The potential effects of meat substitution on diet quality could be high if meat substitutes are optimized for nutritional composition-a modeling study in French adults (INCA3).

Purpose: While consumer demand for meat substitutes is growing, their varied composition raises questions regarding their nutritional value. We aimed to identify and characterize the optimal composition of a meat substitute that would best improve diet quality after complete meat replacement.

Methods: From an average individual representing the dietary intake of French adults (INCA3, n = 1125), meat was replaced with an equivalent amount of a mostly pulse-based substitute, whose composition was based on a list of 159 possible plant ingredients and optimized non-linearly to maximize diet quality assessed with the PANDiet score (considering adequacy for 32 nutrients), while taking account of technological constraints and applying nutritional constraints to limit the risk of overt deficiency in 12 key nutrients.

Results: The optimized meat substitute contained 13 minimally processed ingredients. When used to substitute meat, the PANDiet score increased by 5.7 points above its initial value before substitution (versus - 3.1 to + 1.5 points when using other substitutes on the market), mainly because of higher intakes of nutrients that are currently insufficiently consumed (e.g., alpha-linolenic acid, fiber, linoleic acid) and a lower SFA intake. The meat substitute also mostly compensated for the lower provision of some indispensable nutrients to which meat greatly contributed (e.g., vitamin B6, potassium, bioavailable iron), but it could not compensate for bioavailable zinc and vitamin B12.

Conclusion: Choosing the correct ingredients can result in a nutritionally highly effective meat substitute that could compensate for reductions in many nutrients supplied by meat while providing key nutrients that are currently insufficiently consumed.