburgers, grills or vegesausages to help keep the fat content down.
- Check the fat content per 100g to help you choose lower fat meat-free alternatives. A guideline figure is 9% fat (9g fat per 100g) maximum, but you will find many lower fat meat-alternative foods containing 5% or less fat.
- Cheese-containing meat-free alternatives will usually be high in fat so do watch out for these products.
- Serve meat-alternative products (e.g. vegeburgers) with a large portion of colourful salad or vegetables and something from the starch food group e.g. rice, couscous, potato).