Quorn

[Jackov Altraids]

I've just started looking at the claims by Quorn to be sustainable. At lot of the information is oblique and often is only compared as a % to the meat equivalent which is probably inflated as much as possible but often not stated.

My favourite oblique line is;

"We use palm oil in Quorn products where it’s needed to help create great taste and texture. We follow advice from the World Wildlife Fund and use only RSPO segregated certified sustainable palm oil. We don't use very much palm oil – only 0.0006% of the total amount produced globally every year."

Would anyone like to calculate how much palm oil that is? By my reckoning that is over 42,000 tons.

https://www.quorn.us/files/content/Sustainable-Development-Report2019.pdf

 

[Jackov Altraids]

"Of course, Quorn products aren’t just good for us – they’re good for the planet too. For example, Quorn Mince has over 90% lower GHG emissions than beef mince and uses less than one-eighth of the amount of land. Some of our products also have a carbon footprint 70% lower than chicken."

"So, while producing the mycoprotein used in Quorn products uses less land and the water footprint of a meal with Quorn is 10 times lower than eating beef"


These are meaningless and uncorroborated figures that just pretend Quorn is good.

 

[Macsky]

These are meaningless and uncorroborated figures that just pretend Quorn is food.

Fixed that for you

 

[Jackov Altraids]

@delilah has produced documents for meat which shows it is sustainable. This document shows quorn is worse so why are our industry rep's letting them get away with calling it better for the environment.
Our case will stand up to scrutiny much better than theirs.

 

[Kevtherev]

Quorn

 

[Agrivator]

@delilah has produced documents for meat which shows it is sustainable. This document shows quorn is worse so why are our industry rep's letting them get away with calling it better for the environment.
Our case will stand up to scrutiny much better than theirs.

The NFU hierarchy certainly won't put their heads on the bock by upsetting big business.

 

[Jackov Altraids]

The NFU hierarchy certainly won't put their heads on the bock by upsetting big business.

The NFU hierarchy certainly won't put their heads on the block by upsetting....... anyone.

Except members as they don't count.

 

[Woolless]

I could be wrong but didn't I read somewhere that they can't sell Quorn in the US?

 

[melted welly]

I could be wrong but didn't I read somewhere that they can't sell Quorn in the US?

Think it’s Canada, few other countries too

 

[Bill dog]

I could be wrong but didn't I read somewhere that they can't sell Quorn in the US?

I heard that they couldn’t sell it in the Eyemouth region of the borders either . Something to do with a local holistically enclined grazing guru throwing all that guff out their freezers into the sea !!

 

[Woolless]

I heard that they couldn’t sell it in the Eyemouth region of the borders either . Something to do with a local holistically enclined grazing guru throwing all that guff out their freezers into the sea !!

I did have it foisted upon me once by my better half many years ago when we lived in Glasgow's 'fashionable West end'. It was their chicken equivalent. Tasted like very poor quality spam to me. We didn't have it again...

 

[wrenbird]

There is an excellent article about Quorn that Joanna Blythman wrote for the Guardian a few years back. Sorry, I don’t have the first idea how to share it here.

 

[hendrebc]

Think it’s Canada, few other countries too

Yeah because it's so highly processed that it's a danger of causing cancer. Now I know they say that about everything but they say it about bacon and coffee and you can still buy bacon and coffee everywhere.
My sister in law made me try a Quorn sausage at a BBQ once convinced I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. It wasn't unpleasant it just tasted a bit odd to me. Like you could tell it was highly processed food it tasted a bit salty but not like normal salt and that it wasn't quite meat. Threw what was left to their cat that had been annoying people for food all afternoon and she sniffed it and left it. The birds hadn't eaten it by next morning either which tells you a lot about it.

 

[jondear]

The Quorn revolution: the rise of ultra-processed fake meat

It was reported last week that Quorn is on course to become a billion-dollar business. It is part of a booming industry of meat alternatives – but many of these products are a far cry from the idea of a natural, plant-based diet

www.theguardian.com

This @wrenbird

 

[Agrivator]

The Quorn revolution: the rise of ultra-processed fake meat

It was reported last week that Quorn is on course to become a billion-dollar business. It is part of a booming industry of meat alternatives – but many of these products are a far cry from the idea of a natural, plant-based diet

www.theguardian.com

This @wrenbird

An extract (pardon the pun) from the above article:

Quorn has built up a range of more than 100 products, from mince and sausages to goat’s cheese and cranberry escalopes and toad in the hole, and it is beefing up – excuse the pun – its vegan range; most Quorn products contain egg (free-range egg in the UK), but its vegan equivalents use potato protein instead. With artful use of additives and hi-tech ingredients in the food manufacturer’s cabinet – factory flavourings and colourings, milk proteins, tapioca starch, palm oil, pea fibre, firming and gelling agents and so on – it seems that many of us will take chameleonic Quorn at face value as a dead ringer for everything from steak and bacon to gammon, chicken supreme and hot dogs.

Quorn has earned the patronage of the Olympian Mo Farah, the footballer Jermain Defoe and the broadcaster Ben Fogle. It gets a gastronomic thumbs-up from environmentalist and Guardian columnist George Monbiot, who says that “Quorn seems almost indistinguishable from chicken or mince to me”.

My impression could not be more different. While it is true that Quorn shows some of the bouncy, muscular resistance of lean meat, in every other respect – taste, smell, consistency, cooking properties, digestibility – it is nothing like meat. But I am an omnivore. To my knowledge, Quorn has never featured on the menu of any serious restaurant of note; it is more a supermarket midweek-meal proposition.

 

[Agrivator]

Is it possible to manufacture a fake lamb chop?

 

[Woolless]

Is it possible to manufacture a fake lamb chop?

You used to get a 'mock chop' in some CHP shops but I assume that you mean meat free? They'll never manage to replicate crispy lamb fat

 

[penntor]

Has George Monbiot taken a Covid test, I think he should as he has clearly lost his sense of taste if he thinks Quorn is indistinguishable from chicken or mince.

 

[exmoor dave]

The 'mince' is like eating finely chopped up wet dish sponge from the kitchen

Adds absolutely nothing to the dish taste wise, my conclusion from my one and only quorn experience (spagbol cooked by veggie family)

 

[melted welly]

The 'mince' is like eating finely chopped up wet dish sponge from the kitchen

Adds absolutely nothing to the dish taste wise, my conclusion from my one and only quorn experience (spagbol cooked by veggie family)

Lived with a vegetarian family for a while, meals were nice but constantly hungry. Had quorn once, chunks “like” chicken breast in shape alone but very rubbery, and taste non existent.

I had a stock of cooked chicken thighs and salami in the van and Burger King was on the way home.