Mapping the evidence of novel plant-based foods: a systematic review of nutritional, health, and environmental impacts in high-income countries

Abstract

Context: Shifting from current dietary patterns to diets rich in plant-based (PB) foods and lower in animal-based foods (ABFs) is generally regarded as a suitable strategy to improve nutritional health and reduce environmental impacts. Despite the recent growth in supply of and demand for novel plant-based foods (NPBFs), a comprehensive overview is lacking.

Objectives: This review provides a synthesis of available evidence, highlights challenges, and informs public health and environmental strategies for purposeful political decision-making by systematically searching, analyzing, and summarizing the available literature.

Data sources: Five peer-reviewed databases and grey literature sources were rigorously searched for publications.

Data extraction: Study characteristics meeting the inclusion criteria regarding NPBF nutrient composition and health and environmental outcomes in high-income countries were extracted.

Data analysis: Fifty-seven peer-reviewed and 36 grey literature sources were identified; these were published in 2016-2022. NPBFs typically have substantially lower environmental impacts than ABFs, but the nutritional contents are complex and vary considerably across brands, product type, and main primary ingredient. In the limited evidence on the health impacts, shifts from ABFs to PB meats were associated with positive health outcomes. However, results were mixed for PB drinks, with links to micronutrient deficiencies.

Conclusion: If carefully selected, certain NPBFs have the potential to be healthier and nutrient-rich alternatives to ABFs and typically have smaller environmental footprints. More disaggregated categorization of various types of NPBFs would be a helpful step in guiding consumers and key stakeholders to make informed decisions. To enable informed policymaking on the inclusion of NPBFs in dietary transitions as part of a wider net-zero and health strategy, future priorities should include nutritional food standards, labelling, and subdivisions or categorizations of NPBFs, as well as short- and long-term health studies evaluating dietary shifts from ABFs to NPBFs and standardized environmental impact assessments, ideally from independent funders.

Keywords: climate change; climate change mitigation; dairy substitutes; diet change; environmental sustainability; health; meat substitutes; novel plant-based foods; plant-based; sustainable diets.