http://www.care2.com/greenliving/top-10-legal-ways-to-experience-the-magic-of-mushrooms.html
Top 10 Legal Ways to Experience the Magic of Mushrooms
By Mickey Z., Planet Green
Sure, they’re fungus. But all that potassium and selenium and B vitamins sure brings out the positive side of fungus. Mushrooms are delicious, loaded with nutrients, and serve as a low footprint meat substitute.
To cover all the bases about mushrooms would require a book, not a post. There are an estimated 14,000 types of mushrooms. Roughly 3,000 are edible and 700 have known medicinal properties. Also, fewer than one percent are recognized as poisonous (be careful if you’re foraging!). For our purposes, we’re going to avoid the poison and simply focus on the ten types of mushrooms (organic, of course) you’re most likely to encounter at your local grocery store or farmers’ market (or from growing your own).
10 Magic Mushrooms
1. Button Mushroom: Sometimes called a “white mushroom,” this is the most widely cultivated, harvested, and distributed mushroom in the world. Try it in this Golden Potato and Mushroom Gratin Recipe.
2. Chanterelle Mushroom: Golden in color and fleshy with a crisp, firm texture. Perfect with potatoes and shallots in a red wine sauce. In Season: Just about any time except for late spring into early summer.
3. Enoki Mushroom : Extremely popular in Asia, enoki have a mild flavor…some say “fruity.” Ideal for pan-frying with tofu.
4. Maitake Mushroom : Its name means “dance mushroom” and the maitake does indeed do a dance between its edible appeal and its sought-after medicinal uses (e.g. immune boosting). Stir-fry it with asparagus.
5. Morel Mushroom: Considered a “gourmet” mushroom (usually with a price to match), the morel contains a small amount of toxins and should not be eaten raw. Cook them Indian-style, with peas. In Season: The morel season for most of the United States typically runs from early-to-mid April on through mid-June.
Next: 5 More Magic Mushrooms
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4 comments
add your comment »Caralien, mushrooms absorb nutrients from the soil just like plants. Those nutrients do mostly come from dead plants, animals, and other organisms that decomposers have broken down. So all organisms technically feed off of dead things.
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shame i thought you really meant magic mushrooms!
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Living in Japan, I have mushroom galore all year round and am thankful for it, but beware of the different methods of growing them if they are cultivated, as all Japanese mushrooms usually are. If they are grown on tree logs (for maitake and shiitake, for example) their taste and nutritional value is so much better than if they are grown hydroponically, which is the most common method used for the mushrooms found in supermarkets. The later don't taste half as good as the former and have so much less nutritional value. They can also have toxins from the fertilizers used in that method. So ask how they have been grown before you buy them.
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Mushrooms are great, even though they now have their own kingdom because they can't really be classified as either plants or animals. I know it's snarky, but since they're not plants and generally feed off of dead things, are they vegan unfriendly?
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