There are so many types of mushrooms but only a few of them are edible. These edible mushrooms are not only tasty and healthy but also offer a number of health benefits. For centuries mushrooms are added to different recipes for enhancing flavours but some latest studies have identified their health potential advising people to ad them into their everyday diet.
A new study published in the journal Food & Nutrition Research (February 2021) investigated the benefits of mushrooms when added to the routine diet. Adding mushrooms to the preexisting dietary guidelines by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Patterns increases the intake of various micronutrients, without changing the daily calorie count.
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The research duo of Dr Victor L. Fulgoni III along with Dr Sanjiv Agarwal worked to find the alternative of various dietary nutrients testing a number of different foods. They analyzed a number of mushroom types such as white, crimini mushroom and portabella mushrooms with one group exposed to UV radiations and the other had oyster mushrooms
Taking 84 grams of mushrooms serving or 5 medium-sized mushrooms along with USDA Food Patterns helps to overcome various nutrient deficiencies such as potassium deficiency, vitamin B deficiency, and others. Interestingly, this mushroom addition to the diet doesn’t add any extra fat or calories to the total calories of a meal or whole day.
According to the results, this 84g serving of edible mushrooms in the diet leads to follow.
- 8%-12 % increase in potassium
- 16%-26% increase in copper
- 11%-23% increase in selenium
- 12%-18% increase in riboflavin
- 11%-26% in niacin
This increase in nutrient level is free from any calories, salt, fat or carbs. Additionally, this serving also increases the following.
- 8%-11% increase in vitamin D levels
- 10%-16% increase in and choline levels
Those mushrooms which were UV-exposed provided more vitamin D levels i.e. 200 IU/serving and added nearly 67%-90% vitamin D into the USDA Food Patterns. A combination of three mushrooms, portabella, crimini, and white mushrooms adds ergothioneine (2.24 mg) and glutathione (3.53 mg) to the diet. On the other side, the oyster mushrooms added ergothioneine (24.0 mg ) and glutathione (12.3 mg) to the diet. These amounts are considerably high but USDA Food Patterns and not even USDA FoodData Central have no information on the intake or values of these two antioxidants for now. Considering the overall effects of antioxidants, the addition of more antioxidants to the diet seems like a good thing.
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These results are very much similar to another study that portrayed mushrooms as a super healthy ingredient in the diet. For these benefits, mushrooms should be made a part of the everyday diet, saving people from a number of food-related deficiencies.
Technically, all mushrooms are a type of fungi which are different from plant and animals both. Their unique profile of dietary ingredients makes them distinctive from plant or animal bases foods. Although they are largely classified as veggies or plant-based foods they are different from plants. The growing evidence of plant-based diets has changed the dietary preferences of people, and they are switching to natural and healthy foods now. The addition of mushrooms into this healthy diet will increase the intake of fibre, vitamin D, and potassium, saving a person from nutritional deficiencies and digestive distress.
