Striking change to Lidl meal salads: ‘healthier’

Striking change by supermarket chain Lidl. The meal salads containing pasta will now only be made with whole-wheat pasta. Lidl is also introducing a meal salad with a substitute for chicken. The reason: ‘making a sustainable and healthy lifestyle affordable and accessible to everyone’, according to Lidl.

Starting this month, the pasta in Lidl’s meal salads will be whole-wheat by default. The range of vegetarian and vegan meal salads is also being expanded further. But wait a minute: vegan chicken, is that actually healthy? And what about sustainability?

Healthier Lidl meal salads?

The vegan meal salad has a Nutri-Score A. You know, the coloured letter appearing on more and more products in supermarkets, intended to let you see at a glance whether you’re making a healthy choice or not. That Nutri-Score has been under fire for some time. According to nutrition experts, the Nutri-Score keeps people ignorant. People see a green A and think they’re doing very well. But is that really the case?

Many of the proposed health and sustainability claims are genuinely questionable. Is vegan chicken really more sustainable and healthier than regular chicken? Research shows that most meat substitutes are so highly processed that you’re better off avoiding them. And they’re often far too salty. In addition, rainforests frequently have to make way for soybean fields. Meat substitutes—and therefore vegan chicken pieces too—are often made from soy. Large parts of the Amazon in South America have been deforested for soybean cultivation. So what’s the benefit?

More sustainable vegan chicken?

Chickens are also said to be much less harmful to the environment than, for example, cows. They eat less feed and emit fewer greenhouse gases. Whether a meat substitute is more sustainable depends on exactly what it contains and how it is made. Veganising chicken often involves a lengthy and far from sustainable process. Extracting the proteins from soybeans requires many steps. Sometimes the beans come from far away, toxic substances are needed to process them, and drying them consumes a great deal of energy.

It may be stating the obvious, but still: homemade salads are genuinely healthy—preferably with seasonal vegetables. Without processed food. And one more tip: never use fresh pasta in your salad.

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