Group Seeks Recall of Meat Substitute

A meat substitute made from fungus should be removed from the market because it not only makes people sick, a consumer health group charged last week, the label misleads people into believing the product is made from mushrooms.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington, D.C.-based health advocacy organization, announced that it has received reports of sickness from 100 people about the product known as Quorn. The discomforts ranged from nausea, diarrhea and hives to fainting spells. The product is made into “chicken” patties, nuggets and cutlets, and fashioned into an imitation ground beef.

Michael Jacobson, the center’s executive director, said in a letter to the Food and Drug Administration that Quorn should be recalled immediately. The meat substitute, made from a fungal protein, has been on the market in the U.S. since January. It has been sold in Europe since the mid-1980s.

Before it is processed, most people would recognize it as a mold. But even though it is a fungus--as are mushrooms--the two are very distantly related. “This stuff is as closely related to mushrooms as human beings are to goldfish,” Jacobson said. The label refers to it as derived from mushrooms.

“Some people have had no reaction to it but others are really thrown for a loop,” he said.

Quorn is distributed in the U.S. by Riverside, Conn.-based Marlow Foods Ltd., a subsidiary of British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. In a statement, the company called “consumer health and wellness” its “number one priority.”

An FDA spokeswoman said Quorn was allowed on the market under a measure known as GRAS, for generally recognized as safe, based on sales in Europe. Jacobson said he obtained reports of illness here and abroad by establishing a Web site, www.QuornComplaints. com. The FDA is reviewing the product and the recall petition.

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Delthia Ricks is a writer for Newsday, a Tribune company.