MUSHR MS

The Secret
Mushrooms Edible Lives of Fungi
communicate
no. 42

Mushrooms: They shape

with each Improving the world—
other using up Human Health and offer
to 50 ‘words’, and Promoting lessons for
scientist Quality Life how to live in
claims
it.
They shape the world—and According to Wasson, the world is divided into
mycophiles and mycophobes. Reverence might
offer lessons for how to live in take a variety of forms—think of Eastern Europe
or Russia, where foraging is a pastime. There’s
it. a famous scene in “Anna Karenina,” in which a
budding romance withers during a mushroom hunt.
By Hua Hsu Wasson was particularly interested in societies
that venerated the fungus for spiritual reasons. In
May 11, 2020
Mexico, wild mushrooms were thought to possess
“a supernatural aura.”
In 1957, a man from New York named R. Gordon
Wasson published an article in Life about two
There are any number of reasons that one might
trips he had taken, three decades apart. The first
be mycophobic. Some people are put off by
was to the Catskills, in New York, where his wife,
mushrooms’ taste or texture—supple, with a
Valentina, took a rambling walk in the woods and
fleshy resistance—and the fact that they somehow
became enamored of some wild mushrooms. “She
resemble both plant and animal. Others are
caressed the toadstools,” Wasson recalled, “savored
creeped out by the way they pop up overnight,
their earthy perfume.” She brought them home to
hypersensitive to atmospheric changes. As fungi,
cook, and soon he, too, was enchanted. They spent
they feed on organic matter, and can be seen as
the next thirty years studying and cataloguing
vehicles of decay. In Wasson’s view, Americans,
various species, searching out literary and artistic
and Anglo-Saxons as a whole, were mycophobic,
works about mushrooms.
and “ignorant of the fungal world.”
show in “Fantastic Fungi,” a 2019 documentary
In his forays against this ignorance, Wasson learned
directed by Louie Schwartzberg and narrated,
of a so-called “divine mushroom” consumed in
somewhat creepily, by the actress Brie Larson.) In
remote corners of the world.
2005, Stamets published “Mycelium Running:

The Secret Lives

of Fungi
In 1955, he finally found one of these communities,
a small town in the mountains of southern Mexico.
At the house of a local shaman, Wasson drank
chocolate, then spent thirty minutes chewing
“acrid” mushrooms. “I could not have been
happier: this was the culmination of years of
Mushrooms and Health Harvard T.H Chan

An often under-appreciated food, mushrooms have been eaten and used as

medicine for thousands of years. Traditional and folk medicine practitioners
laud the bell-shaped fungi for their healing and cleansing properties. All
varieties of mushrooms are low in calories and fat, and contain modest
amounts of fiber and various nutrients. Perhaps the more interesting
properties of mushrooms are their non-nutritive plant substances—
polysaccharides, indoles, polyphenols, and carotenoids in which cell and
animal studies have shown antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer
effects.

Mushrooms are also recognized by

Edible mushrooms like maitake Are mushrooms a good source of

Source Of
chefs for their ability to create savory
and shiitake have also been used as vitamin D?
rich flavors called umami, thanks to
medicine throughout history. Other The quick answer is maybe. Because
the presence of an amino acid called
mushrooms that are too tough to eat mushrooms sold in supermarkets are
glutamate, which is also found in
have been used solely for medicinal usually grown in dark, controlled
meats, fish, cheeses, and simmering
soups. B vitamins purposes such as reishi. environments indoors, they will
contain little if any vitamin D.
Plant chemicals and components in But some manufacturers expose
Although considered a vegetable,

Phosphorus
mushrooms may exert antioxidant, mushrooms to ultraviolet (UV) light
mushrooms are neither a plant nor
anti-inflammatory, and anticancer to increase their content of vitamin
animal food. They are a type of
effects, but the exact mechanism is D, either by natural sunlight or a UV
fungus that contains a substance
still unclear and an area of active lamp. A substance in mushrooms
called ergosterol, similar in structure
to cholesterol in animals. Ergosterol
can be transformed into vitamin D
Vitamin D research. Animal and cell studies called ergosterol then produces
show that mushrooms can stimulate vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol), a form
the activity of immune cells, found only found in plants. Vitamin
with exposure to ultraviolet light.
D2 is also added to fortified foods and

Selenium
Mushrooms vary in appearance with
macrophages, and free radicals that supplements. be absorbed slightly
more than 10,000 known types, but
can stop the growth and spread of better and break down more slowly
generally they are distinguished by
tumor cells and cause existing tumor than D2.
a stem, fleshy rounded cap, and gills
cells to die. Various polysaccharides
underneath the cap.

rich flavors called umami, thanks to

Copper in mushrooms including beta-
glucans are believed to exert these
Animal and cell studies show that
mushrooms can stimulate the
cancer-fighting properties activity of immune cells, show that
the presence of an amino acid called

Potassium
mushrooms can stimulate the activity
glutamate, which is also found in
supplements. be absorbed slightly of immune cells,
meats, fish, cheeses, and simmering
better and break down more slowly
soups.
Mushrooms communicate
with each other using up to 50 ‘words’,
scientist claims
Professor theorises electrical impulses sent by
mycological organisms could be similar to human
language
Buried in forest litter or sprouting from trees,
fungi might give the impression of being silent and
relatively self-contained organisms, but a new study
suggests they may be champignon communicators.
Previous research has suggested that fungi conduct
electrical impulses through long, underground
filamentous structures called hyphae – similar to
how nerve cells transmit information in humans.
It has even shown that the firing rate of these
impulses increases when the hyphae of wood-
digesting fungi come into contact with wooden
blocks, raising the possibility that fungi use
this electrical “language” to share information
about food or injury with distant parts of
themselves, or with hyphae-connected partners
such as trees.
But do these trains of electrical activity have
anything in common with human language?
He did this by inserting tiny microelectrodes into
substrates colonised by their patchwork of hyphae
threads, their mycelia.
“We do not know if there is a direct relationship
between spiking patterns in fungi and human
speech. Possibly not,” Adamatzky said. “On the other
hand, there are many similarities in information
processing in living substrates of different classes,
families and species. I was just curious to compare.”
The research, published in Royal Society Open
Science, found that these spikes often clustered into
trains of activity, resembling vocabularies of up to
50 words, and that the distribution of these “fungal
word lengths” closely matched those of human
languages.
Split gills – which grow on decaying wood, and
whose fruiting bodies resemble undulating waves of
tightly packed coral – generated the most complex
“sentences” of all.
 Why grow mushrooms?
It's fun and you will get fresh organic
produce.
You can eat your favourite unusual
varieties without purchasing them in
small plastic containers that are often
imported from overseas.
You can avoid waste by only picking
what you need when you need it.
It's a wonderful educational project
with the kids.
It can be a great project for some
people with restricted mobility
they won’t be exposed to bright light.
Even apartment dwellers with limited
space can grow mushrooms.
Nearly any type of mushroom—
including portobello, shiitake, button,
oyster, cremini, and enoki—can
be grown indoors, but each variety
requires a different growing medium.
This guide will explore how to grow
white button mushrooms, which are
actually the same species as cremini
and portobello mushrooms.

How to:
because the kits can be placed at table
height.

Nothing compares to the flavor of

grow
vegetables you’ve grown yourself.
Unlike most vegetables, mushrooms
actually grow well indoors because

your own
they thrive in cool, dark, and damp
environments. Mushrooms can grow
outside, of course, but inconsistent
growing conditions may cause the

mushrooms
process to take up to three years. The
best place to grow them at home is
in a basement or under a sink where

Being a child of two science teachers,
my first experience of growing
mushrooms was peering into a glass
aquarium to watch their rapid daily
growth. My brother and I were
entranced and couldn't wait for
the days when we were allowed to
harvest them.
I've grown a few simple kits since this fungus with a distinctive cap, still and
time but my next goal is to have a
go at inoculating both some logs and
some sawdust substrate myself. This
is a more economical way of growing
your own mushrooms and once you
have your own logs, you can harvest
mushrooms for many years.
But what are edible mushrooms?
A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-
bearing fruiting body of certain
gills.
 7 of the World’s
misidentification is mushrooms and caesar’s causing rapid loss
a close resemblance mushrooms. Its heat- of fluid from the
in terms of color and stable amatoxins withstand tissues and intense

Most Poisonous
general morphology of cooking temperatures thirst. Signs of severe
the toxic mushrooms and quickly damage cells involvement of the
species with edible throughout the body. liver, kidneys, and
species. To prevent Within 6 to 12 hours after central nervous

Mushrooms
mushroom poisoning, consumption, violent system soon follow,
mushroom gatherers abdominal pain, vomiting, including a decrease
familiarize themselves and bloody diarrhea appear, in urinary output and
Although only a few of the 70-80 substances. Its symptoms can vary with the mushrooms a lowering of blood
species of poisonous mushrooms are from slight gastrointestinal discomfort they intend to collect, sugar. This condition
actually fatal when ingested, many of to death in about 10 days. Mushroom as well as with any leads to coma and
these deadly fungi bear an unfortunate toxins are secondary metabolites similar-looking toxic death in more than
resemblance to edible species and are produced by the fungus. species. 50 percent of the
thus especially dangerous. Read on to incidents. Notable
learn Mushroom poisoning is usually the erhaps the deadliest deaths include Pope
result of ingestion of wild mushrooms of all mushrooms, Clement VII, who
Mushroom poisoning is poisoning after misidentification of a toxic the death cap is died of accidental
resulting from the ingestion of mushroom as an edible species. found throughout death cap poisoning
mushrooms that contain toxic The most common reason for this Europe and closely Deadly Dapperling (Lepiota in 1534, and possibly
resembles edible straw brunneoincarnata) Roman Emperor

Death Cap (Amanita Conocybe filaris Webcaps Destroying Angels Autumn Skullcap Podostroma cornu-
phalloides) (Cortinarius species) (Amanita species) (Galerina marginata) damae
Edible Mushrooms: Health and
Improving Human Promoting Quality