benefits of mushroom

This dish makes a wonderful supper, lunch or starter. I vary what kind of mushroom I use depending on the season or what I can find. At this time of year (weather dependent) a mixture of chestnut mushrooms and penny buns (cepes in french, porcini in Italian) would be my firm favourite. I have stipulated a higher weight of wild mushrooms since they tend to need more trimming and cleaning. If you can save any wild mushroom trimmings, wash them thoroughly and use to make a delicious stock or dry in a very low oven and whizz to a powder to add to soups, stews or gravies. Depending on which wild mushrooms I use I might also exchange tarragon for parsley. We have a version of this dish on our breakfast menu at Fitzbillies.

A Chinese fungus used as a tonic and restorative. It is also known for improving athletic performance. You can buy whole, dried cordyceps in health food stores and add them to soups and stews, or drink tea made from powdered cordyceps, but it is more convenient to get cordyceps extracts in liquid or capsule form. To treat general weakness, take cordyceps once or twice a day, following the dosage advice on the product. For health maintenance, take it once or twice a week.

Slender white mushrooms that need only brief cooking and have a very mild taste. They are good in soups and salads. Enoki mushrooms have significant anticancer and immuneenhancing effects. Almost all of us are familiar with mushrooms and their miraculous, beneficial powers. Particularly those who have read or heard a lot of fairytales such as Alice in Wonderland, Three Bears and a baby or even those who have played the Super Mario Brothers video game.

This delicious Japanese mushroom is also called hen of the woods because it grows in big clusters that resemble the fluffed tail feathers of a nesting hen. You should be able to find these mushrooms dried or fresh in Japanese markets, gourmet foods stores, or upscale supermarkets. Extracts are also widely available. Maitake has anticancer, antiviral, and immunesystem enhancing effects and may also help control both high blood pressure and blood sugar levels.

This nontoxic medicinal and culinary mushroom is believed to stimulate nerve growth. It also may improve mild cognitive impairment. A Japanese study published in 2009 found that test scores of study participants who took Lions Mane in tablet form improved as over the course of the 16 weeks they took the pills but declined afterwards. The researchers concluded that Lions Mane mushrooms are effective in improving mild cognitive impairment.

B vitaminsare vital for turning food (carbohydrates) into fuel (glucose), which the body burns to produce energy. They also help the body metabolize fats and protein. Mushrooms contain loads of vitamin B2 (riboflavin) and vitamin B3 (niacin): 100 grams (31/2 ounces) of crimini have 44 percent and 30 percent of your daily recommended amount, respectively, white button have 36 and 30 percent, and oyster mushrooms have 32 and 39 percent.

The substances that help fight free radicals that are the result of oxidation in our bodywere more likely to think of colourful vegetables than neutralhued mushrooms. But a study at Penn State university showed that the oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC)a measure of a foods total antioxidantsof crimini and portobello mushrooms were about the same as forred peppers.

The higher the level ofselenium, as measured in blood serum and toenails, the lower the risk of bladder cancer. Selenium had a significant protective effect mainly among women, which the researchers believe may result from genderspecific differences in this its accumulation and excretion. Several types of mushrooms are rich in this essential trace mineral: 100 grams of raw crimini have 47 percent of your daily needs, cooked shiitakes have 45 percent and raw white button have 17 percent.

The terms mushroom and toadstool go back centuries and were never precisely defined, nor was there consensus on application. The term toadstool was often, but not exclusively, applied to poisonous mushrooms or to those that have the classic umbrellalike capandstem form. Between 1400 and 1600 AD, the termstadstoles, frogstooles, frogge stoles, tadstooles, tode stoles, toodys hatte, paddockstool, puddockstool, paddocstol, toadstoole, and paddockstoolessometimes were used synonymously withmushrom, mushrum, muscheron, mousheroms, mussheron, or musserouns.

A mushroom develops from a nodule, or pinhead, less than two millimeters in diameter, called aprimordium, which is typically found on or near the surface of thesubstrate. It is formed within themycelium, the mass of threadlikehyphaethat make up the fungus. The primordium enlarges into a roundish structure of interwoven hyphae roughly resembling an egg, called a button. The button has a cottony roll of mycelium, theuniversal veil, that surrounds the developing fruit body. As the egg expands, the universal veil ruptures and may remain as a cup, orvolva, at the base of thestalk, or as warts or volval patches on the cap. Many mushrooms lack a universal veil, therefore they do not have either a volva or volval patches. Often, a second layer of tissue, thepartial veil, covers the bladelikegillsthat bearspores.