Mushrooms

Not much foraging in Ontario these days and I’m going through a bit of withdrawal from my favourite wild ingredient: mushrooms. So, I turned to one of my favourite wild food suppliers for a fix and picked up some mitake and hedgehog mushrooms.

There are many reasons why mushrooms should be incorporated into your diet, but remember that they can provide different benefits.

If you are going to the grocery store to source your mushrooms, often your choices are limited to button, cremini, and portobello mushrooms.

Did you know they are all the same species, Agaricus bisporus, but just at different ages? Button mushrooms being the youngest, then cremini, and portobello is the oldest. These mushrooms are a good source of copper, potassium, selenium, vitamin D, and B vitamins.

If your grocery store carries shiitake mushrooms consider them for their many additional health benefits in addition to the nutrients they supply. They’ve been shown to improve immunity, are anti-inflammatory, tumour prevention and reduction, and is heart healthy by providing sterols that help to reduce production of cholesterol and preventing plaque build up in the arteries thereby optimizing blood flow.

These are the benefits of just the common grocery store mushrooms. There are so many more mushrooms to choose from, with many many more health benefits such as neurological support, stress adaptation, anti-aging, and energy boosting.

Dr. Cristina Allen ND