Quorn: WTF Is it?

[MissMisery]

Background... Lifelong veggie, regularly ate soya mince as a meat alternative during younger days, but more and more over the years have been eating and enjoying quorn.

I never really questioned its origins, after all, Mo Farah tells us its good! And it's low fat, far smaller carbon footprint and so on.. And I'm sure they used to say something on the packet about mushrooms from Marlow (what could be more wholesome?!)
So to my mind, it was a mushroom based product. Only it isn't......

The penny dropped whilst at a friends house. She had made a chicken curry for the meat-eaters, and had very kindly made a quorn version for me. Her dh, who is very much a 'meat and two veg' type of bloke positivlely balked when I suggested he try the quorn version. His reaction: "You couldn't pay me to eat that stuff... I was at ICI when they developed it".

Developed At ICI??!! What about the lovely mushrooms from Marlow?? A quick google search has confirmed what he said. It WAS developed by ICI, and Quorn have actually been in trouble here with advertising standards(and in the US) for suggesting it is mushroom based.

It is, of course 'mycro-protein' and a type of fungus or bacteria. This is I suppose, a natural product, but what concerns me is the process they use to texture it, which they seem rather reluctant to divulge, and does not need to be listed under ingredients. I suppose this could be an understandable desire to protect their method of preparation, but something about this is really starting to bother me.

Have I just been spectacularly naive? (I'm pre-empting a chorus of 'Of course it's ghastly artificial shite!!!' here..)

I would very much like to be reassured as to its safety, particularly as my dc eat it too. Also any alternative to the meat industry has to be a good thing..

I would love to hear from anyone with a food science background.

Thanks in advance for any input.

Laughing at the idea that there's something AWFUL about quorn because it's produced in a lab, but that yoghurt, margarine, breakfast cereal, etc. etc. etc are just fine.

I eat loads of it, soya products make me ill. My diet is very quorn heavy! I try not to think about where it comes from TBH.

In America, it’s being redesignated as Mould.
Sorry if this has already been mentioned.
Saying that, I ate it for years when vegetarian, and I’m sure soya and TVP is very processed, as is all other processed food.

I'm a veggie too and I used to use Quorn regularly but cut down some years ago after reading something vaguely scary (and quite confusing) about how it's made. I still use it from time to time but now think of it like a 'fast/convenience food' - to be used sparingly.

Errr it once hospitalised me!
I did have a virus and ear infection already, but ate Quorn and was so violently ill, I needed to be put on a drip.
I wrote them two letters and never recieved any response.
If you google LOTS of people suffer nasty reactions eating it.
However Linda Mc Cartney stuff never had a problem.
Quorn is the sporn of the devil

desha beans make me violently ill out of both ends until I bleed out of my arse. Beans are most definitely a food, a staple for millions in fact.

Quorn makes me & my DD vomit!
It is a type of fungus & gives a painful stomach ache so can't be that good!

To be honest I think I'm far more comfortable eating something grown in a lab (since antibiotics etc come from mold, too, it can't be that awful) than something that had to die to be on my plate.
I see the argument for eating meat and I don't care what others do but I just cant. I prefer making my own burgers, sausages and "steaks" from TVP, mushrooms or vegetables but I'll still happily eat Quorn.

Side note though quorn has been sold as a diet product which is a bit ridiculous.
My Dh used to manage a crown carvery back in the UK and when they started serving quorn sausages as an option as well as meat sausages a lot of customers would pile up the eggs, hash browns, beans, fried bread and then have quorn sausages instead of meat because it was "healthy" 😂
My sister also went on a health kick that involved making no changes to her diet other than swapping meat products to quorn products. She still overate on desserts, carby foods like pizza etc, She didn't lose a pound.

I keep meaning to look at (as in Google) whether the reaction many people have is due to it's being so high in protein.Just because nuts, pulse and beans also give me 'dodgy guts'. I dunno - I'm no food scientist, either.

I would rather eat Quorn than a chicken nugget made up of everything other than chicken breast....

Yep. I'm also a vomiter.

somone mentioned that they dont eat Quorn in Amerca, they do!

I’ve never eaten it.

Sets off my DD’s asthma and makes her mouth tingle
Scary until we realised what was causing it - I dont eat it but she wanted to try being a veggie so I bought some for her. After a couple of incidents we realised what was happening.
She has mild allergies to cats and dust mites but we’ve never had a reaction like that to anything before

I try to live by everything in moderation. Our scientific understanding of nutrition changes, how we produce our food changes, how we preserve or food changes, animal welfare changes, all within our lifetimes. I hope that if I try and eat a little bit of everything in my life, include all major food groups, I won't end up putting huge quantities over time of any one thing that turns out to be bad for me or miss any major nutrition out.

I'll keep looking forward to my Quorn and bacon burger like I have done for over 20 years.

Can’t believe at all the people that have been ill with it. I must have a cast iron stomach. I used to eat it but find it a bit tasteless.

Now palm oil would not touch that with that 50 foot donkey dick.

Its not Soylent Green!

I'm a meat eater, so maybe the wrong person to ask but I eat quorn sometimes and have never had an adverse reaction to it. Its OK, (not as nice as meat) and although I find descriptions of how its made a bit off putting, the same is true of lots of food (especially when you see it being made in large volume, for some reason. I stopped eating mayonnaise for a while after working in a kitchen because looking at it wobble around in huge catering sized tubs put me off.)
I like moldy cheese, live yogurt etc so have no problem with the concept of eating mold.
And just because something is made in a factory does not intrinsically mean its unhealthy!

Maybe, like any food its fine to eat it sometimes but not all the time? Variety is important.
And people can be allergic/intolerant to a range of foods, so I am not sure if that proves anything.

We learned about quorn in microbiology at university. Originally they were trying to market it as made from tiny plants because they didn't think it's true origins would be palatable.

I think it was the same lecturer who went on a crusade about Iceland (the store) claiming their pizzas were both vegetarian and GM free when at the time the bacteria to make vegetarian rennet were genetically modified (not sure if this still hold true)

Thanks to this thread, I've just finished off the 'shepherd's pie' that DS and me made yesterday. Not only Quorn, but 2 different types of beans. He has no problem eating it. I'm bracing myself for the consequences...

I read somewhere once* that if we wanted to eat really sustainably, we'd all be eating insects produced on huge insect farms. Lots of protein in a cockroach.

*so it probably isn't true

It doesn’t make me or anyone I know ill.
Tastes good and high in protein.
I don’t understand the issue with it being a fungi. We eat loads of mound and fungi. What’s cheese?!
‘Chemicals’ aren’t bad either, everything is made from a chemical if you break it down enough.
Weird, ignorant scare mongering.

What’s cheese?!

Cheese is dairy....

I've had it once and suffered an asthma attack, swollen mouth & throat and sickness. I never realised how many people had reactions to the stuff? The lab thing doesn't bother me but I do think they should make the information about what it is and how it's made clear on the packaging (no idea if they do or do not.)

Again, it makes me vomit. I also eat mushrooms and lots of blue cheese, so it's not the mould, it's this specific mould.