The mycologist gave tips on cooking mushrooms

Mushrooms contain all the useful substances that a person needs, but in order to get them, it is necessary to destroy the chitinous cell wall before use. To do this, the mushrooms must be powdered or frozen before cooking. Mikhail Vishnevsky, a mycologist and Candidate of Biological Sciences, told about this in the new issue of the Izvestia podcast.

"As fairly close relatives of animals, fungi have a chitinous cell wall. Everything that is useful in each mushroom cell sits inside a "chitinous prison". There is no enzyme in the human body called chitinase, that is, an enzyme that can destroy chitin and release everything needed from there. Even hydrochloric acid of the stomach does not cause any harm to the chitinous cell membrane of the fungus," he explained.

The mycologist explained that the easiest way to destroy the chitinous shell is to freeze mushrooms in the refrigerator. Cellular moisture crystallizes from the inside and pierces the cell.

"The second option is to grind the dried mushrooms into a powder using a coffee grinder before cooking. After that, add this mushroom powder about ten minutes before it is ready, for example, to mushroom soup," says the specialist.

According to him, if you cook mushrooms whole, you can get no more than 10% of the protein they contain; if you add mushroom powder to the dish, you can get at least 80%.

At the same time, the expert clarified that mushrooms, thanks to a unique set of amino acids, are able to replace both plant and animal food for humans.

"There are amino acids in animals that are not synthesized in plants, and it is impossible to live without them. Therefore, a person needs to eat animal food. There are plants with their own amino acids, which are not found in animals. And mushrooms have everything: the whole set of all the necessary amino acids, all proteins, all enzymes, all unsaturated fatty acids, all vitamins, including B12," says Vishnevsky.

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Earlier, on September 18, a study by the Weather Mail service showed that most Russians have experience picking mushrooms. Of these, 38% do it sometimes, and 37% do it regularly. 65% of respondents collect mushrooms to spend time in nature, 53% collect mushrooms for harvesting, 27% — for the purpose of excitement, 21% — to spend time with friends and family, and 12% — to save on buying mushrooms.

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