Mushrooms
While white button mushrooms, Portobello mushrooms and crimini mushrooms (often sold as baby Portobellos) are a good source of various vitamins and minerals, we recommend increasing your intake of shiitake and maitake mushrooms for their added medicinal properties. Mushrooms are a source of vitamin D, phosphorus, potassium, copper, selenium, riboflavin, niacin and pantothenic acid.
While they are less commonly used in Western medicine, mushrooms and mushroom extracts are important ingredients in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Many mushrooms are considered to have therapeutic properties, including anti-cancer and immune-stimulating activity. They are also being studied for use in treatment of high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes, as well as for potential antimicrobial and antioxidant activities.
Some medicinal mushrooms like Maitake (Grifola frondosa) and Shiitake (Lentinula edodes) are available fresh and can be eaten in place of white button mushrooms. Others are available dried, in tea bags, capsules or liquid extracts. Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum) is a non-edible mushroom whose extracts are used for their medicinal properties. In Asian countries, Ganoderma species have been used medicinally for at least four thousand years.
Mushroom considerations
- Mushrooms and other fungi are one type of organism used for bioremediation - a process that uses microorganisms, fungi, green plants or their enzymes to return the environment altered by contaminants to its original condition. Mushrooms are capable of taking contaminants from the soil or decomposing material they are grown on, making them available in the body once consumed. Choose organically grown mushrooms to minimize the risk of exposure to harmful substances.
- Mushrooms easily absorb water and other substances. When washing, do not hold them under water, and avoid getting the undersides of the caps wet. Instead, rub any surface dirt off with a damp cloth.
- Caution: Some mushroom varieties contain potentially very harmful toxins. Poisonings by mushrooms can and do occur when wild mushrooms are misidentified and toxic species are consumed. Because there is no general rule of thumb for distinguishing edible from poisonous mushrooms, it is not recommended to hunt for wild mushrooms.
Resources:
An Introduction to Fungi Perfecti
Fungi Perfect website
www.fungi.com
Accessed June 16, 2006
Bioremediation
Wikipedia
www.en.wikipedia.org
Accessed July 24, 2006
Cleaning Mushrooms
Mykoweb: Mushrooms, Fungi, Mycology
www.mycoweb.com
Accessed July 24, 2006
Mushroom Toxins
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition
www.cfsan.fda.gov
Accessed June 15, 2006
Mushrooms, portabella, grilled
Mushrooms, shiitake, cooked, without salt
Mushrooms, white, stir-fried
USDA Agricultural Research Service – Nutrient Data Laboratory
www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp
Accessed July 24, 2006
Original Research and Review Articles
Sullivan R, et al. Medicinal mushrooms and cancer therapy. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 2006;49(2):159-170.
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