By Lee Yu Kit
Quorn
meat-free products are now available in Malaysia. We take a look, cook and
taste the vegetarian sausages
The plant-based meat movement has gained mainstream
popularity, especially with Impossible Foods’ and Beyond Meats’ realistic meat
substitutes. Lockdowns under Covid19 seem to have increased the popularity of
realistic plant-based ‘meats’, and even large food producers such as Nestle and
Tyson foods have jumped onto the substitute meat bandwagon.
Health concerns, the large environmental footprint of
producing meat, as well as animal welfare have all been given as reasons for
the upward trajectory in the consumption of plant-based meats, although, on a
global level, meat consumption overall is higher than ever, largely driven by
demand from developing countries.
Of the plant-based meats, UK-based Quorn has been around
since 1985. It is widely available in over a dozen countries, including,
recently, Malaysia.
Vegetable
protein: Mycoprotein
Unlike most meat substitutes, which use soy and pea
proteins, Quorn uses mycoprotein, which is derived and harvested from the
fermentation of a fungus. Nutritionally, mycoprotein is naturally high in
protein (11g per 100g) and fibre. It is low in saturated fats, carbohydrates,
sugar and salt. Additionally, it
contains calcium, potassium, phosphorus and small amounts of other minerals
such as zinc and selenium.
Notably, mycoprotein is a complete protein, containing all
the essential amino acids, which is unusual in plant proteins.
A 1992 study linked the consumption of mycoprotein with
lowered levels of LDL (“bad” cholesterol) and increased HDL cholesterol (“good”
cholesterol).
Quorn also points out that the production of mycoprotein
uses as much as 90% less land and water resources than in producing some animal
proteins.
Quorn products are available in a range of forms, including
sausages, nuggets, mince, burgers and fish fingers. You can check out their
range at https://www.quorn.co.uk/products/all.
For those concerned about intolerance or allergies to Quorn
products, the company addresses this in their website, https://www.quorn.co.uk/intolerance
Cooking
Quorn Sausages
I picked up a bag of at Quorn sausages at Jaya Grocer in The
Starling. At RM31.20 for 12 sausages,
that’s quite a bit more than you’d expect to pay for commercial meat sausages.
The cooking instructions were simple: fry from frozen for
about 15 minutes in a little oil, which I dutifully followed. Appearance wise,
the sausages are short and stubby, and pale coloured when uncooked. The
sausages are not vegan, using rehydrated free-range egg albumin as a binder,
although vegan Quorn products are also available. Mycoprotein and albumin are
the two major ingredients, with others being vegetable oils, rusk, onion,
stabilisers, firming agents and flavouring.
In the pan, the sausages turned brown rather nicely as they
heated up, with the heated parts browning more than the less heated parts, as
with real sausages. They certainly
looked convincing. They smelled quite nice as well. Appearance wise, there was
nothing to suggest that these weren’t ordinary meat sausages. In the attached picture, the sausages are
acquiring a nice brown colour in a frying pan.
Isn’t
this a chicken sausage?
And how did they turn out? The look like regular sausages
and when cooked, have a firm texture, revealing a slightly-pinkish cross
section when cut. I had the sausages with fried onions, lettuce and tomato
slices on bread. The sausages had a good mouthfeel and gave a good sense of
satiety after eating. You can see how
the sausage looks when cooked, and served on bread with condiments in the attached
picture.
In the taste test, they are most similar to chicken
sausages, with the slight bounce and mild flavour of chicken sausages. It was a good lunch meal, sausages with bread
and vegetables.
It’s noteworthy that real chicken sausages can be expected
to contain amounts of growth hormone and antibiotics fed to chickens, as well
as some saturated fat. Sausages are usually made from the less commercially
desirable parts of the animal, ground up with the addition of flavouring,
colouring and preservatives, into a homogenous mince.
Although they contain no animal meat, Quorn sausages are,
nevertheless, a highly-processed food, made to look and taste like chicken
sausages. They’re not the best choice if you want to eat healthily – for that,
go with minimally processed, whole foods – but if you fancy chicken sausages
every now and then, and have reservations about eating animal meat, these would
do the trick.
