shitake mushrooms
I am a lover of the mushroom and September is National Mushroom Month. They are tasty, low in calories, and high in bulk. They are fat free, cholesterol free, and bullshit free. And yet they add so much to any dish. I particularly like to have them as part of omelets.
Mushrooms are not thought to have any actual nutritional value, but they are a good source of dietary fiber and provide vitamins such as thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, biotin, cobalamins, and ascorbic acid. They are also a source of minerals like selenium, potassium, phosphorus, and copper.
Mushrooms are the only natural fresh vegetable or fruit with vitamin D; a serving of 4-5 white button mushrooms provides 15 IU. Preliminary research suggests that the ultraviolet light found in sunlight may boost levels of vitamin D in mushrooms. The natural process of “enriching” mushrooms by briefly exposing mushrooms grown in the dark to light for 5 minutes may boost existing vitamin D levels from 15 IU (4 percent of Daily Value) to as much as 100 percent of the Daily Value (400 IU).
Mushrooms are not plants. The have no roots or leaves or stems. They do not produce seeds. In fact, the mushroom itself just the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source.
The thing that makes plants and algae green is called chlorophyll. Chlorophyll plus sunshine make food. Mushrooms have no chlorophyll so they have to get all their food from the medium in which they grow. The medium – called compost – is made from materials such as straw, corn cobs, cotton seed and cocoa seed hulls, gypsum and nitrogen supplements. No bullshit. No I mean that; notice, there is no manure in the medium. The compost is then pasteurized and the spawn (seeds inoculated with the fungus spores) are worked into the compost. The fungus is grown in special houses where heat and humidity are carefully regulated.
After about two weeks, the compost is laced throughout with white filaments called mycelium. A layer of pasteurized peat moss is put down over the compost. That’s the black stuff you often find stuck to the mushrooms you by. Once again, no bullshit. In another couple of weeks, the mature mushroom are harvested, washed, packaged in trays and sent to supermarkets and restaurants.
It takes about 4 months from the beginning of production of the compost to the shipment of mature mushrooms.
White mushrooms and Crimini mushrooms are produced in pretty much the same way. Portabella mushrooms are simply more mature criminis.
Other varieties of mushrooms include oyster, shiitake, enoki, beech, and maitake mushroom. All of these are grown in somewhat different environments. For more information on how those are grown, select the links provided, or the Mushroom Council has a page on How Mushrooms Grow. For more in-depth mushroom growing information, read about the Six Steps to Mushroom Farming. They also offer a 13-minute video tour of a mushroom farm.
