Mushrooms

The health benefits of mushrooms include relief from high cholesterol levels, breast cancer, prostrate cancer, and diabetes. It also helps in weight loss, and increases the strength of your immune system.

Almost all of us are familiar with mushrooms and their miraculous, beneficial powers. Particularly those who have read or heard a lot of fairy-tales such as Alice in Wonderland, Three Bears and a baby or even those who have played the Super Mario Brothers video game.

You have probably seen mushrooms making someone bigger or acting as a shield against some dangerous monster. These aren’t just popular culture references, they are actually symbolic representations of the actual health benefits of mushrooms. They truly can make you bigger and protect you against diseases and infections, as they are full of proteins, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, antibiotics and antioxidants.

Mushrooms are edible fungi with various scientific names, but the family name is “Agaricus”, and then there are many secondary names for different species. They are essentially Saprophytes, the organisms (plants without chlorophyll) which thrive by extracting nutrients from dead and decaying plant and animal matter. They vary greatly in their color, texture, shape and properties.

There are approximately 140,000 species of mushroom-forming fungi in the world, but science is only familiar with about 10%, while only 100 species or so are being studied for their potential health benefits and medicinal applications.