Posted on 11/05/2021 3:31:23 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A pair of anthropological forces are driving humans towards the consumption of wild mushrooms, a trend that deserves both examination and celebration as wild mushrooms not only represent a nutrient-dense food source, but also a connection to forests and ancestral traditions.
The first is that regardless of the fact that during the 19th and 20th centuries, 12 crops and 14 animal species came to provide what is today around 98% of the world’s dietary content, reported incidence of wild mushroom foraging has increased globally by about 2100% over the last 56 years.
The second is that forest ecosystems are beginning to be preserved for their roles as centers of production for nutrient dense foods that are often difficult to cultivate, or are at minimum easier to do so in a forest system. The International Union of Forest Research Organizations estimates that a third of the global population rely on forested biomes for their food, fuel, and medicine.
Mushrooms are one of these foods, and the 90 species that are commercially cultivated in a $50 billion-a-year industry, pale in comparison to recent catalogues of edible mushrooms which total 2,000 that can be picked up and eaten—and an additional 200 that are nutritious but which require pretreatment of some kind.
With this wild mushroom harvesting boom comes the advice of every father in America about how “80% of mushrooms are poisonous”. On the bright side, many edible mushrooms have a poisonous doppelganger, and so the differences between them are normally well-documented.
In his book, Wild Edible Fungi author Eric Boa details how the vast majority of recognized edible mushrooms cannot be cultivated, and must therefore be gathered from the woods by hand, making it prized as food and an income source for locals in Northern Italy and the hills of China alike.
Nutrient dense and unique Furthermore, long-term studies of mushroom picking in the mountains of Switzerland have shown that picking wild mushrooms has no impact on future harvests. That’s partly because mycelial structures are dramatically resilient.
Boletus edulis -Tocekas, CC license Like a bio-internet, mycelial networks represent the main bulk of the biomass of the fungal kingdom, one of the six kingdoms of life. They weave through the soil and connect trees, soil microbes, and other plants to the animals above through the deployment of the mycelium’s fruiting body, that which we call the mushroom.
This incredible form of life has been shown to transfer information and nutrients between plants, taking payment in the form of carbohydrates from trees in order to protect them from pests and bacteria.
As a food item they are excellent sources of many important micronutrients and phytonutrients such as vitamin B2, 3, and 5, a host of minerals like copper and selenium, and a variety of carotenoids, indoles and polyphenols, which serve as anticancer, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory agents.
Mushrooms cultivated for the supermarket likely contain negligible amounts of vitamin D, but due to the fungal presence of a substance called ergosterol, a wild mushroom which has exposure to UV light can contain up to 1,500 IUs of vitamin D3 and D2, something which is very rare in most unfortified foods.
Medicinal effects A study of 663 elderly Chinese found that those who consumed two servings of mushrooms per week had a reduced risk of mild cognitive impairment, while two epidemiological studies found a prevention in the growth of amyloid proteins in the brains of older people which cause Alzheimer’s.
That’s only what Harvard decided to note on their website, but the depth of medical studies on mushrooms is breathtaking.
Studies have shown that Reishi mushroom, which is considered a valuable remedy in Chinese medicine, protects the liver, significantly inhibits allergic reactions, and activates immune cells, particularly ones which kill tumor cells.
A South Korean study found that white blood cells treated with the chaga mushroom showed 40% less DNA damage than those which didn’t. Like the scratching of a disk, DNA damage drives many of the chronic diseases in our society.
In the journal Agriculture and Food Chemistry Lion’s Mane mushroom, commonly sold as a supplement in stores, was shown to confer too many protective effects to list, and was described as having exceptional nutritional and health-promoting aspects.
These are just some of the species cultivated for commercial sale and consumption. Like animals, fungi evolved special defense mechanisms against pathogens, like penicillin, and those which live in a wild environment—rather than a controlled one—are likely to be far-richer in these health-promoting compounds.
Gathering mushrooms is a wonderful excuse to go walking in the forest—and joining local community foraging groups to learn first hand from experts about mushroom species is a wonderful way to start foraging, instead of looking at a guidebook.
i love mushroom pizza
and mushrooms in Chinese food too
and mushrooms on a good steak
but please be careful. there are so super poisonous mushrooms. you gotta study and know which ones are good and which ones will kill ya
sincerely,
Some good friends are HUGE aficionados of wild mushrooms and often go mushroom hunting. They were out with another friend the other day on his 15 acres and the variety of the mushrooms they found was just incredible. I’ve never before seen many of the ones they photographed.
I hear it’s the most exquisite last meal possible.
I love mushrooms.
But collecting wild mushrooms by city raised green loving folk is dangerous because some mushrooms are poisonous and look similar to edible mushrooms.
Not a nice way to die.
A similar problem is the untrained eating wild foods.
Read the book Wicked Plants before you eat that wild carrot which is easily confused with poison hemlock.
You’re on a rollllll . . .
I ate a lot of wild mushrooms growing up in South Louisiana. My mentor was an old Cajun who gathered them for many years. I would never eat a mushroom that did not pass his inspection. He knew what would kill you.
There are old mushroom hunters and there are bold mushroom hunters.
But there are no old bold mushroom hunters.
Just made gravy the other night with mushrooms I picked locally. Good stuff. Not hard to choose which are edible and which are not. Just do some studying and be sure of what you have. There are also many “toxic” mushrooms that can be edible if cooked a certain way. I( picked somewhere around 30 pounds of shrooms this year just up the road from me. Outdoors, mushroom hunting, nature and good eats. It don’t get better.
likely so.
i had a friend (son of a USA Senator) who died from it
I like mushrooms a lot and see them in the woods all the time when I go hiking. I even see other people (sometimes entire families) picking mushrooms and putting them in sacks to take home.
I wish I could be like them. But with my luck, I'll accidentally pick a poisonous mushroom for my omelette and that will be the end of me. They will put me down as a COVID fatality.
All mushrooms are edible.
Some of them you can only eat once. Then you never eat any mushrooms again.
Pick and eat the wrong one and you’re toast!
There’s a rustic-looking fellow who sells foraged mushrooms at our local farmers market.
The mushrooms look fantastic, but I am reluctant to try.
I supposed he hasn’t killed anyone, as he has been there week after week.....
I've been picking for years with no problems because I follow two simple rules: First, unless you're 100% certain (not 99.99%) that a mushroom's edible, don't even think about eating it. Rule number 2: Pick mushrooms that have no deadly poisonous look-alikes. For instance, there are just a few poisonous, but no deadly poisonous, Boletes. There are a few edible, but far more poisonous mushrooms, including the deadly Death Cap, in the Amanita family.
A few weeks ago I found several huge Amanitas that I was 95% sure were edible. I did not pick them, nor would I ever.
My advice to anyone thinking of becoming a wild mushroom picker - spend some time picking with a pro before going it alone.
He may be about as trustworthy as little ribs of mushrooms picked in Communist china and marketed to us by some huge corporation. Or perhaps a bit more trustworthy, come to think on it.
We are so dependent on food corporations and supermarkets. So far they haven’t poisoned me ( at least not completely) just as your local guy with the pushcart probably hadn’t poisoned anyone either. Might be worthwhile to strike up a conversation with him and learn about what he’s selling?
Or?
Cheers !
The only mushrooms I can identify with certainty are oyster mushrooms. They have a good flavor but are like eating shoe leather.
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