DoctorOz: What Happens To Your Body When You Replace All Your Meat And Fish With Plant-Based Substitutes?

Today, an Oz experiment like you have never seen before. What happens when these ultimate carnivores try the new plant-based meat, chicken, and fish products in supermarkets and fast food chains for 21 days, for three weeks? That means no animal protein, no red meat, no burgers. That looks good, doesn't it? Right? No dairy or butter. That's hard. No pork or chicken. And my favorite, no fish. Instead, you swap in the new plant-based versions, like these meatless crumbles here, meat alternatives, sausages and nuggets, all kinds of pork alternatives, right? Other than chicken and pork, you have a lot of other things you have to replace as well, right? Fish, you have non-dairy cheeses. You have non-dairy milks. All these options are out there now that folks have been talking about. But I'm asking these women to only eat these foods for three weeks. Now, these plant-based products are hotter than ever with fast food giants adding more alternatives to menus and more grocery options than ever before. But here's the question. Is it really healthier? And can you do it? Take a look at what happened when these viewers tried it for three weeks. We put four foodies who love meat, fish and dairy to the ultimate test. 21 days, swapping out their favorite foods with plant-based alternatives. I don't like meat, but first one in. To see how going plant-based might affect their health, we sent participants to bio-reference labs to get blood work and monitor their health for three weeks to track their blood pressure, cholesterol and weight. I'm really excited to see some benefits from this because everything is really starting to act up on my skin. My health right now is not good. And I do know it is because of the, a lot of the animal products that I am eating. I think a lifestyle change like this could make, help me live longer. I've got the cumin and the garlic with onions and peppers and it smells delicious. I'm finishing up my shepherd's pie. There's no real difference with the crumble. I felt like a baby trying adult food for the first time. I think I can survive without steak and ice cream, at least for the duration of this challenge. Today's the first day where it's like, okay, it's going to be a little more difficult than I thought. Today, I'm just not in the mood for any meat substitutes. I need half and half in my coffee. All of the other options that I tried were just unacceptable. This is not the way I like to drink my coffee. One challenge I have is preparing my food along with my family's food. So every meal is an adventure. Can't eat pizza and I can't eat wings. So we're going to make dinner tonight, but now it's kind of like, okay, well, what do I want to make? My ups and my downs are with the chicken. The plant-based, I have to season it. I have to sauce it up and down. I don't know about you, but I've lost two pounds already. So has anybody else lost weight? Really, really excited about that. I've noticed I have a lot less aches and pains in my body. My knees don't hurt as much. I'm walking around better. I'm loving it and hating it all at the same time. And I'm loving it because I feel like I'm eating so much cleaner. I would love to adopt this lifestyle for myself and my family. They say it takes 21 days to make or break a habit and the results are in. We looked at various health markers before and after our challenges completed their 21-day journey. For example, I want to know about their blood pressure. Number one anger of all. I want to know their cholesterol and their weight. Here's what we found. Three out of the four women improved their blood pressure. That's a big deal. Three out of the four had their LDL, which is your bad or lousy cholesterol, the kind you don't want, that dropped. And three out of four of these women lost weight. One of our viewers lost almost 10 pounds. It's a big deal. Let's bring in two viewers who tried this challenge, Marianne and Teresa. Thank you both for being here. I know it's a very brave move for you to engage in this process. Marianne, let me start with you because I was so impressed by your results. You were the one who lost almost 10 pounds. How surprised were you when you heard that? Well, I knew that my clothes were fitting better, but when I stepped on the scale, I had no idea I lost 10 pounds. I mean, it was incredible. Now, Teresa, your blood pressure improved. Dropped almost 10 points. So how does that make you feel? Oh, I'm very happy about that. You know, I'm really excited about that. Simple changes like my diet can make differences so quickly. I really want to do this again, actually. You know, when we first started the show 12 years ago, that was the biggest epiphany for a lot of viewers, that they could actually change something as fundamentally important as your blood pressure just with the food you eat. And the fact that you could do it with this approach is even better because it's hopefully not a hard approach. Teresa, you went into this experiment as the ultimate skeptic. But you say that you've reshaped your diet. How? What are you eating now? Well, I didn't think I could do without burgers and steaks. Oh my God, steaks. But the thing I missed the most was fish. So like right now, there's no meat in my house. There's no steaks in my house. There's no beef, no pork. But I do have fish in my house right now. So that's one thing that I just couldn't get away from was the fish. But otherwise, I think my family's also doing this with me. And it's working. Marion, how about you? Do you think you'll keep going plant-based? I think it was a little bit restrictive for me. I mean, I loved some of the swaps. So I think what I'm going to do is keep using them in the future, like the dairy products. I really enjoyed that. And I found that they tasted like the real thing. So I'm gonna swap them out every now and then. I think it's a very wise way to go. Nothing's gonna work if it's tough for you to do. But if it's a little hack that takes you in the right direction, if you're gonna lose 10 pounds or 10 points off your blood pressure, I think you're on the right path. Marion and Teresa, thanks for joining the experiment. When we come back, what's in those plant-based substitutes, like those burgers and sausages I showed you earlier? Find out what one man uncovered after going plant-based for a whole year. Forget three weeks, he did it for a whole year. We are back with the ultimate 21-day plant-based challenge. What happens to your body when you replace all of your meat and fish with plant-based substitutes? We just revealed some of our testers and what they found in improvements in their blood pressure and their cholesterol. They even lost weight. So what's really in these plant-based burgers and nuggets and other proteins? And which swaps should you try? Maybe bring in someone who's tried going plant-based for a whole year and he said it saved his life. Environmental journalist, Paul Greenberg, frequent guest of the show, had a health scare that actually turned you from an animal lover at least animal protein lover, into someone who only ate vegan, pretty much. What happened? Yeah, well, you know, as an environmental reporter, I always knew vegan diets could save the planet, but I had to come to the realization that they could actually save my life. And I turned 50, my cholesterol was going through the roof, my blood pressure was up. And so I cut out all the animal products, the dairy, the meat, everything. My blood pressure went down by 20 points, my cholesterol, the bad cholesterol, down by 50 points, lost 10 pounds, had a ton of energy and it totally worked. And no medications? No medications. Yes, I was looking at a lifetime of all those cholesterol and blood pressure pills, but nope, none of them. Let's take a closer look at what these plant-based protein swaps offer us. Sure. Because nothing's free in life. You gotta measure out the pros and the cons. So you give a very compelling reason why our health may benefit. What's actually in these ingredients? Well, so when you're trying to make a kind of fake piece of meat, you gotta have some essential elements. There's water, of course, but there's gonna be different kinds of protein, pea protein, wheat protein, different things like that. There's gonna be an oil component, maybe some canola, coconut, flavorings of different kinds, paprika, turmeric, that kind of stuff, some fiber. But the thing that you- This fiber is important, folks. We'll come back to it why. Absolutely. But the thing that you really gotta watch out for in these products is the salt. Something like 330 grams per serving, which some people who track their sodium might not worry about, but I try to watch that real carefully. After you brought this up, I looked at some of the packages. They range from 220 milligrams of sodium, which is actually quite good, to 520 milligrams per serving, which, again, you got two servings and you're blown through half what you get for the day. That's right. Next up, the issue of calories. Most people think, well, vegetables have less calories than meat. But some of these are really great sources of calories, like algae oil, fantastic. So I'm not saying calories are all bad, but we gotta measure them. Surprisingly, let's go back here, plant-based and animal-based proteins have very similar amounts of calories. So, Paul, give us these two examples. Walk us through them. Yeah, I mean, you think the vegetables is being naturally lowering calorie, but you look at the chicken strips, they're actually significantly higher. The fish, eesh, also higher in calories than in the plant-based version than the actual real version. So you gotta watch out for that. These calories do add up. And just to put numbers on these, it's not huge differences, but at serving in plant-based, chicken strips is 140 versus 90. For fish, 180 versus 100. You look at that and you say, well, I wouldn't do this because I'm gonna lose weight because of the fact of eating these. You're gonna do it because you might lose weight because of what this allows you to do outside of these meals, right? Are you gonna eat junky things or is this gonna take you in the right direction? Remember, three out of four of our viewers who tried plant-based swaps lost weight. They lost weight, even though the individual servings were more calories. Do you know why? Because they said they ate less and they snacked less than they normally would because their brain was looking for nutrients. You give your brain nutrients and you stop eating other junk. The other reason is these products are high in fiber. That's a big deal because when you have a lot of fiber in a meal, it makes you feel full. It could explain also some of the weight loss. So we noticed that our challengers generally ate less protein using their plant-based swaps than they would normally have done. People who go plant-based often are concerned they don't get enough protein for this very reason. In fact, one of our women said she noticed a loss in muscle mass. This is a picture of her, right? She doesn't think she was able to hold on to her muscle protein. She's obviously already a thin woman. How much protein are you really getting in these products, Paul? Well, these companies are not stupid. They know that people are looking for protein now. And so you'd be surprised. The beef products, for example, have 20 grams of protein, pretty similar to beef. Chicken, 23 grams of protein in the substitute, pretty similar to chicken. The fish, a little off, down at 14 grams. Another good swap is you just throw in whole grains instead of white and you're going to get a lot of protein from that as well. Your target ought to be roughly 50 grams of protein a day. When you go plant-based, you want to make sure that you meet your daily protein requirements. So I know that you actually modified yours and the women in our experiment did as well. You eat a little fish now, a little meat once in a while. Walk us through that. Yeah, so when you go totally vegan, you're going to have a problem with B12. You're going to have a problem with omega-3s. You're just not going to get them from those plant-based sources. So I now eat two portions of oily fish per week, salmon, for example. And that gets me the B12 and the omega-3s I need. The other thing I do cheat, you know, you have to let off a little bit of carnivorous steam from now and again. I hate, you know, as one of your participants said, you know, going out to dinner can be a nightmare when it's like vegan only. But having, so when I go out to dinner, it's like we have this fun event. I'm going to eat meat with them. I'm not going to be a jerk. There's nothing healthier than having a good time with your friends at a meal. Absolutely. So good rule of thumb, try to eat animal protein two to three times a week and pick whatever that you feel is best for you. If you go plant-based, make sure you look for products that have between 150 and 350 milligrams of sodium and then make sure you get enough protein. What I do, add beans. You can add beans and all kinds of plant-based meals. Not a lot of calories, but it may also give you the fiber you want to feel full. Paul, thanks very much. Thanks. I'm glad you're doing so well. We'll be right back.