# A little tidbit about mushrooms.



## Elinor0987 (May 28, 2010)

I've been looking online lately about gardening sites and trying to learn as much as I can. Tonight I was watching youtube videos about mushroom gardening. Then I went into different windows trying to see how easy it would be to collect the spores and use them to grow more to make it a renewable food source after shtf.

I found a Wikipedia article for portobello mushrooms that mentions they naturally contain high amounts of Vitamin D. If you go further down the page to the "see also" section and click on the effect of sunlight on mushrooms link, it states that mushrooms undergo a chemical transition when exposed to uv light and the amount of Vitamin D2 is amplified after as little as an hour of exposure.

Vitamin D is important because your body needs it to absorb calcium. Some of the plants that are common to the household garden like beans, broccoli, turnip greens, etc., have good levels of calcium- but some amounts of the mineral will be passed through your kidneys without its counterpart.

If anyone is growing mushrooms or considering it, you could easily fortify the nutritional value by simply exposing them to sunlight for about an hour.

Agaricus bisporus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mushrooms and vitamin D - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Calcium and Vitamin D: Important at Every Age


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## FutureFriendly (Jun 4, 2012)

Mushrooms are tasty, nutritious and I think they are pretty important to our planets health. I've been trying to cultivate them at home and encourage them on my property. Contamination has been an issue for me. Curious about what technics you are using? 

Also, if S.H.T.F in a nuclear way, they might absorb a lot of it and not be so nutritious. It might help to place mycelium in your soil for other foods.


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## The_Blob (Dec 24, 2008)

Is the Vitamin D absorbed by humans when they eat the mushrooms? This question has not been sufficiently answered. There are studies that demonstrate that the ingestion of Vitamin D supplements (like pills) does result in increased levels of Vit. D in the blood.

The Centre of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition of the FDA has commenced a study to determine if enhanced Vitamin D mushrooms will raise the Vitamin D levels in mice and rats, determining bio-availability. The experimental material, dehydrated UV-treated mushroom powder, was supplied by the Guelph Food Technology Centre and Mushrooms Canada.
In 2009, the Mushroom Council (USA) proposed a clinical-study of humans, to determine the bio-availability of vitamin D from mushrooms, these studies will take more than 2 years.

The best source of Vitamin D for humans is sunlight. Subcutaneous glands in the skin use sunlight to form Pre-vitamin D which is converted to Vitamin D by the liver and kidneys. But, other factors influence our exposure to sunlight, such as distance from the equator, body coverings and age. Skin color and age also affects the body’s ability to produce Vitamin D. On a bright summer day, a fair-skinned young person needs less than 30 minutes to make the daily requirement of Vitamin D. A dark-skinned or older person may need two to three hours. 

Besides sunlight, there are only a few natural sources of Vitamin D, and almost all of them are of animal origin, such as eggs, butter, beef and chicken livers. Sardines, Mackerel, Cod, Salmon and Shrimp are good sources. Milk, some juices and breakfast cereals may be fortified at low levels, and multi-vitamin pills may contain up to 400 IU. D2 is the form found in foods and supplements, D3 is the form made by the skin.


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## FutureFriendly (Jun 4, 2012)

Wow, I take so many vitamins and really don't know all that much about them. Another thread someone mentioned vitamin C having a long shelf life if stored properly. I'd much prefer to get my vitamin's minerals and amino acids from natural sources, but in a disaster it would be really tough to pull off. You got my wheels turning.


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## lazydaisy67 (Nov 24, 2011)

I absolutely LOVE mushrooms!!! I have dehydrated a ton of them. I've looked at the little button mushroom kits you can get through seed catalogs. Are those hard to keep up? I have seen some muchrooms in my yard from time to time, but am afraid I don't know enough about identifying them to even attempt to eat them. Apparently Morrell mushrooms grow around here, but again, I'm too scared to try to go look for them because I'm afraid I'll misidentify.


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## weedygarden (Apr 27, 2011)

*Mushrooms are good!*

The one thing I think is that when gathering mushrooms, we need to make sure we are getting safe ones, not toxic ones, even in our own patches.

I used to attend the local mycological society meetings. I got busy and lost track of them. When I was going, they had absolutely incredible speakers who talked about various topics.

One speaker talked about how mushrooms are the first healers after disasters such as forest fires. He had extensive photos of demolished areas where mushrooms were the first life to come back.

A friend of mine has a large yard and after trees are trimmed, he puts the wood in areas and "seeds" them with mushrooms he buys or receives as gifts. We recently had some that he had seeded about 3 years ago. I believe that certain mushrooms like certain kinds of wood.

Having mushroom patches in your yard is a great idea. You can order spores and use them. You might find some mushrooms at the store and use those also. I have seen some youtube videos of people who raise mushrooms. Just as my family had onion patches when I was growing up where onions could always be found, year after year, we could have mushroom patches.


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## Elinor0987 (May 28, 2010)

FutureFriendly said:


> Contamination has been an issue for me. Curious about what technics you are using?


I haven't started growing them yet but now that you mention it, I'll be starting that project soon. I'm sure you already know a lot more about it than I do. I wanted to ask what substrate you are using? I'm planning to boil some dirt and afterward mix in some apple slices and cores.



The_Blob said:


> The best source of Vitamin D for humans is sunlight. Subcutaneous glands in the skin use sunlight to form Pre-vitamin D which is converted to Vitamin D by the liver and kidneys.


I read something about that a while back. People are going to be getting a lot more exposure to sunlight after a shtf when they have to work outdoors in their gardens for food. Sunlight is also the easiest way to get Vitamin D. I don't wear tank tops or shorts in public but I'll be wearing them in the future for that very reason.



lazydaisy67 said:


> I have seen some muchrooms in my yard from time to time, but am afraid I don't know enough about identifying them to even attempt to eat them. Apparently Morrell mushrooms grow around here, but again, I'm too scared to try to go look for them because I'm afraid I'll misidentify.





weedygarden said:


> The one thing I think is that when gathering mushrooms, we need to make sure we are getting safe ones, not toxic ones, even in our own patches.


That's why I'll start off with the spores that you can order online and from the mushrooms at the grocery store. I'm planning to buy a book about mushrooms that would help identify and distinguish safe mushrooms from toxic ones. Mushrooms are a good thing to have as a renewable food source because they don't require much space or sunlight to grow. I saw a video a while back on YouTube about a guy that had a greenhouse. He had his plants on tables and under them he had his trays with the mushrooms growing in them. He was able to use every square inch of useable space for growing food.


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## FutureFriendly (Jun 4, 2012)

I'd recommend starting with a liquid culture syringe. Spore print's I've been told are a harder to start off with and it's all I've worked with so far, with little success. The syringes are offered in dark or light at a lot of online stores and different people seem to have different opinions on which is best. I'll be trying to keep it cheep and cheery with a light one. I wish you Mush Luck.


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