AIBU to ask if Quorn is healthy or unhealthy....

[loveyouradvice]

I've a 15 year old DD who wants to be veggie...and adores Quorn. We're cooking lots with it and seems surprisingly versatile ... love Bolognese sauce made with it

But friends have told us to find out what's really in it and that we should avoid it if we want to eat healthily

I'd just thought low-fat mushroomy thing - seems brilliant invention

Whats so bad about it?

Mostly healthy in moderation. Some of the battered and crumbed products not so much.

All the fake meat products are highly processed, and extremely similar nutritionally though, so it's not really something you want to be eating daily. It would be like eating meals made with mince every single day. Not the worst thing in the world, but you're far better off if you mix it up a bit.

I don't get the fake meat thing, it is so processed, there are so many lovely veg that taste better and obviously natural that I prefer to cook with those.

I’m a pescarerian, used to be a vegetarian for years. I eat quorn but it really isn’t that nice. I find the whole ‘healthy’ thing makes it completely tasteless. I’m pretty sure meat tastes nice because of all the fat. (For me anyway, I’m the person who used to eat all the chicken skin everyone left on their plate. 😀).
I reduced quorn use a lot, mostly just buy the sausages.

For veggie sausages, Cauldron are much nicer!

@PurpleRobe Black mould people get on their walls when they don't ventilate their house is also a fungus, doesn't mean it's safe to eat

FIne in moderation. We don’t eat much meat,so I use Quorn mince. I used to buy it more regularly but the kids went off the sausages and some of the deli products aren’t very nice. Btw the vegan chicken cubes (ie for stir fry) are gross! I bought them by mistake instead of normal Quorn ones. Again, it’s fine in moderation, but yes it’s wuite heavily processed.
Try Linda Mc Cartney’s shredded duck, it’s amazing..,

Exactly @DwangelaForever

I was referring to someone who said it's "like penicillin"

Hard to say. I would argue it's healthier than processed pork products so if it's one or the other then the Quorn is better. But it's still processed so I wouldn't say it was altogether healthy, ie as healthy as less processed products or nuts/lentils etc.

Fascinating thread - leant so much - thanks!

It's reinforced my belief that it is healthier than processed soy ... and encouraged me to not over rely on it... but gonna try those cocktail sausages!

Also great reminder re iron....

I'm allergic to penicillin and mould but fine with Quorn. Love the cottage pie.

I'm allergic to penicillin and I'm fine with quorn. We eat it cos we are virtually veggie (Dh is vegan) and the kids don't always eat completely vegetable stuff (like my delight vegetable lasagne). So I use it occasionally in chilli, lasagne and curry.

Ham, beef mince, beef burgers, sausages are all processed foods too.

I'm very suspicious of it and wouldn't feed it to myself or my kids. However, they eat sweets and McDonalds so who am I to judge it.

Often when people first go vegetarian they live on quorn because they can’t think what else to cook (ie they cook exactly the same as they would as a meat-eater, but use quorn instead).

Thers’s nothing wrong with quorn, it just seems very limiting to live on meat-substitutes. I think you’ll fall back into eating meat if your repertoire doesn’t expand over time.

I hardly ever eat quorn now because I eat meals that aren’t centred on meat anyway (various pasta and rice dishes, noodles, beans and veg etc). Try the River Cottage Veg Every Day, or Delia’s vegetarian cookbook.

Why do vegetarians need a meat substitute?

Many vegetarians bang on about how much more varied a diet is without meat. That us omnivores can't see past the meat and two veg thing.
Why then do they need to continue with that meal model idea?
Especially with a crap product like quorn.

Very unimaginative.

speakout I never understand why people struggle with this concept. Most vegetarians grew up eating meat, so when they want to cut it out of their diet, for welfare or other reasons, they naturally look for a way to eat meals they are familiar with but without the dead animal element. Hope this helps clear things up for you.

(I'm not much for Quorn myself but this argument has always perplexed me. Seems fairly obvious why meat substitutes are popular)

FindoGask no it really doesn't " clear things up" for me.

I am not a vegetarian.
I eat very little meat.
I think the whole meat and two veg thing is really unimaginative.
Oh "let's replace a slice of dead animal with a slice of processed mould"

How dumb is that.

Literally no vegetarian I have ever met talks like that. You've concocted an imaginary argument in your own head, and then got cross about it. I guess it must pass the time?

I'm vegetarian and eat a reasonable amount of quote. I would rather my children had a chicken breast though.
Agree about the cocktail sausages. It's a good thing they come in small boxes.

Quorn, sorry.
As ready meals go ido love the Sainsbury's innocent style pots. They do a mushroom and grain risotto and a red Thai curry. Both are lovely and very cheap. I do like to stir sweetcorn in the curry.

It is processed, therefore not healthy. Hope that helps.

Buck3t by that argument tofu ( also a processed product) is not healthy.

In allergic to Penicillin, not intolerant allergic and fine with Quorn. We have it in moderation once or occasionally twice a week it's not really any more processed than tofu unless yourself a tofu tree in your allotment?

Lol at eating quorn being "dumb".

It's just a high protein low fat ingredient. I love boiled new potatoes and steamed broccoli/greens etc. Obviously that meal needs some protein to make it balanced and quorn "sausages" have protein and taste nice. I couldn't care less what shape they are and having been vegetarian all my life don't know/care whether they taste like "real" sausages or not. Ditto the mince or "chicken style pieces" - to me they're an alternative to lentils or toasted cashews, nothing to do with meat.

As for the "processed" thing - IMHO people should think more deeply than simply highly processed = bad. What is it about most processed food that is bad? Does that apply to quorn? If so, should you not eat it at all or just not every day? Then make your own mind up.

@TuftedLasyGrotto
Ham, beef mince, beef burgers, sausages are all processed foods too.

If you mean the steak I choose that the butcher puts through the grinder is processing, then yes it is. Not.