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What's
Up with the Fungi?
by Jill
Nussinow
Press Democrat: Healthtime
Page 1 2 3 4
Imagine a food product that might be able to prevent cancer,
boost your immune system, lessen the effects of diabetes,
asthma and allergies, lower your cholesterol, and make you
feel peppier. Surprise-it's mushrooms. They are not yet included
on the recently released International Food Information Council
survey of Top Ten Functional Foods that people identify as
having a health benefit beyond basic nutrition. Maybe it's
because, "We live in a land of 'fungophobes' (those scared
of fungus, which includes mushrooms)," according to David
Law of Gourmet Mushrooms, a Sebastopol mushroom production
facility. If you fall into that category you may be amazed
to learn about mushrooms and their potential benefit.
They are one of the newest, and oldest, products to shine
in the nutrition spotlight. In Asia, various mushrooms and
other fungi have been used as medicine for thousands of years.
Yet here in the U.S., we've been conservative when it comes
to mushroom consumption. It seems that people have finally
gone beyond the white button mushroom (the common Agaricus)
and will now eat the closely related crimini (brown, pronounced
cri-me-knee), or their larger counterpart, the portabello.
You can even find shiitake and oyster mushrooms in many grocery
stores.
But there is literally a world of mushrooms beyond these;
so many, in fact, that according to Charmoon Richardson of
Wild About Mushrooms in Forestville, "It's a big frontier
at this point." Some fungi are culinary delights and others
are too tough, woody or bad tasting to eat on their own-they
need to be consumed as tablets, capsules, powder, extracts
and tinctures. No matter how you get your mushrooms, biologist
Law suggests that a daily dose may keep you healthy.
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