====== bj baji ====== Eating this ultraprocessed food may be good for you and the planet, experts say [[https://bajilive-casino.com/|baji 7777 live login]] Plant-based meats have an image problem. It’s not flavor or appearance. Look-alike beef burgers, chicken-like nuggets and faux pork sausages often cook like meat — some even bleed and sizzle in the pan — and are tasty enough to be gobbled up by climate-conscious carnivores. It’s not their role in saving the planet. According to the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting alternative proteins, replacing a beef burger with a plant-based patty can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 98% and land use by up to 97%. Yet after an initial surge of consumer interest, the alt-protein market in the United States has recently slowed, according to some estimates. Why the sudden sour taste? “Doctors and dietitians are reluctant to consider alternative proteins when advising patients on nutrition because they view these foods as ultraprocessed,” said nutrition scientist Roberta Alessandrini, director of the Dietary Guidelines Initiative at PAN International — Physicians Association for Nutrition — in Zurich, Switzerland. “Yet if carefully chosen, these foods can be a valid and helpful way to shift toward more plant-forward diets, which are good for people and the planet,” said Alessandrini, coauthor of a new report on plant-based meats by PAN International and the Good Food Institute. Encouraging consumers to swap their beloved animal flesh for plant alternatives is increasingly critical, experts say. Global meat production and demand — a leading contributor to climate change — is projected to rise by up to 52% by 2050 compared with 2012 levels, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “There’s such great urgency related to climate change, environmental degradation and public health that we need to give people as many options as possible, including plant-based meat alternatives,” said leading nutrition researcher Dr. Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Studies show eating a plant-first diet — the award-winning Mediterranean diet is an example — can reduce the risk for diabetes, high cholesterol, dementia, memory loss, depression, breast cancer and more. “The fat composition of beef is so undesirable for health that it’s very easy to be better than that,” Willett said. “Animal products not only have too much saturated fat but lack polyunsaturated fat, fiber and many of the minerals and vitamins available in plants. “Any other important nutrients beef has that plants lack, such as vitamin B12, can be added to the plant-based meat alternatives, much as we fortify milk with vitamin D and A,” he added. “So I think we really need to look at each one of these novel products on its own merits.”