Table 6.

Implications and recommendations

i/Food consumers	Consumers choosing to reduce their meat intake should understand that meat alternative products are a culinary replacement for meat, which differ in their nutritional profile. With the exception of tofu and mycoprotein, we caution that few meat alternative products have been well evaluated for their physiological effects in the consumer. We would therefore strongly recommend selecting meat alternatives based on the level of nutritional characterisation and the availability of high-quality evidence about their healthfulness. It is also important to consider the wider balance of the diet to ensure that the intake of nutrients found in meat is not compromised when reducing the intake.
ii/Producers	Producers of meat alternatives should be encouraged to focus on Na reduction, deeper nutritional characterisation, and where feasible, investigations evidencing the likely health benefits of their products. Given their market, voluntary product fortification with Fe and B12 might also be considered.
iii/Policy makers	Meat alternatives are intended to displace a nutritionally dense component of the diet, better labelling and nutritional characterisation would be in the interest of the food consumer. Further, in 1960 policy makers in the UK responded to the displacement of butter and animal fats from the diet with legislation instructing the mandatory fortification of margarines with vitamins A and D, there may soon be a need for a discussion about fortification, and the regulation of nutritional quality and healthfulness of this category of food; this discussion would be better informed by appropriate dietary intervention studies.