2

What are the health benefits and downsides of edible mushrooms and fungi based foods? ie quorn.

Colin Ellis
  • 367
  • 1
  • 6
  • Could you focus this on a particular nutrient or other attribute? "Health benefits" and "potential downsides" are both broad and vague! – Erica Dec 02 '19 at 04:01

1 Answers1

3

Fungi, in biology, encompasses anything from yeast and mold to portobello mushrooms and death cap. As you can hopefully see, the healthiness of foods prepared from aforementioned fungi will vary quite a lot since some of them are staple foodstuffs or delicacies while others are toxic or deadly.

You mention Quorn by name, a Fusarium venenatum microfungus-based product, which is safe, just like any other food sold for consumption and approved by relevant agencies for that purpose. If it wasn't the rising sales of Quorn products which are counted in hundreds of millions would be very worrying. There is a very rare (roughly 1 in 146,000) allergic reaction to this microfungus that some people might have but as far as allergies and intolerances go there are foods with much higher levels of intolerance.

So, I guess yes, fungi are generally healthy, high in many vitamins and minerals (depending on type) and definitely have a place in anyone's diet. Unless you decide to eat the poisonous ones, of course.

Alexander Rossa
  • 5,800
  • 1
  • 18
  • 57
  • 1
    Thank you for your answer. Foods approved for consumption are on a scale of highly processed or dangerous to overall health to fully organic very healthy and digestible. I was wondering where edible fungi are on the scale. – Colin Ellis Dec 01 '19 at 09:10