Food Activist Fired Up Over 'Quorn' (meat substitute)

[alp227]

Source: WSJ

The nonprofit group sometimes called "the food police" likes to take on calorie-laden meals served up by fast-food outlets and other chain restaurants. But the group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, also is persisting in a food-safety campaign to warn consumers about what it says are rare but potentially violent food reactions from a popular meat substitute called Quorn.

In November, the CSPI sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration, asking that the agency remove Quorn from store shelves, saying it carries a risk of severe allergic reaction.

Its action takes place after it says it received more U.S. consumer complaints about the fungus-derived food—65 so far this year out of 140 world-wide—than it has received in any previous year.

Over the past decade, CSPI says it has received 500 U.S. complaints and 1,200 more from Europe and Australia.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204517204577046370191497672.html

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google the title for full article

[blueclown]

1. The meat lobby must be thrilled with this "study".

I wonder if they provided it with any funding..

[alp227]

5. Obviously not as CSPI has trashed the fast food restaurants

[fasttense]

17. It is a processed manufactured food NOT made from mushrooms.

"Quorn, in fact, is a highly processed food made in giant laboratory vats from a fungus (Fusarium venenatum) which is a mold, not a mushroom. An expert on Fusarium fungus, David M. Geiser of the Pennsylvania State University Fusarium Research Center, told the FDA that calling the Fusarium fungus that is the basis of Quorn foods a mushroom is like “calling a rat a chicken because both are animals.”

A mycologist from Cornell University said that mushrooms are as distantly related to Quorn’s fungus as humans are to jellyfish.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is strongly opposed to Quorn, and has asked the FDA to halt the marketing of Quorn products and to require all Quorn foods to be recalled from market shelves. According to CSPI, quite a number of people have gotten sick after eating the product, typically vomiting several hours after eating the product."

http://www.foodrevolution.org/askjohn/35.htm

Since I grow mushrooms this bothered me too but on further study of the processing of this food, I realized it is no more a mushroom than I am a cat. With the mushroom, you eat the fruiting body. With this you are eating and actual known toxic mold. The only thing in the world I have been allergic to all my life is certain molds. I eat mushrooms every day with NO ill effects. This is NOT made of mushrooms.

Be very careful about eating this mold. It is known to be gastrotoxic. It is not just an allergic reaction. It is a toxic reaction to the mold itself.

Intentionally increasing people's exposure to this mold through their food will increase the risk of reactions in mold-sensitive people and may actually cause some people to develop allergies to molds.

I was never allergic to latex until I had to wear it for 8 hours a day. After 6 months, I broke out in hives every time I wore it. Overexposure can cause allergies and other deadly results.

[htuttle]

2. By that logic, they ought to ban peanuts

There are a lot more people fatally allergic to peanuts than mycoprotein.

on edit:
BTW, I eat Quorn products with some regularity (every month or two I buy a box). It tastes just like chicken.

[iamjoy]

7. I Was Thinking Eggs

I have a cousin fatally allergic - anaphylaxis from cross contamination in the kitchen. If I eat something with mayonnaise, I can't kiss her on the cheek. If she touches something with egg in it (like a bread) she has swelling.

Yeah, maybe they ought to ban eggs.

Nothing wrong with a warning - better labeling, etc.

[marasinghe]

11. exactament. been eating Quorn occasionally, since they stopped using battery eggs in production.

haven't noticed any problems within myself, so far. i'm sure there are people who have Quorn allergies. but then again, there are those who are allergic to Water itself.

meantime, i haven't seen the WSJ, or His Honor - the Health Mayor of NYC, Mr. Bloomberg, campaign against the preservative Sodium Benzoate - found in much of the Soda sold in New York City. perhaps i'm being hyper-sensitive here, but, after some European countries started to make noise about possible toxicity & suppliers dithered over unsold stocks - i began to notice an apparent increase in usage, in US soft drinks.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0302-07.htm

[RebelOne]

3. I have eaten Quorn products with no food reactions n/t.

[fasttense]

19. Just wait, you may develop an allergy to it yet, if you keep eating it. n/t

[Sienna86]

4. I like Quorn

If there need to be allergy warnings on the box, fine, but hope they leave it on the shelf.

[silverweb]

6. I love Quorn!

Greatly prefer it over soy-based meat substitutes both ecologically (no factory-farmed GM soy or clear-cutting of rain forests for growing) and for its taste/quality.

The allergic reactions are to the egg whites that are used as a binder. (Quorn products do not claim to be vegan.) Pulling Quorn from the shelves because some people have egg allergy and are too stupid to read the ingredients is simply absurd.

The best thing they could do would be to mandate that Quorn put an egg allergy warning on the box, just like products possibly containing peanuts put a peanut allergy warning on the package.

This issue comes up periodically and generally goes away fairly quickly.

On edit: Finally was able to read the whole article here and clarify that the claims are for allergic reactions to the mycoprotein that is the main ingredient, not to the egg content. Even so, a warning on the package about possible allergic reaction in a minority of people should suffice.

[DissedByBush]

12. Sometimes I find the warnings hilarious

Seriously, I bought a jar of peanuts, and on the back label was "Warning: Contains peanuts."

Well gollee gee, coulda fooled me!

That totally saved me. I might have missed the huge letters across the front that spelled out PEANUTS or the ingredient list with the first ingredient being "peanuts."

[silverweb]

31. I know what you mean.

I've seen lists of various warnings that only a complete imbecile should require, but apparently there are a lot of imbeciles (or just inattentive people) around.

[fasttense]

18. It is a mold and a known gastrotoxic. It is NOT a mushroom.

I grow mushrooms and sell them. I have an allergy to certain molds. I eat mushrooms everyday without any problems. This stuff would probably seriously hurt me.

It is made in a vat by Marlow Foods, a division of the multinational pharmaceutical giant Astra Zeneca, one of the dominant corporations in genetically engineered food.

If you are not eating GMO products then why eat this crap that can make you seriously ill?

Be very careful about this.

Over exposure to molds can create allergies, where you never had an allergy to it before.

[swilton]

8. Agree with many of you

Have enjoyed quorn many times - one of the best meat substitutes out there. Fast food is far more threatening.

[qb]

9. By that logic they better recall every product containing peanuts.

I :loveya: Quorn too.

[jobycom]

10. It sometimes gives me headaches.

I've gotten them often enough after eating Quorn that I usually avoid it. Never had a severe reaction, though.

Quorn contains egg whites, so maybe people are reacting to egg or gluten allergies.

[fasttense]

20. The headache is probably the start of your allergy.

Don't eat anymore of it.

It is a mold not a mushroom.

Seriously folks, this stuff can seriously hurt you.

Please, think twice before putting anymore of this mold inside of you.

[jobycom]

29. I didn't say it was a mushroom. I don't see anyone here saying it's a mushroom.

If it's an allergy, it's a mild one, but it could be. I get the same type of headaches from a couple of foods, including ham (although being vegetarian cured that problem), and eggs. It's not automatic, but sometimes they give me headaches. I'm not even sure the headache is caused by the food, but it happens often enough that I limit certain foods.

Everyone knows what Quorn is. It's been marketed in Europe for decades longer than in America, and is a common food item in Ireland and the UK. If there were major issues they would have become apparent by now. It seems to affect a low percentage of people negatively, but I haven't seen any serious studies say it's harmful, and many have said it's not.

Please don't start food rumors without scientific proof. I'm getting tired of arguing, for instance, that tofu doesn't cause man boobs or that vegetarians don't get enough protein. We don't need another one.

[femrap]

13. I want me some Quorn now! nt

[coffeenap]

14. Quorn cutlet with goat cheese and cranberries--yum!

These are a staple for my teenage vegetarian daughter, and me too! Neither of us has had a problem with them and we eat them every two weeks or so, when we can find them. The other stuffed varieties are really good as well. I hope they are not discontinued as they are a wonderful quick dinner.

[MemeSmith]

15. Slippery Slope

If they started banning foods because of rare allergic reactions, then the peanut butter industry would be finished.

Ironically, so would Garden Burger, the Quorn rival who are behind this organisation. More people are allergic to soya than to the allergen in Quorn.

Full disclosure: My family have been eating Quorn since it was first introduced over 20 years ago.

It costs about the same as shin beef and cooks much more quickly, readily absorbing seasonings and flavourings. Nutritional value is also comparitively good.

[fasttense]

21. Allergies are serious conditions.

You can develop them by overexposure. If you eat this mold, you are exposing your entire body to a mold.

Please do not feed it to children.

[Nihil]

25. Do you panic about every little thing on the planet?

Watch out for dihydrogen monoxide as too much of it will kill ya!

:eyes:

[fasttense]

28. Fine eat all the Fusarium venenatum you want.

Let's just hope they have killed all the more deadly strains of molds and gotten rid of all that uric acid before they make your burger out of it.

Because we all know how careful corporations are about selling non-contaminated foods. :eyes:

[Nihil]

33. Well, unless Quorn have changed the recipe recently ...

... I'm in far less danger if I keep on eating it than if I pay any
attention to your fact-free panic-mongering and switch to less tested
new products - be they vegetarian, vegan or pure bull ...

Or maybe you think that Quorn is new?

:eyes:

[MemeSmith]

16. Best Quorn Products

Apart from the standard chicken style chunks, other staples of our own larder are:

Bacon style strips, for the full English breakfast and BLTs, etc.
Steak style strips, for stews, stroganoff, etc.
Turkey style roast, which I would have at Christmas
Chicken style fillets, great grilled in a tortilla, etc.

The basic chicken style chunks go really well in a fajita.

We also get the breaded cutlets of various set flavours, but I personally prefer the basic products for inclusion in my own recipes.

Quorn browns really well, because of the egg white, and it flavours up really nicely when it does.

[fasttense]

22. Quorn is a mold, NOT a mushroom. Don't expose yourself to it by eating it.

It is a known gastrotoxic.

Don't feed it to the ill or young.

Folks this stuff can make you very sick.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bread_and_roses]

24. Personally, I think we should stick to real food -

not to dismiss the questions around why CSPI is not after the soda mentioned upthread, or the - is it BPA? - our children our ingesting from soup cans - or the ferocious amount of salt in said soup, or or or - too many things to list in terms of food issues. And I do realize that "real" is a somewhat subjective term. But - my own instinct is to stick to foods that that are as real and as low as possible on the processing chain. Which excludes fake soy-based "meat," or "milk" for instance. Or fake eggs in a package. And certainly any food that is entirely manufactured from something we'd never eat in its natural state.

I am not a vegetarian - my head would like to be but my body revolts - but even those times I've tried to go off meat I don't eat those nasty soy-burgers or whatever. I've tasted them out of curiosity and to be honest can't imagine why anyone eats them. I'd rather eat some nuts and seeds for protein. Besides, from what I've read all that soy is healthy for neither us nor the environment.

So I can't get too exercised about "Quorn." Not to mention that my instinct is that anything bad for "the multinational pharmaceutical giant Astra Zeneca, one of the dominant corporations in genetically engineered food" is probably good for the rest of us.

[Javaman]

26. "Quorn" was the name of my Corn cover band in college.

:rofl:

[Lance_Boyle]

27. Why not use corn smut (Ustilago maydis) instead

of Fusarium venenatum? Mycoprotein is mycoprotein, right?

[Evasporque]

30. Soylent Quorn is PEOPLE!.....nt

[silverweb]

32. Quorn "mold" information.

I think any controversy over the mycoprotein that is the protein source in Quorn is really overblown. It was identified as a suitable food protein source in the 1960s and has been through all kinds of trials and tests.

Wikipedia has a good article on it, including correspondence with the FDA in the references. A quick Google search brings up lots and lots of relevant and interesting articles.

Of significant note is that some of the allergic reactions to Quorn are likely related to egg or wheat, which are also ingredients in making Quorn products.

We've seen this uproar over Quorn periodically ever since the product was introduced. It will rage for a little while and then fizzle again, as usual... until next time.