Which Food Should Be on Your Dinner Table More Often?

The fall season provides us with an abundant supply of food, it is also the best season to pick mushrooms in the forest and enjoy these delicious and nutritious foods, these medicinal foods are the champions when it comes to healing. Let's dive into one of them.

Shiitake mushroom is an edible and delicious fungus. Fungi are separated from plants, animals, and bacteria. They are similar to plants but they do not have chlorophyll to make their own food through photosynthesis like a plant does. They absorb nutrients from their surroundings. One major difference that separates fungi from others is that fungal cells have cell walls that contain chitin, a long-chain polymer of a derivative of glucose. Fungi are considered a special type of living organism that has no roots, leaves, flowers, or seeds. Shiitake mushrooms originally came from East Asia and are now cultivated worldwide. Fresh or dried shiitake mushrooms have been commonly used in Asian cuisines. Today, these exotic mushrooms can be found in many grocery stores all year round.

Extracts from shiitake mushrooms or dried forms have been used in herbal remedies for thousands of years in Eastern medicine. Like other fungi, shiitake mushrooms offer a variety of phytochemicals that have potent health benefits, such as lentinan and laminarin, which are polysaccharides that have anti-tumor effects and promote the death of cancer cells, as well as lentinacin or eritadenine that has cholesterol-lowering effects. Shiitake mushrooms also offer a wide variety of important nutrients such as Vitamin B groups, fiber, potassium, and amino acids.

Polysaccharides are complex carbohydrates containing two or more monosaccharide units linked by glycosidic bonds. The unique polysaccharides in shiitake mushrooms were first considered as primary anti-cancer compounds such as lentinan and beta-glucan. But now researchers have speculated that many non-polysaccharide compounds in shiitake mushrooms have anti-tumor effects and work together to achieve these amazing anti-cancer results. The polysaccharides in shiitake mushrooms such as beta-glucans are known to activate the immune system. These polymers can enhance the host's immune response by activating cell-mediated immunity, enhancing natural killer cell functions such as T cells, monocytes, macrophages, and polymorphonuclear lymphocytes.

It is time to grow our own mushrooms at home to enjoy them all year round.

You could also check my recent video on superfoods.

I also made a video on how to enjoy the amazing healing benefits of psychedelics.