Figure 3

Metabolomics revealed distinct differences in metabolite profiles between grass-fed ground beef (GB) and the plant-based meat alternative (PB). (a) Heatmap of the top 50 metabolites, ranked by p values (lowest to highest), that were significantly different (p < 0.05) between beef and the plant-based meat alternative. Red (intensity ranges from 0 to 1.5) means higher abundance of the corresponding metabolite, whereas blue means lower abundance (intensity ranges from − 0 to − 1.5). The numbers below the heatmap represent individual samples (GB-1 to 18 and PB-1 to 18 respectively; n = 18 for each group). Metabolites in beef and the plant-based meat alternative were compared by the Wilcoxon rank sum test with Benjamini–Hochberg adjusted p values at 5% (p < 0.05). (b) Principal Component Analysis (PCA) analysis of beef and plant-based meat revealed a distinct difference in metabolite composition between the grass-fed ground beef and the plant-based meat, with 97.3% of the variance explained within the first principal component (PC1)—which illustrates that large differences exist between beef and the plant-based meat alternative. Red and green colors above the heatmap (a) and the PCA plot (b) represent the ground beef and the plant-based meat, respectively. The 95% confidence interval of the groups is depicted in their respective color. A full list of potential bioactivities and health effects of each individual metabolite is reported in Supplemental Table 1. Figure was created with MetaboAnalyst 4.0 (http://www.metaboanalyst.ca)³⁵.