Also, are tahini and miso paste not processed foods? Does heating food not modify a food's chemical makeup?
There is a scale of processed foods from minimally processed to ultra processed https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/02/ultra-proces... less processing is best.
They have been made for thousands of years and are an example of minimally processed tasty condiments with high nutritional value, but 95% of the caloric value of the meal is the veggies not the condiments.
Pea protein extract is in comparison a much more heavily processed food.
Heating does impact the bioavailability (ease of absorption) of the nutrition in food, for some things it increases it while for others it decreases the nutrition.
We have evolved to eat cooked food for about 2 million years, our gut and teeth/jaw is adapted to cooked food.
Grains are also OK, but veggies and fruit are even better, the best cooking method is steaming to avoid forming carcinogenic compounds, that can be produced also by roasting in dry heat.
That's an awfully strong statement. Do you have any evidence or cite?
I think OP is probably right that these meat substitutes are less healthy than eating veg in its raw form, but perhaps the question should be how they stack up nutritionally against the red meat they're replacing.
Obviously pea protein will be missing out on some nutrients found in the parts of the pea which were discarded, so may not be as healthy as raw peas, but I understood OP to be saying that pea protein may be actively unhealthy, and indeed, that anything but unprocessed "whole" vegetables is unhealthy. That's seems unsupported by current science.
>> That's an awfully strong statement. Do you have any evidence or cite?
It depends. Peas belong to the Fabaceae family or Leguminosae that is a big family of creatures expert in alkaloid's design.
Sweet Peas are in the genus Pisum, that is closely related with the wild peas Lathyrus. Lathyrism is a well known neurological disease. Is a permanent damage triggered by eating too many peas from Lathyrus and related genuses. For survivalism and foraging purposes, wild peas must be put in the "not edible thing unless really fainting" category. And only in small quantitites. Not even cooked.
Thus, flour of raw peas should be a little poisonous also until cooked. Workers should have been provided with accurate protection against breathing accidentally the raw stuff day after day (and should assure to wear it). Neurological damages are permanent and not funny.
By the same reason, even if seems convenient and fast to just make a smoothie with raw pea flour you must assure to cook it before to eat it (OR that was yet cooken by the maker before to sell it).
https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=orange%20juice%20sugar%20pulp%...
You could even make miso from peas...
This is unlike a pea protein isolate burger, which makes a huge part of the meal. Also, there is the level of processing, pea protein isolate is much more processed than fermented condiments like vinegar or mison.
Yet, somehow this is not common knowledge. People think that veggies need to be roasted in the oven for 45 minutes, or boiled to 20 minutes and it's just not true.
As an example, peas themselves are likely very healthy, but pea extracts like protein powder and pea-based fake meats are likely not.
This reductionistic nutritional approach where we are trying to extract from a food the one compound that makes it healthy simply does not work.
The food has thousands of compounds, that interact with each other in thousands of different ways. It's not the fiber either, that is another reductionist view, it's the whole food.
Just take a bunch of veggies, put them in the microwave for 10 minutes without any water and add your favorite seasoning: balsamic vinegar, tahini, miso paste, something sweet, and eat the whole food as it comes from the grocery, as fresh as possible.
You can do this to carrots, onions, broccoli, potatoes, onions, garlic, eggplant, pumpkin, butternut squash, almost any vegetable will steam in the microwave without any added water.
You can do this to pears and apples also, they are delicious in the microwave. Add beans, lentils, seeds, oats with red fruits for breakfast, and you are good to go.
The move to consuming more plant-based foods is a step in the right direction in terms of public health, but I'm a bit afraid of the backlash that will inevitably come when studies start coming out saying that these highly processed plant foods are not exactly healthy either.