Quorn is a brand of meat substitute products, or the company that makes them. Quorn is sold as both a cooking ingredient and as a meat substitute used in a range of prepackaged meals. All Quorn foods contain mycoprotein as an ingredient, which is derived from the Fusarium venenatum fungus.
https://www.quorn.us/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorn# First Report of Fusarium venenatum Causing Foot and Root Rot of Wheat (Triticum aestivum) in Germany.
https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/10.1094/PDIS-10-20-2202-PDN Fusarium Infections in Immunocompromised Patients.
https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/cmr.00014-07 Fusarium is a large genus of filamentous fungi, part of a group often referred to as hyphomycetes, widely distributed in soil and associated with plants. Most species are harmless saprobes, and are relatively abundant members of the soil microbial community. Some species produce mycotoxins in cereal crops that can affect human and animal health if they enter the food chain. The main toxins produced by these Fusarium species are fumonisins and trichothecenes. Despite most species apparently being harmless (some existing on the skin as commensal members of the skin flora),
some Fusarium species and subspecific groups are among the most important fungal pathogens of plants and animals. Fusarium graminearum commonly infects barley if there is rain late in the season. It is of economic impact to the malting and brewing industries, as well as feed barley. Fusarium contamination in barley can result in head blight, and in extreme contaminations, the barley can appear pink. The genome of this wheat and maize pathogen has been sequenced. F. graminearum can also cause root rot and seedling blight.
The total losses in the US of barley and wheat crops between 1991 and 1996 have been estimated at $3 billion. Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense is a fungal plant pathogen that causes Panama disease of banana (Musa spp.), also known as fusarium wilt of banana. Panama disease affects a wide range of banana cultivars, which are propagated asexually from offshoots and therefore have very little genetic diversity.
Panama disease is one of the most destructive plant diseases of modern times, and caused the commercial disappearance of the once dominant Gros Michel cultivar. A more recent strain also affects the Cavendish cultivars which commercially replaced Gros Michel. It is considered inevitable that this susceptibility will spread globally and commercially wipe out the Cavendish cultivar, for which there are currently no acceptable replacements. Bye Bye bananas!
Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. narcissi causes rotting of the bulbs (basal rot) and yellowing of the leaves of daffodils (Narcissi).
In 2021 it was discovered that Fusarium xyrophilum was able to hijack a South American species of yellow-eyed Xyris grass, creating fake flowers, fooling bees and other pollinating insects into visiting them, taking fungal spores to other plants. Some species may cause a range of opportunistic infections in humans. In humans with normal immune systems, fusarial infections may occur in the nails (onychomycosis) and in the cornea (keratomycosis or mycotic keratitis). In humans whose immune systems are weakened in a particular way, (neutropenia, i.e., very low neutrophils count), aggressive fusarial infections penetrating the entire body and bloodstream (disseminated infections) may be caused by members of the Fusarium solani complex, Fusarium oxysporum, Fusarium verticillioides, Fusarium proliferatum and, rarely, other fusarial species. Mass casualties occurred in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s when Fusarium-contaminated wheat flour was baked into bread, causing alimentary toxic aleukia with a 60% mortality rate. Symptoms began with abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and prostration, and within days, fever, chills, myalgias and bone marrow depression with granulocytopenia and secondary sepsis occurred. Further symptoms included pharyngeal or laryngeal ulceration and diffuse bleeding into the skin (petechiae and ecchymoses), melena, bloody diarrhea, hematuria, hematemesis, epistaxis, vaginal bleeding, pancytopenia and gastrointestinal ulceration. Fusarium sporotrichoides contamination was found in affected grain in 1932, spurring research for medical purposes and for use in biological warfare. The active ingredient was found to be trichothecene T-2 mycotoxin, and it was produced in quantity and weaponized prior to the passage of the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972. The Soviets were accused of using the agent, dubbed "yellow rain", to cause 6,300 deaths in Laos, Kampuchea, and Afghanistan between 1975 and 1981. The "biological warfare agent" was later purported to be merely bee feces, but the issue remains disputed. In 2023 Israeli soldiers fighting in Gaza were found to be contaminated by Fusarium, causing at least one death, but so far there are no indications that the fungi was used as a weapon. Fusarium has posed a threat to the ancient cave paintings in Lascaux since 1955, when the caves were first opened to visitors. The caves subsequently closed and the threat subsided, but the installation of an air conditioning system in 2000 caused another outbreak of the fungus which is yet to be resolved. Fusarium may be part of microbiota including digestive as well as oral/dental, there have been rare cases of Fusariosis presenting as a necrotic ulceration of the gingiva, extending to the alveolar bone has been reported in a granulocytopenic patient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusarium Fusarium wilt is a common vascular wilt fungal disease, exhibiting symptoms similar to Verticillium wilt. This disease has been investigated extensively since the early years of this century. The pathogen that causes Fusarium wilt is Fusarium oxysporum (F. oxysporum). The species is further divided into formae speciales based on host plant.
The fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum affects a wide variety of hosts of any age. Tomato, tobacco, legumes, cucurbits (squash, pumpkin, zucchini or courgette, some gourds, calabash, and others that are inedible, watermelon (C. lanatus, C. colocynthis) and others, cucumber (C. sativus), various melons and vines, bitter melon, Luffa), sweet potatoes and banana are a few of the most susceptible plants, but it also infects other herbaceous plants. F. oxysporum generally produces symptoms such as wilting, chlorosis, necrosis, premature leaf drop, browning of the vascular system, stunting and damping-off. The most important of these is vascular wilt. Fusarium wilt starts out looking like vein clearing on the younger leaves and drooping of the older lower leaves, followed by stunting, yellowing of the lower leaves, defoliation, marginal necrosis and plant death. On older plants, symptoms are more distinct between the blossoming and fruit maturation stages.
F. oxysporum f. sp. batatas affects sweet potato. The symptoms include leaf chlorosis, stunting, and leaf drop. It is transmitted through the soil and through vascular wounds in plant material.
Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. canariensis causes wilt of Canary Island date palm and other propagated palms. The disease is spread through contaminated seed, soil and pruning tools.
F. oxysporum f. sp. cubense causes Panama disease on banana. It is found everywhere bananas are grown in Africa, Asia, Central and South America. It attacks banana plants of all ages and spreads mainly through the soil. It causes wilting and yellowing of the leaves.
F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici causes vascular wilt in tomato. The disease starts out as yellowing and drooping on one side of the plant. Leaf wilting, plant stunting, browning of the vascular system, leaf death and lack of fruit production also occur.
F. oxysporum f. sp. melonis attacks muskmelon and cantaloupe. It causes damping-off in seedlings and causes chlorosis, stunting and wilting in old plants. Necrotic streaks can appear on the stems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusarium_wilt Microfungi or micromycetes are fungi—eukaryotic organisms such as molds, mildews and rusts—which have microscopic spore-producing structures. They exhibit tube tip-growth and have cell walls composed of chitin, a polymer of N-acetylglucosamine. Microfungi are a paraphyletic group, distinguished from macrofungi only by the absence of a large, multicellular fruiting body (no mushrooms). They are ubiquitous in all terrestrial and freshwater and marine environments, and grow in plants, soil, water, insects, cattle rumens, hair, and skin. Most of the fungal body consists of microscopic threads, called hyphae, extending through the substrate in which it grows. The mycelia of microfungi produce spores that are carried by the air, spreading the fungus.
Microfungi can be harmful, causing diseases of plants, animals and humans with varying degrees of severity and economic impact. The irritating human skin disease known as athlete's foot or tinea pedis is caused by species of the microfungal genus Trichophyton. Microfungi may cause diseases of crops and trees which range in severity from mild to disastrous, and in economic importance from beneficial to seriously costly. The mould Botrytis cinerea can cause spoilage of crops including grapes, but is also responsible for the "noble rot", which concentrates sugars in the grapes used to make the intensely sweet and concentrated Sauternes dessert wines from the Bordeaux region of France. Dutch elm disease, which has ravaged elms across Europe and North America in the last 50 years, is caused by the microfungi of the genus Ophiostoma. Rice blast, a devastating fungal disease of cereals including rice, wheat and millet, is caused by the phytopathogenic Ascomycete fungus Magnaporthe grisea. In the built environment, the toxic fungus Stachybotrys chartarum causes damage to damp walls and furnishings, and may be responsible for sick building syndrome.
Types of epidermal microfungal infections are:
Yeast infection, thrush
Athlete's foot
Mycosis
Tinea
Dermatophytosis, also known as ringworm
Tinea pedis (athlete's foot): fungal infection of the feet
Tinea unguium: fungal infection of the fingernails and toenails, and the nail bed
Tinea corporis: fungal infection of the arms, legs, and trunk
Tinea cruris (jock itch): fungal infection of the groin area
Tinea manuum: fungal infection of the hands and palm area
Tinea capitis: fungal infection of the scalp and hair
Tinea faciei (face fungus): fungal infection of the face
Tinea barbae: fungal infestation of facial hair
Other superficial mycoses (not classic ringworm, since not caused by dermatophytes)
Tinea versicolor: caused by Malassezia furfur
Tinea nigra: caused by Hortaea werneckii
Candida, yeast infection
Quorn is kind of like the underground filaments mushrooms make, but more like a mold, mildew, or rust. Mmm. Yummy. They can make things like "Quorn-don bleu" look appetizing, but the only mold I'll eat is on cheese or sausage. And I never ate sausage that was covered with white mold. Microfungi or micromycetes are the kind of thing I might eat traces of, or eat by accident, but I'm not buying mildew-mold-meat substitute by the pound. I once had Fusarium wilt (or possibly Verticillium wilt) in the garden, but not for dinner.
So, who's tried Quorn, and how was it?
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