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More: Allergies, fungus, meat alternatives, meat substitute, mold, quorn, vegetarian, veggie burgers
During a recent grocery shopping trip, I decided to pick up a box of frozen Quorn Chicken Patties. I had previously heard good things about Quorn on vegetarian cooking shows and the packaging was full of appealing healthy phrases like “Low In Fat”, “0g Trans Fat”, “High In Protein”, “High In Fiber”.
My son and I had Quorn burgers for dinner that night and we were pleasantly suprised by how good they tasted- just like chicken! I was thrilled to have found such a tasty new meat substitute to add to our vegetarian meal rotation. My happiness was short lived when both my son and I started having stomach aches. My son had it worse than me. He said he felt like he was going to puke. I felt like I had swallowed a lead brick that kept on expanding. I went online to look up exactly what is in Quorn.
The official Quorn website states that Quorn is a mycoprotein and that there are 600,000 types of fungi in the world, including a wide variety of mushrooms, truffles and morels. That didn’t sound all that bad. They made it seem like Quorn is a mushroom burger. Wrong!
The mycoprotein that is in Quorn is called “Fusarium Venenatum”. It is a moldy fungus that is grown in large fermentation tanks by the Quorn corporation. Under certain conditions, “Fusarium venenatum” can morph into toxins known as trichothecene mycotoxins, causing nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Quorn products have sickened hundreds of people. CSPI has been gathering their sickening stories and sharing them on their website. They also are pushing for the removal of Quorn products from store shelves.
After finding all of that out, I thank my lucky stars that we didn’t have an extreme allergic reaction. If I had known about the true ingredients in Quorn, I would have never tried it! We will be avoiding Quorn like the plague in the future and will be sticking to the veggie burger brands that that are mold and fungus free.
[http://www.cspinet.org/quorn/]
[http://www.quorn.us//cmpage.aspx?section=WhatIsQuorn]
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April 17th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Thanks for this post. I was sickened very badly by Quorn, and initially thought it may have been to poorly handled frozen foods. Now that I read that the organism is Fusarium venenatum, my reaction must have been attributed to that! I got so sick that my kidneys hurt!!! I don’t think I’ll be trying it a second time to confirm the reaction either! OUCH!!
April 21st, 2008 at 7:43 am
I for one, go out of my way to avoid eating mold.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:30 pm
MW: Sorry to hear that Quorn made you sick. You can report your allergic reaction here: http://www.cspinet.org/quorn/form.html
May 5th, 2008 at 8:10 am
I find the selective suspension of suspicion regarding food pretty laughable–I mean, if we’re going to call for Quorn to be pulled off of grocery store shelves, shall we also remove cheese, yogurt, beer, wine, etc? Cheese and yogurt of quality are actually teeming with bacteria. Penicillin is made from mold.
An allergic reaction can happen to foods that are seemingly “pure” or those that have a “yuck” factor in their production. While thousands of people have deadly allergies to nuts, we don’t do much to ensure that factories which produce every kind of food are nut-free, even though exposure to nuts in even the most miniscule quantities can be equivalent to ingesting arsenic, with anaphylaxis leading to death in minutes.
So where’s the no nuts/no cheese lobby? What makes Quorn special?
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:37 am
Quorn is this vegetarian’s best friend. Unlike the vast sea of awful tasting, crappy textured soy and wheat gluten products out there, Quorn actually tastes good and has a texture not unlike the real thing. Yes, shockingly, one out of 150,000 consumers has an adverse reaction to the ingredients on Quorn. If you are one of those individuals, I invite you not to eat it. But there are 400 times as many people (one in 350) who have an adverse reaction to soy.
Educate yourself before you write this alarmist clap-trap!
January 8th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
I agree with Mary, what a lot of hogwash. More people have reactions to all kinds of other things than to Quorn. Should we remove peanuts from sale?
This paragraph is laughable:
‘It is a moldy fungus that is grown in large fermentation tanks by the Quorn corporation. Under certain conditions, “Fusarium venenatum” can morph into toxins known as trichothecene mycotoxins”
Just because it is produced in fementation tanks doesn’t make it bad, and what do you think yeast is if not a fungus– and how do you think it is produced? (Plenty of people are allergic to yeast too.)
A fungus cannot ‘morph’ into a toxin. it may under certain circumstances become toxic, as can chicken.
No, I don’t work for Quorn, but I do get tired of this sort of nonsense!
January 8th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
PS I’m sure a minority of people do have an adverse reaction to Quorn, as people do to other foodstuffs– and that’s a shame, but put it into perspective, please!
February 2nd, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I agree with Mary and Gary, I studied Food Technology and trust me that there’s a lot more crap out there that is far more dangerous to health and Quorn is certainly a good option in taste and quality for vegetarians. Soy is still difficult to work with in the sensory department.
And as for processes, just fyi, if it’s done in a fermentation tank it means it’s under CONTROLLED conditions so thinks don’t “turn into” what they’re not supposed to. Please inform yourself well with food engineering terms and allergic reactions before turning them into a scandal.
February 12th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
I tried Quorn recently, with no knowledge of the controvery surrounding it. My body acted like I was giving it highly-artifical chemicals – in other words, I could feel that my body did not know what to do with it. I won’t be eating it again.
Here is an excerpt from a 1997 article on tricothecenes from Quorn.
Molecular Phylogenetic, Morphological, and Mycotoxin Data Support Reidentification of the Quorn Mycoprotein Fungus as Fusarium venenatum
K. O’Donnella, E. Cigelnika and H. H. Casperb
“Analysis of mycotoxins from rice cultures inoculated with Quorn strain NRRL 25416 revealed that four type A trichothecenes are produced, but at low levels relative to strain NRRL 22198 ofF. venenatum. No trichothecene mycotoxins, however, were detected from the analysis of three commercial Quorn products marketed for human consumption in England.”
Fungal Genetics and Biology
Volume 23, Issue 1, February 1998, Pages 57-67
March 5th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Quorn & CSPI: The Other Fake Meat
Friday, August 30, 2002
By Steven Milloy
You might think the anti-meat food police at the Center for Science in the Public Interest would be cheering the new meat substitute Quorn.
Instead, CSPI is scaring the public and bad-mouthing Quorn to the Food and Drug Administration.
Quorn is “the processed cellular mass that is obtained from the filamentous fungus Fusarium venenatum strain PTA-2684,” according to the manufacturer’s application to the FDA. The fungus by-product was approved in the U.K. in 1985 and is the top-selling meat substitute in Europe.
The FDA approved Quorn in the U.S. last January. CSPI soon went into action.
Weeks later, CSPI claimed Quorn was “deceptively labeled” as originating from mushrooms and filed complaints with the FDA, and U.K. and European regulators.
In May, CSPI called Quorn the “new Olestra,” alluding to the bogus CSPI-generated controversy about Procter & Gamble’s fat substitute. As with Olestra, CSPI claimed Quorn was making people sick.
This month CSPI issued media releases calling for a recall and claiming Quorn was linked to “severe vomiting.”
CSPI alleged in an Aug. 15 release: “One woman experienced fecal incontinence in public places, while another feared choking to death on her vomit. People have told us that they fainted in [the subway] and on the toilet, vomited out the window of a taxi, and missed work, Christmas dinners, concerts and other activities.”
There is a dangerous fungus among us, but it’s not Quorn. It’s CSPI.
CSPI’s claim that Quorn is deceptively labeled makes a mountain of a molehill.
Quorn’s link with mushrooms was made to help explain the product to consumers, according to Quorn’s manufacturer, Marlow Foods. Quorn is derived from a fungus and mushrooms are fungi.
CSPI wants Quorn labeled as “mold-based” — implying that Quorn is some sort of health threat.
Quorn is currently working with the FDA to refine the description.
CSPI’s health claims about Quorn are completely unfounded.
CSPI says a study filed by Marlow Foods with the FDA found up to 10 percent of 200 volunteers experienced vomiting, nausea or stomach aches after eating Quorn.
CSPI chief Michael Jacobson may want to brush up on his math, though. A closer look at the study indicates only one person might have had an adverse reaction to Quorn.
As food allergies are common, this is no reason to disparage Quorn. Many consumers are allergic to soy protein, shellfish, peanut, dairy products, and other foods. Marlow Foods estimates the adverse reaction rate for Quorn to be about 1 in 146,000 consumers.
This is 400 times lower than the adverse reaction rate for soy products and over 29,000 times lower than for lactose intolerance from dairy products.
So why is CSPI trying so carnivorously to destroy Quorn?
CSPI appears to have an unsavory relationship with Quorn competitor, Gardenburger — a company that rails against Quorn on its Web site and pesters the FDA.
CSPI regularly promotes Gardenburger products on its Web site and publications.
In the April 1998 issue of its newsletter, for example, CSPI stated: “Remember the saturated fat and the E.coli bacteria that could be hiding inside [a hamburger]? You can keep the taste but forget the worries with Gardenburger.”
CSPI recently spotlighted Flame Grilled Hamburger Style Gardenburgers as a “favorite” that “taste like they’re hot off the coals.”
That’s from a group labeling itself as a “nonprofit education and advocacy organization that focuses on improving the safety and nutritional quality of our food.”
“R-r-r-i-i-i-i-ght,” as Austin Powers’ Dr. Evil might say.
The president of Gardenburger e-mailed food brokers a copy of a letter sent by CSPI to the FDA supposedly documenting adverse consumer reactions to Quorn.
The e-mail asked the brokers to send the letter to retailers and notes “these are the same guys who hounded Procter & Gamble until they finally withdrew the fat substitute Olestra from sale. Net, I’d say Quorn’s days are numbered …”
This cutthroat e-mail is even more sinister as it was sent to brokers the same morning CSPI sent its letter to the FDA but a week before CSPI publicly announced its findings.
CSPI even told the FDA, “… considering the plethora of tasty, nutritious meat alternatives on supermarket shelves, there is absolutely no need for [Quorn].”
CSPI’s attempted mugging of Quorn is also odd since the food police usually target bigger fish like the fast food, soft drink and snack food industries.
Though CNN, The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets have fallen for this scam, successful public relations may not be enough to save Gardenburger. The company’s sales peaked in 1999 at $88 million and declined to $59 million in 2001.
We can only hope the same trend befalls CSPI’s unscrupulous shrieking.
Steven Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com , an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and the author of Junk Science Judo: Self-defense Against Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute, 2001).
March 12th, 2009 at 9:55 am
This article is ridiculous. I’ve eaten Quorn plenty of times (at least once per week) and have never had any adverse reaction to it. As with any food there will be people who have adverse reactions, but the products are not poisonous, as this article seems to claim.
March 14th, 2009 at 5:49 am
You had an allergic reaction to a foodstuff. What is so special about that? Many people have allergic reactions to lots of different types food. Just because it is produced using a mycoprotein, does not mean it should be ridiculed as it is heat treated in order to destroy any excess RNA and DNA anyway. Although your reaction must be typical to any human being’s, even though it should not be. Please put it into perspective. (I am sorry for sounding harsh at the start of this comment, and I am deeply sorry for what sounds like a painful adverse reaction.)
March 15th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
I definitely don’t want to single out Quorn as being uniquely allergenic, but some of the strong anti-Quorn responses here might stem from surprise–maybe even shock–at experiencing such a strong reaction to this foodstuff.
I’m just over a 6-hour jag of vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, and what felt like a knife in my upper stomach. It started in the parking lot of a shopping center, where, while shopping, my stomach started to hurt. I walked out to my car with the intent of racing home, but instead spent an hour on my hands and knees vomiting onto the pavement.
When I got back into the car, I couldn’t sit up straight. My stomach felt like it had been twisted into a knot. I was sweating and shaking and couldn’t sit or lie comfortably. I had to call my girlfriend to come pick me up and take me to her house. Once there, I writhed on the floor of her bathroom in between bouts of vomiting and diarrhea, alternately sweating and getting the chills.
The stomach pain and vomiting are done, it seems, but the diarrhea continues.
I’m not trying to be dramatic here, and no one has to believe this testimony. I’m not food-phobic: I’m omnivorous and eat a wide variety of meat and non-meat proteins, lots of cooked and raw vegetables, fish, fruit, pasta, brown rice, jasmine rice, etc. I also eat different cuisines all the time: Americana, Mexican, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, French, Italian, German, blah blah. I have never, ever had a reaction to food like this, with the exception of actual food poisoning, and I don’t remember the intense pain.
The reason I attribute this attack to Quorn is because I had a similar reaction five nights ago. It wasn’t as intense as I simply sampled a small amount from a Quorn dish I was making for lunch the next day. My stomach didn’t hurt quite as bad, but the vomiting and diarrhea happened, and it was a 6 or 7 hour ordeal.
Now, two other possible culprits: frozen spinach and Prego tomato sauce. I made a quick bolognese sauce using the Quorn instead of meat. I suppose it’s possible that one of these two ingredients are tainted. The pasta’s fine; I had that with some chicken.
Figuring the earlier attack as either a stomach virus or stress over the fact that I had to put my dog down this week, I went ahead and had the bolognese with pasta for lunch today. Well, now I know what made me sick the first time.
I’m glad Quorn works for most folks. Again, I’m not trying to single it out, but I am shocked that I had such an extreme reaction and will be throwing it and the sauce away, never to buy it or eat it again.
March 16th, 2009 at 5:46 am
My family loves Quorn brand products. We have never had any difficulty with the products since we began using them just over a year ago. I became a vegetarian because food products containing meat made me horribly ill. I have not started demanding that all meat based products be removed from market shelves simply because I cannot digest it. If I had an adverse reaction, I would not be so quick to discount improper food handling or storage at the store, or contamination in another food product. These products were sold for twenty years in Europe before being introduced to the American market; wouldn’t they have figured out that they were toxic in that time period? I’m pretty sure they would have. I will continue to use Quorn products, because they taste so much better than soy based products!
August 19th, 2009 at 11:23 am
[...] And that means it is probably pure poison, predisposing permanent perish. [...]
December 16th, 2009 at 7:18 am
It’s a kind of ignorence when people that have no problem with eating Quorn cannot accept or believe the horrible stories by the people (like myself) who witness that severe vomiting after eating it.
I experienced it twice and it was only the second time that I could connect it to Quorn so clear. I’s not the frequency that it occurs, but it’s the fact that it can occur. And the vomiting can be even be more dangerous because the substance of what we vomit seems to be more dry in the end and we almost choke!
Hope that we will be warned by labeling in the future.
I will never, never eat a Quorn product again in my life.
January 20th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Not to sound like paranoid, but I think half of these comments are propaganda from the dozens of other companies/lobbyists etc, who have something lose by Quorn be a healthy and tasty meat substitute. This stuff is the number one selling meat sub in Europe and I know plenty of vegies that eat this stuff. Something smells fishy.
March 14th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
I am a student at the University of Toronto and have been studying the controversy around Quorn allergies for several months now.
According to the CSPI in one of their many letters concerning the allergy risks of Quorn, the 1 in 146,000 adverse reaction rate reported by Marlow Foods (Manufacturer of Quorn) was calculated by dividing the total number of complaints reported to the company by the number of portions sold in the same year. If this is true then the company is being deceptive by suggesting that 1 in 146,000 eaters will have a reaction.
The company is suggesting that each consumed portion represents an eater. Most eaters will consume more than a single portion of Quorn in a year. So you actually have to first divide the total portions sold by the average number of portions consumed per eater. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the average eater consumes 2 portions of Quorn product at a meal and let’s say they eat 2 Quorn meals a week for a total of 4 portions a week. Now multiply by 52 weeks/yr to give 208 portions per year per eater. Now divide the total number of portions the company has sold in a year by 208 and you have an estimate of the number of “eaters”.
NOW you can divide the number of complaints by this significantly reduced number to give an estimate of the adverse event frequency. If you used the calculations above you would get 1/730. Now assume that the majority of adverse events go unreported to the manufacturer and you begin to see that the situation could very likely be far worse than the manufacturer is suggesting.
June 30th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
If Quorn makes you feel nauseous then please don’t buy it. If something makes you ill then you don’t eat it – simple. You don’t have to demand everyone stops eating it too. Leave it on the shelves for those of us who have been eating it for 20+ years to enjoy.
The USA should endeavor to keep up with Europe, not fall behind.
Try looking into how a chicken nugget is produced, then compare it with how a Quorn nugget is produced – I know which I’d rather eat.