Page 18 - IFV Jan Feb Issue 2025

Lifestyle

MIND YOUR MUSHROOMS!

s fungi, mushrooms are in diameter and then flatten out. Its
biologically different from reddish-brown colour darkens with
Aany other food group and age and fades to white along the cap
have a unique nutrient profile. They margin. The stem is club-shaped or
make delicious additions to meals, bulging in the middle;
add magic to the garden and have • Field mushrooms are also tasty, with
good healing properties. a white cap and sometimes fine scales.
Since their first controlled cultivation The stem grows 3-10 cm tall, is white
in 1707, many varieties - ranging from and bears a single, thin ring. Be careful
edible to poisonous to medicinal – if it begins to show signs of yellow
have emerged around the world. Here bruising, as this can cause it to become
are some of the most important fungi toxic and inedible;
families: • the soft, corky and flat Reishi
• starting with edible varieties, there are mushrooms are one of the oldest
many to choose from to add flavour to known medicinal varieties. The cap
food. The White Button mushroom looks like it has been red-varnished
is the one most commonly grown and it features an underside of white
around the world. It has a cap spanning pores containing fine brown spores.
3-16 cm and a stem of 2-8 cm long. They grow at the base of stumps of
Although white in colour, it often has deciduous trees, have herbal healing
brownish bruising; powers and are easy to grow;
• the Oyster mushroom is another • Shiitake mushrooms are an edible
popular edible variety. It has decurrent favourite with health benefits. They
gills which are attached to, and run start out with dark brown to black
directly down the stem. They are white caps, which become lighter brown and
to light brown in colour and often more convex with age. The undersides
grow in a shelf-like formation with have white gills that do not attach to
overlapping clusters; the stem, which is smooth, fibrous,
• Porcini mushrooms are a well-known light brown and with no ring. It has
addition to Italian dishes due to many medicinal properties such as
their strong, nutty flavour. As they supporting the immune system and
mature, the cap can grow up to 30cm assisting with heart health.

Avoid these poisonous mushrooms mushroom poisonings, with its toxins
Stay away from the Death Cap attacking the liver and kidneys. Look out
mushroom which occurs throughout for a pale yellow to light olive coloured
South Africa. Ingesting it is dangerous cap, which grows from 5 to 15 cm in
and it accounts for 90% of all fatal diameter. The gills and spore print are
white.
The Copper Trumpet, commonly
known as the Jack-o-Lantern mushroom,
is orange to yellow in colour and very
poisonous. Although enchanting with
its large, funnel shape and gills that
glow in the dark, this mushroom is filled
with a compound called luciferin. Rather

16 • Jan / Feb 2025 • The Villager