A mushroom is not a plant, but a fungus.
“Athlete’s Foot” is a fungus. But don’t worry, not all mushrooms are bad for you!
There are many types of mushrooms in the world. Some are poisonous, some are psychoactive, and many more are edible and have incredible health benefits to you.
The ones you see in your amanita muscaria shop grocery store all the time are the ones you’ll want to grab. They are white, and are sold separately in bins or are sold in small bunches on Styrofoam trays and wrapped in stretch plastic wrap, or as the British say, “Cling Film”.
You’ll want to choose the loose ones so you can hand-pick the freshest and whitest ones that are free of bruising, and bag them in paper bags that are usually supplied by the store. The paper bag breaths, and lets your hand-picked mushrooms stay fresher until you need them.
Most mushrooms that are sold in supermarkets are commercially grown on mushroom farms. Most mushroom farms smell like shit. That’s because mushrooms eat manure and grow, unlike veggies, in the dark.
For this reason many people think mushrooms are actually bad for you! Common sense makes this false conclusion plausible since, how could something that grows in dung, be good for you? This concept has even morphed into a popular expression:
“You treat me like a mushroom, because you feed me full of shit and keep me in the dark!”
To a mushroom though, that’s great! Unlike us, mushrooms like the dark, and don’t see “shit” as misinformation, but as a pure, composted food, that is over-loaded with all the nutrients any organism could hope for! After eating manure all day, a mushroom grows into a succulent morsel of food that has stored up all the good in the food it eats, and filters back all the bad stuff, leaving you with a tasty fungus that is packed with the nutrients you need for optimum health.
The most popular of these, Agaricus bisporus, is safe for most people, because it is grown on the mushroom farm in controlled, pest-free sterilized environments. Several varieties of A. bisporus are grown commercially, world-wide and include Whites, Crimini, and Portobello.
The reason I say these mushrooms work like magic is that they provide incredible health benefits that most people are not aware of. In fact, most people who enjoy mushrooms, eat them for their taste in countless recopies in world-wide cuisines, but consider them essentially “empty” in nutrients. This couldn’t be farther from the truth!
Mushrooms are low-calorie and usually eaten raw or cooked to provide garnish to a meal. Raw fresh mushrooms however, are a good source of B vitamins, such as riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, and the essential minerals of, selenium, copper and potassium, work in your body to dramatically slow down the aging process.