‘Plant-based foods sound healthy, but I’ve discovered some hidden dangers’

Recently while supermarket shopping, I noticed an entire new range of frozen foods. One particular box caught my eye, it had the words ‘Naked Prawns’ and a very enticing photo of prawns on the front. So intrigued I was, I put them in my trolley and purchased them at checkout.

When I got home and started unpacking my shopping I had a good look at what I thought was going to be my dinner until I saw the words … ‘Plant-Based’. Interesting!

I found the information on the box quite confusing. The product says it’s manufactured for an Australian Company. It’s also supposedly distributed by an Australian company. Then on the bottom right-hand corner of the back of the box, it revealed to me to be a ‘Product of Taiwan’.

By now I was so intrigued I opened the box. The contents inside looked nothing like prawns!

They did, however, resemble a packet of squashed worms. They bore absolutely no resemblance to the picture displayed on the front of the box that had first encouraged me to buy them.

I flipped the box over to read the ingredients. Plant-based prawns have water, potato starch, konjac powder, beta-glucan, pea starch, fenugreek, agave nectar, sea salt, sodium alginate, paprika and calcium hydroxide. They also contained 117 milligrams of sodium per 100 grams. That’s a lot of salt!

If people are allergic to seafood, my thoughts are that it would be healthier to avoid it altogether. If people are trying to avoid eating ‘meat’ of any kind, then I don’t know why they’d bother with this disappointing attempt at the real thing anyway. My purchase aside, anyone who would think this is better for them than real prawns … Good luck to you!

I became curious about plant-based meats. I have seen plant-based mince at the supermarket. It resembled shredded cardboard and was a horrible colour.

I found the ingredients of one heavily advertised plant-based burger were not listed anywhere on the fast-food chain’s website. I dug a lot deeper and found they contain myriad ingredients and what is seen as an unhealthy amount of glyphosate (which the World Health Organisation says it is carcinogenic to humans). How is that better for you than real mince?

I wonder when the penny will drop with a lot of the next generation. I feel we Baby Boomers are a resilient mob because none of this rubbish was around when we were growing up. Most of us were brought up on real meat and three veg and seafood was actually something that came out of the sea. Real food has served me well so far, so I will keep eating it.

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