Quote:Because the dirt on them is most of the nutrients that you get in eating them. What do you think of that?
If you're not going to wash your mushrooms before you eat them, be sure you have a big supply of loperamide on hand.
If you wash mushrooms before you eat them they'll definately loose their tatse - use a mushroom brush and kleenex - or tinned mushrooms, if you want to be on the safe side.
I didn't wash my mushrooms for decades, doing the brush bit... now I usually used dried porcini, so and those get soaked before using anyway.
Thanks all for the info on mushrooms and the risks of contamination. I am thinking moreso a quick rinse on vegetables (including mushrooms right before you use them) does not hurt them and it also gives you a chance to inspect them more closely before you add them to your cooking.
Miller wrote:Quote:Because the dirt on them is most of the nutrients that you get in eating them. What do you think of that?
If you're not going to wash your mushrooms before you eat them, be sure you have a big supply of loperamide on hand.
What is in the dirt that can cause the need for loperamide?
RexRed wrote: a quick rinse on vegetables (including mushrooms right before you use them)
Yes,
quick is the word for mushrooms. :wink:
People have eaten dirt for millenia...
if only in wee specks on the carrots, and so on.
Let us assume that feral hogs with pathogenic e coli haven't trod your lawn.
We live in the mushroom country of Pa and we are always getting this shit about "dont wash, only brush yer mushrooms" Well, I will err on the side of caution since I know how mushroom compost is made and what it contains. Here in the US it contains a lot (bout 25%) raw , fresh chicken shit, They hope that they heat it to 165 F and then produce compost "substrate" in 14 days. The composting plants dont satisfy my sense that above all else, "YOUR FOOD SHOULD NOT MAKE YOU SICK"
We eat mushrooms a lot and always wash em in a detergent. The only kind we dont wash are the wild morels and oyster ( my wife dries the oysters ).
Im not sure ID notice a difference in a salad with washed v unwashed shrooms. Anyway, PA Health Dept, doesnt allow unwashed foods to be served in restaurants. We are getting to the limit though, there is a bill in PA (Maine already has one) where they wont allow restaurants to serve "sunny side up" eggs, because eggs arent sanitized at the plant.
It's all just health fanaticism playing on the American obsession with cleanliness.
I eat what's put in front of me. The stomach is to all intents and purposes an external surface, like the linings of the lungs. They both come into regular contact with the exterior environment and can be safely assumed to have the appropriate safety facilities.
The functioning of the interface between those surfaces and the interior parts of the body is an irreducible complexity.
It makes just as much sense to wash and scrub your food before you touch it as to wash and scrub it before you cook it. Maybe more because the cooking process destroys all known wikwots.
At least wear rubber gloves and disinfect all surfaces on which food has been prepared for cooking.
Of course, there may be chemicals unknown to evolution to deal with in which case the extravagant washing and brushing is necessary but only because people want their food too cheaply. By an easy logical step what is being washed off is a function of wanting cheap food and the other things which cheap food allows room for in expenditure patterns.
