 As noted, an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association on plant-based meat alternatives, just looking at the nutrition facts in full of a 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, who wouldn't want a can of good-eating protos? 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 exist 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 protina, 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 of first menstruation, which also may help provide an explanation for why childhood meat consumption is linked to breast cancer later in life, since the earlier you start your period, the higher your lifetime risk. Now, obesity itself may contribute to the early onset of puberty in girls, so that could be another factor. Studies have suggested vegetarian children tend to be leaner than non-vegetarian children. They aren't smaller in general, though. Vegetarian boys and girls may measure up to be about an inch taller than their classmates. They just aren't as wide. So the fact that girls who eat plant-based meats may be less likely to suffer from premature puberty may in part be because they were leaner. Indeed, childhood obesity research found meat consumption seemed to double the odds of school children becoming overweight compared to the consumption of plant-based meat. Now, whole-plant food sources of protein, such as beans, did even better, though, associated with cutting in half the odds of kids becoming overweight. So that's why I consider these kinds of plant-based meats more of a useful stepping stone towards a healthier diet, rather than the end-game ideal. The same amount of protein in a bean burrito would be better in nearly every way. Similarly in terms of hip fracture risk in the Adventist Tuesday following tens of thousands of men and women for years, daily intake of plant-based meats appeared to reduce the risk of hip fracture bite, nearly half. But daily ligamentic, beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils may drop risk of hip fracture bite even more, nearly two-thirds.