The Benefits of Medicinal MushroomsBy Ursula Basch
September, October and November are wonderful months for hunting mushrooms. The cooler weather together with increased rain provides the perfect growing conditions. Most people are familiar with the common white button mushroom that is sold in supermarkets. But did you know that mushrooms have a long history in the Orient for their medicinal uses? There are many mushrooms that are used medicinally. Some are commonly used in culinary preparations, others are not as common. Studies have shown that many mushroom may have numerous beneficial actions including: anti-tumor activity, antiviral activity and anti-inflammatory actions. ...click HERE to continue reading the newsletter
This is by far my favorite field guide for mushrooms. This
excellent guide is very descriptive and is complete with beautiful color pictures of the mushroom species.
Each mushroom identified clearly shows individual pictures of the gill structure; cap shape and color; often a cross
section of the mushroom, which can be critical in identification;
and finally a picture of the mushroom growing in its natural state. I find
that that mushrooms of the same species often look dissimilar depending upon
the age and location of the fruiting body.
The task of identification is made much easier with this guide since it
offers multiple views of the same species. It's only drawback is that it does not really address the edibility of
the various mushrooms, nor does it address the medicinal properties.
However, this is not something I normally would expect a field guide to do. There
are several other books which I discuss in the "Mushroom Section"
which do and excellent job regarding edibility and medicinal properties of mushrooms.
This is another field guide to help you identify mushrooms
and fungi. This book is part of a field guide series and follows the typical format of most field guides. Again the photographs are incredibly clear,
however, there is only one photo per species.
The guide does identify which mushrooms are
edible and also provides cautionary notes about possible
look-alikes which might impede identification.
This excellent book describes mushroom identification, edibility, and offers some delicious recipes
for cooking these delicacies. Although the identification guide is clear and offers information
about possible look-a-likes, I strongly recommend using this book in conjunction with a mushroom field guide.
The book is well organized and offers beautiful color pictures of the identified species. There
is even a small section which addresses the issue of mushroom poisoning which has clear
descriptions (including photos) of the poisonous mushrooms.
