Mushrooms
Submitted by Healthy Foods and Eating Healthy
  photo credit: Paul Francis Harrison |
Mushrooms are a classified fungi, (which are primitive plants that cannot use photosynthesis to obtain energy because they do not contain chlorophyll). Instead they get their nutrients and energy from partially decomposed tissues of other vegetation.
Did you know that mushrooms have a unique feature? Their cell walls are made of chitin, which is the same material that makes up the external skeleton, (or exoskeleton), of insects, whereas plant cell walls are made of cellulose. Humans value cellulose as fibre, because we cannot digest it and it passes through the gut and helps with the elimination of digestive waste.
For 5000 years mushrooms have been used as medicines, stimulants, hallucinogens, and even as dried tinder for lighting stone age fires. The proof of this was found on the 5000 year old body of the Iceman named Oetzi found in the Alps towards the end of last century.
The French are credited with being the first cultivators of mushrooms over 300 years ago in abandoned Gypsum quarries near Paris. Today of course mushrooms are grown on beds of manure straw and soil, and there is a wide range of mushrooms that are offered for sale by many supermarkets.
Interestingly a mushroom which is not picked will double in size every 24 hours starting as a closed cup mushroom, and finishing as a large flat mushroom with open gills. A mushroom’s flavour is directly proportional to its age, so the older the mushroom the more flavour.
Mushrooms bruise easily and should never be stored in cling film or plastic. They should be stored in paper or cloth bags in the vegetable part of the refrigerator. Store them in anything else and they will deteriorate quickly. Unfortunately even then the maximum time you should store a mushrooms in a fridge is five days.
Warning!..
Mushrooms contain toxins and trace amounts of the carcinogen Agaritine. The toxins can be reduced by cooking, but if you are a cancer sufferer, or are susceptible to cancer perhaps you should avoid mushrooms.
Although mushrooms do have some benefits in that they are a useful source of copper and some of the B vitamins, wild mushrooms can be extremely dangerous. While they may be safe to eat by themselves, they can be deadly when eaten with alcohol.
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