In 1986, Britain's Marlow Foods Ltd. applied to the FDA to make mycoprotein a food additive. The FDA has completed the safety review of mycoprotein and expects to complete the full review later this year.
Eager to move Quorn to the U.S. market, Marlow Foods notified the FDA last year that it would market mycoprotein as "generally recognized as safe" — a less-stringent way to bring a product to market. In January, the agency responded that it had no questions, which allowed Marlow to begin marketing. Frozen Quorn products were introduced to U.S. health-food stores in mid-January and are expected to reach grocery stores later this year.
This month, Quorn tenders earned a laudatory "Best Bites" citation in Nutrition Action, the newsletter published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based nutrition watchdog group.
"The new product is made from a fungus, but a darn good-tasting one," the citation notes.
A week earlier, the group's assessment of Quorn was different.
In a Feb. 27 letter to the FDA's food safety center, Center for Science director Michael Jacobson began brightly enough: "We applaud the company for developing and marketing nutritious products that have little impact on the environment, especially compared to meat and poultry." Then the tone shifted: "However, we urge the FDA to take enforcement action regarding the deceptive labeling of those products, to reconsider the 'generally recognized as safe' designation and not approve mycoprotein as a food additive until certain testing is conducted."
At issue is the product label's use of the words "mushroom in origin."
"While all mushrooms are fungi, not all fungi are mushrooms," Jacobson said. "It is a fungus and should be labeled as such." In a statement, Jacobson said consumers "would be surprised to find that a fungus never before in the American food supply has quietly found its way into grocery stores without the kind of government scrutiny that a new food deserves."
In its letter to the FDA, the Center for Science also raised concerns about possible allergic reactions to Quorn.
Neither safety nor allergies have been issues for Quorn in Europe, where the products have been used by more than 20 million people for 17 years, Wilson said.
Other experts cited Quorn as an important new product. "From a health point of view, it is quite valuable," said Miller, a member of the "generally recognized as safe" committee that was paid by Marlow to review Quorn for the FDA.
Jacobson agrees that some Quorn products are low enough in fat to have benefits. But he notes that critics of genetically engineered foods in Europe and the United States have been surprisingly quiet about Quorn. While they objected vociferously to Starlink genetically modified corn, "it contained just one minuscule (new) protein," Jacobson said. "With the mycoprotein in Quorn, there are thousands of proteins that Americans have never eaten before."
While Quorn is not a genetically modified food, neither is it as natural as it sounds on the label, Jacobson said. "This is high-tech stuff grown in a vat and turned into delicious, attractive products," he said. "But what does this say about where our food supply is going?"
Quorn's makers are quick to answer: toward the rising demand for meatless products. "People want to eat more healthfully," Wilson said.
"We know that consumers want great-tasting foods," he said. "What we can offer for the first time is a line of meat alternatives that are suitable for mainstream America. We're not targeting vegetarians or health fanatics." |
