You are right. The new Canada’s Food Guide does recommend having meat alternatives often as part of a healthy eating pattern.  Meat alternatives provide iron, zinc, magnesium, protein, and B vitamins, the same nutrients found in beef, poultry, pork, or fish. Meat alternatives include legumes, such as kidney beans, black beans, chickpeas (garbanzo beans), pinto beans, lentils and split peas, as well as nuts, seeds, eggs, and soy-based products like tofu, tempeh, and textured vegetable protein (TVP).

Many of these products may be new to you, but can be found in your local grocery store and are often cheaper to buy than meat.

There are many reasons why Canada’s Food Guide highlights meat alternatives. Meat alternatives are lower in saturated fat, which tends to raise people’s cholesterol levels and is linked to poorer heart heath. Legumes, nuts and seeds are also high in fibre, which is typically low in people’s diets. Although meat alternatives such as nuts, seeds, and tofu are relatively high in calories and fat, the type of fat is mostly unsaturated fat. Both unsaturated fat and fibre can positively influence health. Limiting serving sizes of nuts and seeds to ¼ cup, as recommended in Canada’s Food Guide, can help to control calories while still including the nutritional benefits of these foods.

Dietitians of Canada and the American Dietetic Association completed a review on the benefits of vegetarian diets in 2003. They found that vegetarians, or people who did not eat meat, had lower rates of death from heart disease, and lower rates of high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers. However, you don’t need to become a vegetarian to enjoy the health benefits of meat alternatives. Making a few of your weekly meals meatless is not only consistent with recommendations in the new Canada’s Food Guide; it can also save you money.

Try to increase the number of meatless meals you eat each week and include meat alternatives as snacks. If you find it challenging to come up with ideas for meatless meals for your family, here are some suggestions to help you get started:

• Substitute legumes for some of the meat in a soup, stew, or casserole. For example, decrease the amount of ground beef in chili and double the amount of kidney beans, or add another type of bean. Add lentils to your spaghetti sauce or substitute black beans for some of the chicken in a stir-fry.
•  Top a salad for lunch with chickpeas or black beans, a hard boiled egg, or a couple of tablespoons of almonds or sunflower seeds. 
•  Use canned instead of dried beans for quicker meal preparation. Be sure to rinse the beans first to reduce the amount of sodium (salt) that they contain. 
• Opt for hummus or lower fat refried beans as a dip for your vegetables or crackers. 
• Grab ¼ cup of nuts, roasted chickpeas, or soy nuts as a snack. 
• Try bean burritos with lower fat refried beans or black beans instead of tacos for a tasty alternative.

Written by Heather Harvey, RD as published in the Windsor Star, May 2007.