Animal-based beef and plant-based beef: HEI-2015 score comparisons

Maternal diet can affect breastmilk composition, and breastfeeding women gravitate towards a healthier diet compared to other women. However, a healthy diet can be difficult to navigate. For example, plant-based food is marketed as healthy but is also ultra-processed which leaves health-conscious consumers, like many new moms, wondering how to make healthy choices. Therefore, this report aims to determine whether HEI-2015 scores are higher on a beef or plant-based beef diet, with all other ingredients identical, and how either diet condition compares to HEI-2015 scores of participants’ usual dietary intake. This report uses data from participants who completed a double-blinded randomized cross-over controlled feeding trial (SUPER-BEEF) at the time of this report. Participants underwent a 6-day normal eating period followed by a 6-day diet condition (Diet A), 6-day washout period, and the other 6-day diet condition (Diet B). Because the blinded study is ongoing, Diet A was considered the beef and Diet B was considered the plant-based beef condition for this report. The feeding trial meals were designed to meet acceptable macronutrient ranges and energy requirements of breastfeeding women with Nutritionist Pro software. Additionally, meals were formulated to have equal amounts of beef or plant-based beef (113g) and dietary fat (13g). We entered data from normal eating 24-hour diet recalls and diet condition menu checkoffs into the Nutrition Data System for Research (NDSR) software from which Healthy Eating Index-2015 (HEI-2015) scores were calculated. The beef condition had higher average HEI-2015 scores and lower average daily calories compared to plant-based beef (mean 72.9 vs. 58.9, 2222 kcals vs. 2337 kcals; respectively). In Diet A (beef), average HEI-2015 scores were higher for all participants (mean 70.5-72.5) compared to normal eating (mean 42.6-66.8). In Diet B (plant-based beef), average HEI-2015 scores were mixed (mean 56.1-58.2) compared to normal eating. In conclusion, our trial diets with acceptable macronutrient distribution and calorie requirements for breastfeeding women only differing in plant-based vs. animal-based beef differed in HEI-2015 scores. Compared to participants’ usual diets, the beef diet universally yielded higher diet quality scores while the plant-based diet yielded a higher diet quality score for 44% of participants.