You may have heard the expression knowledge is power.

Well, today we're gonna give you more power to control your diet and lifestyle by giving you the facts.

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast.

I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

Today we continue our series looking at the human health effects of plant-based meats.

We start out with the effects of plant-based meats on premature puberty, childhood obesity, and hip fracture risk.

As noted, editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association on plant-based meat alternatives,

just looking at the nutrition facts in full of regular burger versus beyond meat or the impossible burger,

you wouldn't necessarily be able to predict the health consequences without further studies.

But we've had plant-based meat alternatives for over a century.

I mean, wouldn't want to can a good eating proto.

It is, after all, the modern vegetable meat patent filed by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg in 1899.

Of course, products such as tofu and tempeh existed in Asia for centuries.

But I think of those as separate foods in their own right, as opposed to products intentionally designed to mimic the taste and texture of meat.

With such a rich history, harkening back to the days of past the protein, you'd think there'd be some studies of consumers, and indeed, there are.

For example, girls who eat meat may start their periods six months earlier than girls who don't.

Is it just because they're eating lots of protein and fat?

Evidently not, because girls who instead are eating meat analogues like veggie burgers and veggie dogs,

are able to delay menstruation by nine months.

Of course, it's hard to tease out how much of that is just from avoiding the meat.

But compared with girls who eat meat just a few times a week, those who ate meat a few times a day had a significantly early age, a first menstruation,

which also may help provide an explanation for why childhood meat consumption is linked to breast cancer later in life,

...