We looked beyond the high protein claim
We reviewed several meals from Australia’s leading health ready meal company and found repeated use of flavour enhancers including 621, 631 and 635, alongside examples containing modified starches, gums, refined oils, added sugars, colours and preservatives.
At the same time, some of the meals marketed heavily around protein provide more than 700 calories and more than 60 g of carbohydrate.
This is why we believe consumers need to look beyond the protein number and read the entire nutrition panel and ingredient list.
High protein, low sugar, low carb and dietitian designed can all sound reassuring on the front of a packet. But these claims do not necessarily tell you how extensively a meal has been formulated, what ingredients have been added to create its flavour and texture, how much sodium it contains or whether its overall energy and carbohydrate content actually suits your individual health goals.
Protein is incredibly important. But protein is only one part of a meal.
What we found when we turned the packets over
Across the meals we reviewed, the ingredient panels showed repeated use of flavour enhancers 621, 631 and 635.
Other products contained combinations of modified starches, xanthan or guar gums, canola or other vegetable oils, added sugars, colours, preservatives, acidity regulators and additional flavouring systems.
These ingredients are legally permitted for use in food. Their presence does not automatically make an individual meal unsafe.
The more important question is what the overall ingredient pattern tells us about the degree of formulation behind a product being promoted primarily as a healthy, high protein meal.
A high protein number should not stop us asking what else is in the food.
Flavour enhancers can be repeated across a range
Flavour enhancer 621 is monosodium glutamate, or MSG. Flavour enhancers 631 and 635 are nucleotide based flavour enhancers that can amplify savoury flavour, particularly when used alongside glutamate.
They are effective tools for food manufacturers because they intensify savoury flavour without requiring that flavour to come entirely from whole ingredients.
Again, the issue is not that an approved flavour enhancer automatically makes a food harmful.
The broader question is whether the health positioning on the front of a product reflects the degree of processing and formulation revealed on the back.
High protein can also mean high calorie
There is another issue that can be missed when consumers focus on protein alone.
Some high protein ready meals contain 600 to more than 700 calories, with some providing more than 60 g of carbohydrate alongside 40 g, 50 g or even more protein.
For a large, highly active person trying to gain weight or recover from substantial training, this type of meal may be entirely appropriate.
For someone trying to lose weight, maintain weight or improve metabolic health, it may be a very different proposition.
More protein is not automatically better if it comes packaged with considerably more energy than that individual requires.
A high protein label does not make excess energy disappear
Protein has genuine nutritional advantages. It supports skeletal muscle, stimulates satiety hormones and has a higher thermic effect than carbohydrate or fat.
But an energy dense meal remains an energy dense meal.
When energy intake consistently exceeds energy expenditure, excess energy can ultimately contribute to weight and body fat gain.
This becomes particularly relevant when a large meal combines substantial carbohydrate with substantial protein. Carbohydrate stimulates insulin secretion, while protein can also stimulate insulin. This is normal physiology and insulin itself is not the problem.
The important issue is metabolic context.
A meal containing substantial protein, carbohydrate and energy may be useful for an athlete who needs glycogen replenishment and recovery.
The same meal may be poorly matched to a sedentary person with insulin resistance who is trying to reduce body fat.
Nutrition needs to match the person, not the marketing claim.
The NIH study: approximately 500 extra calories without greater hunger
One of the strongest experimental studies on ultra processed food was conducted by Hall and colleagues at the US National Institutes of Health.
Twenty adults consumed an ultra processed diet for two weeks and an unprocessed diet for two weeks under tightly controlled inpatient conditions. Participants were free to eat as much or as little as they wanted.
During the ultra processed phase, participants consumed approximately 508 additional calories per day and gained around 0.9 kg in two weeks. During the unprocessed phase they lost approximately 0.9 kg.
Importantly, the participants were not instructed to overeat. The food environment itself changed spontaneous energy intake.
Highly processed foods can outrun your fullness signals
Eating rate appears to be one part of the explanation.
As food enters the stomach, stretch receptors begin sending signals to the brain. Once nutrients reach the small intestine, enteroendocrine cells release hormones including CCK, GLP 1 and PYY that contribute to satiation.
This takes time. Foods that are softer and quicker to chew can deliver substantially more calories before these feedback systems have fully responded.
A recent randomised crossover study demonstrated this very clearly. Even when both diets were predominantly ultra processed, participants consumed approximately 369 fewer calories per day when the foods were designed to require slower eating.
The fullness system had not stopped working. The slower food simply gave it more time to work.
Some additives also interact with gut biology
The gut microbiome adds another layer to the conversation.
In a controlled human feeding trial, researchers examined the emulsifier carboxymethylcellulose. Participants consuming it developed measurable changes in microbial composition and the faecal metabolome.
This does not mean every emulsifier or stabiliser is harmful. Different additives have different properties and need to be considered individually.
However, it demonstrates that ingredients added primarily for technological reasons can interact with the biological environment of the gastrointestinal tract.
Artificial sweeteners may not be biologically inert
A randomised controlled trial involving 120 healthy adults investigated saccharin, sucralose, aspartame and stevia.
All four produced measurable changes in aspects of the microbiome or metabolome, while saccharin and sucralose impaired glycaemic responses at the group level.
These findings do not mean that consuming an artificial sweetener automatically causes metabolic disease.
They do challenge the older assumption that an ingredient providing virtually no calories necessarily has no effect on human physiology.
Sodium can disappear behind the protein number
Protein is often printed prominently on the front of a ready meal. Sodium generally is not.
Yet some of the high protein meals we reviewed contained around or above 1,000 mg sodium per serve.
The World Health Organization recommends adults consume less than 2,000 mg sodium per day. That means one meal can provide around half of the recommended daily upper intake before the remainder of the day’s food is considered.
By comparison, current Be Fit Food main meals are formulated around portion controlled energy and carbohydrate targets and to provide 500 mg sodium or less per serve. Current main meal recipes also use between 4 and 12 different vegetables, depending on the recipe.
Be Fit Food takes a different formulation approach
Our focus is not on producing the largest protein number possible.
The aim is to provide sufficient high quality protein while controlling total energy and carbohydrate and retaining significant vegetable diversity.
Current Be Fit Food formulation standards exclude added sugar and artificial colours and flavours, and artificial preservatives are not added directly to the meals. Small preservative components can sometimes be present within unavoidable compound ingredients, which is why the current product label always remains the final source of truth.
We also cook with olive oil as the only added cooking oil used in current Be Fit Food recipes, rather than adding seed oils as cooking oils to current recipes.
That choice is deliberate. Olive oil allows us to build flavour and provide predominantly unsaturated fat without relying on the refined cooking oils commonly used in many highly formulated ready meals.
Our meals are designed first around clinical nutrition targets rather than around creating the largest possible serve or the biggest macro number on the front of the package.
Read the whole label, not just one number
The next time you compare ready meals, do not stop at protein.
- Look at the total calories.
- Look at the carbohydrate content.
- Look at sodium per whole meal, not simply per 100 g.
- Look at vegetable content and fibre.
- Look at added sugars, sweeteners, oils, flavour enhancers and the overall length and complexity of the ingredient list.
Then ask the most important question:
Does this meal actually match my body, my metabolic health and my goals?
The meal with the most protein is not automatically the healthiest meal.
And the cheapest high protein meal is not necessarily nutritionally equivalent to a meal designed specifically around weight management and metabolic health.
Convenience should make healthy eating easier.
It should not make the nutrition panel harder to understand.
References
- Hall KD, Ayuketah A, Brychta R, et al. Ultra processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: an inpatient randomized controlled trial of ad libitum food intake. Cell Metabolism. 2019;30(1):67–77.e3. doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008.
- Forde CG, Heuven LAJ, van Bruinessen M, et al. Eating rate has sustained effects on energy intake from ultraprocessed diets: a 2 week ad libitum dietary randomized controlled crossover trial. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2026;123(4):101122.
- Chassaing B, Compher C, Bonhomme B, et al. Randomized controlled feeding study of dietary emulsifier carboxymethylcellulose reveals detrimental impacts on the gut microbiota and metabolome. Gastroenterology. 2022;162(3):743–756.
- Suez J, Cohen Y, Valdés Mas R, et al. Personalized microbiome driven effects of non nutritive sweeteners on human glucose tolerance. Cell. 2022;185(18):3307–3328.e19.
- World Health Organization. Guideline: Sodium intake for adults and children. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2012.
