Are mushrooms healthy? Should we eat them or is it better to avoid them?

Let's talk about mushrooms – once again, a staple of the plant-based community. There is a lot to say about mushrooms. Many of the health benefits associated with them are promoted in many health articles. You can find all sorts of things out there in the media – mushrooms are great, mushrooms are anti-cancer, mushrooms, mushrooms... okay 🙄

So, what I want to do today is to give this topic an approach that you honestly cannot find anywhere else. I will present this information step by step and explain it with very, very basic, rudimentary, healthy common sense, so that you can frame this insight in a way that you can filter out a lot of the nonsense.

So, are mushrooms good for us? Or should we avoid them? What is the deal with mushrooms? Let's begin.

I want to start with the simplest basics. So, the first thing we will do is get on the same page. We will start with a few general facts that everyone can understand and that we must all agree on before we move on to the next part of this post.

Mushrooms are mushrooms! They are the mushroom agency in nature. The role of mushrooms in the natural order of the world is that of the agents of decay and the commissioners of decomposition. They are the undertakers, the decomposers of organic, dead, and dying material. That is the role of mushrooms in the natural world. Like any system, you need a designated class of workers or something that removes and deals with the waste of the system. The city would not be a beautiful city if we had no way to remove or dispose of waste. The garbage would simply accumulate and it would be disgusting. Whoever lives and eats must remove.

Everyone has commissioners in their body who are responsible for breaking down and eliminating this organic material, transforming it into something reusable, and then getting rid of the waste. This is how every organic system works in the forest, or in nature. This task, this responsibility, to deal with dead and dying material, falls to the mushroom family. That is their special role. Understandable so far?

Mushrooms are mushrooms! All mushrooms exist in microform in every single living cell. They are embedded in every cell of organic material. When they receive the appropriate signals that there is dead and dying material out there that they can feed on and perform the work of decomposition on, these microforms develop out of the cells and go to work, developing into increasingly complex forms, depending on the toxicity, depending on the degree of organic dead and dying material to be processed.

Mushrooms are mushrooms! Mushrooms are the commissioners of the decay and decomposition of dead, rotting material. The more dead and rotting material there is, the more complex the mushroom becomes.

If these simple facts cannot be accepted, you should stop this post now or simply do a little simple research about mushrooms and you will have to agree with these facts.

In the human body, mushrooms do exactly the same thing as in nature. They have the same purpose in the body that they fulfill in nature. They only appear when there is dead, dying, and rotting material in an acidic environment that encourages them to grow. This signals to them that this place is acidic and they should begin the work. Then the mushrooms come to life and you have a bacterial or fungal infection. This infection is very unpleasant, so we throw pharmaceuticals into our body to eliminate the bacteria and mushrooms without really addressing the underlying cause that triggered their growth impulses.

As I already said, there is a certain development of microforms in the body, depending on how much acidic waste, toxic material, dead and dying rotting material needs to be processed. At the beginning, you only have small microforms within the cells, and when they receive the appropriate signal, they develop into:

Bacteria, then further into yeast and then into mushrooms and finally, if there is even more material present, into mold, which becomes a more dangerous form of the mushroom.

Have you ever had nail fungus? How was that? Was it nice? Did you want to get rid of it? Didn't every healthy sense in you say that something was wrong? Yes, of course, because you are an intelligent being. You know that something is wrong when you have nail fungus. Have you ever had a yeast infection? How did that feel? Was that pleasant? Did you immediately feel that something was wrong? Yes, of course, because your body shows you that something is wrong. Your diet and lifestyle habits caused these reactions, whether you were aware of it or not.

"Mother Nature" does not care, she will simply do what the (natural) law prescribes, regardless of whether you are aware of what you are doing or not.

You can simply type "bacterial overgrowth" or "fungal overgrowth" into Google, and you will find all these things.

They are the only commissioners of decay and decomposition.

What happens when you die? When you die, your body stops maintaining the alkaline environment. CO2 builds up, organic material begins to decay, the acidic environment takes over. This is a signal for viruses, mold, and bacteria to evolve and break down your body into a decomposed collection of minerals, which can then be returned to the soil and used to support further growth.

This simply happens.

Great, now we have clarified all the basic facts that are undeniably true.

Undeniably true! Now to the second part.

We must apply the facts that we can observe to mushrooms, in a dietary sense. I have to emphasize this again, because it becomes very important. You must understand the nature of a thing. When you do that, when you understand the nature of the thing, then the illusions around it simply disappear, and it does not matter what funny or silly opinions are thrown at you, because the undeniable nature of the thing is known.

For example, I do not care how much advertising I see for the Olympic Games sponsored by McDonald's and how McDonald's says, "pure grass-fed, healthy... whatever", McDonald's, okay, I know what McDonald's is, I know what the business model is. There are no illusions about it, so it does not matter how many McDonald's ads there are, it does not matter how many people in the world eat McDonald's every day, I will never be fooled by a McDonald's ad!

Do you understand? Ask anyone why they eat mushrooms. Why should anyone eat mushrooms? Almost always the answer is: "Well, you have heard it before, packed with nutrients or full of this and that or they contain this and that, and that is almost always the first justification for eating mushrooms.

Mushrooms have a very specific task, as described above. And to serve the nature with their task, the composition of the mushroom must contain a lot of genetic information, many enzymes, minerals, and so on.

Does that mean that all these nutrients are accessible to your body when you eat them?

No, not necessarily. Have you ever tried to graze like a cow in a meadow? The cow can draw sufficient nutrients from the grass, and it does this its whole life and it is perfectly fine. All ruminants can simply graze in the meadow and are perfectly satisfied with the dense nutrients they find in the wild grasses. Why do you not do that? After all, there is a dense abundance of nutrients in the grasses.

You do not do it because you are not a ruminant and do not have the digestive and physiological mechanisms to deal with the grasses, even if they are full of nutrients. Because if you try to eat them, the nutrients would not be available for your human physiology, and you would simply excrete them and would not gain much nutrients from them.

Mushrooms are the same. In fact, mushrooms are an even less developed and inferior form of plants than wild grasses. They grow in the dark, they grow underground, they are not visible, they do not need life-giving sunlight to grow. They do not need it. Why? Because they have to survive in the shade, in the darkness. They have to live off dead material. More highly developed plants need higher forms of energy: sun, air, water, all that. Mushrooms too, but they do not need sunbeams.

Technically, grasses would therefore be a better choice. But as it looks, mushrooms are almost completely indigestible. They go into your system the same way they come out. Your body does not know what to do with mushrooms. Your body sees a mushroom going down the digestive tract, and all it has to say in response is this gesture: 🤷🏻‍♀️ and that is it. Your body simply cannot digest them.

Unfortunately, you cannot utilize all these dense nutrients that are contained in the mushrooms because you do not have the digestive physiology to efficiently extract and absorb these nutrients. So most of them are completely inaccessible to you. So it does not matter what you see on something like a nutritional data sheet or so, most of these nutrients do not get into your cells. And that they are full of nutrients – well, damn, an oak tree is also full of nutrients, but why do you not eat an oak tree? Because you are not a mushroom, you are a human! You cannot eat an oak tree. But if the oak tree dies and you were a mushroom, then the oak tree would perhaps become food for your species. But if you want to play the nutrient game, then eat as many oaks as you want, because they are full of minerals, enzymes, fiber, and all sorts of amazing things. Soil also has a lot of nutrients, eat it gladly.

Well, of course the common objection comes: "But Lena, we cook the mushrooms before we eat them." Yes, some people eat mushrooms raw, you should not do that, but yes, most people prepare them in some way or cook their mushrooms before they eat them, and if you eat them, I would advise you to do the same.

But here is what you have to ask yourself: If you have to prepare them, if you have to cook them to neutralize their toxic components, is it primarily food for humans? No"! Because why, why do we rationalize that it is a good idea to do this when we have foods available that do not require such a trick for our physiology? It becomes very important to recognize what you are and what nature has intended for you.

Mushrooms also contain mycotoxins, which damage the immune system, liver, kidneys, and nerves and act as carcinogens. That is why mushrooms in their raw form are completely indigestible for you. Herbert Shelton once made a comment in which he said that eating mushrooms is like trying to eat shoelaces – they are simply insanely indigestible. You have to do something with them before they can even begin to be digested, and even then you do not absorb the nutrients from them, as stated.

Mushrooms are toxic contrary to popular opinion. All mushrooms! All of them are toxic by default. They all make the body acidic. The difference between edible mushrooms and the mushrooms that can kill you is simply a matter of degree. All mushrooms contain compounds called amantines. All of them have amantines in them. The mushrooms with higher concentrations of this poison will kill you. The ones with lower concentrations simply do not do your body any good. They are there as poisons that need to be eliminated, but they do not kill you immediately.

Mushrooms are simply the fruiting body of a more developed form of yeast and depending on the degree of toxicity in the environment, they can develop into a more complex, fruiting form, which is the mushroom.

If you have ever had an experience with a home inspection where the inspector finds mold or mold residue, why do they have to throw you out of the house? Why does a unit have to come in to completely fog the entire room? Why? Because mushrooms and mold, when they decompose, when they eat all that toxic material so they can convert it into something useful, also give off excretions. It is these excretions that are responsible for the negative effects that you see in your body when you have a mushroom overgrowth. So, if you have a yeast infection or nail fungus, it is their excretions that we experience on the surface as very unpleasant. It is these same excretions, these mycotoxins, that are so deadly in a room full of mold. Mold is the more developed form of the mushroom, and that is why you cannot be in this room. You will breathe in the spores, and there is a risk that they will settle, even if they are tiny, small particles, that they will settle and start to eat in your system. Then they will start to do what they do, and that is why they are very dangerous. So you must remove all mushroom mold and residue from your apartment. We know that. We all know that, that is no revelation.

Nevertheless, people still argue…!

"But we have the studies". The studies show this and that, the studies show this and that. Yes, the studies show many benefits of mushroom consumption. These studies are always conducted in the context of a "normal" diet that the majority of people eat.

They never compare the addition of mushrooms in individuals or a population of individuals who eat the species-specific diet. Because if you eat your species-specific food, you will have no use for mushrooms in your body, compared to what the average population eats. A diet with plant foods and mushrooms is still infinitely superior, because health exists on a spectrum where at one end you simply have the most distorted, spoiled nonsense and at the other end you have "Adam and Eve in the Garden", in the Garden of Eden. You can place yourself somewhere on this spectrum.

Yes, eating mushrooms can show that they have anti-cancer, antioxidant, and similar properties, but the question you have to ask yourself is: If you know what you observably know and what is absolutely undeniably true about the role of mushrooms in the natural world, does it make sense that you as a frugivore need to eat mushrooms to gain a benefit that you could not otherwise get from your natural food (fruit)? Natural food is food that requires no specialized knowledge to protect you from the dangers - fruit has no dangers.

When you go mushroom hunting, you have to know very precisely which mushrooms you can pick? Because many mushrooms, most mushrooms, are toxic. They do not do you any good, you cannot simply go out and eat mushrooms. You have to know exactly what you are doing. You do not have to know exactly what you are doing when you eat fruit that simply grows, right? If you come across some fruit that is not quite so sweet or whatever, then they are simply little bitter notes that you would spit out and say: "Oh, whatever." It is not that dangerous.

So, to answer this question: Do mushrooms give you any benefits, do they give you any nutrients, antioxidant or anti-cancer benefit compared to simple fruits and vegetables? The answer is: No, they do not. They do not provide your body with any special benefit that cannot be derived from fruit, vegetables, and even nuts in a better and cleaner way.

Okay, so, to summarize: The problem is that we are faced with cognitive dissonance in our relationship with mushrooms. We have a field of knowledge of observable knowledge that we absolutely know is true, as in the first part of this post. We know what mushrooms do in nature, we know what role they play, we know that they are the commissioners of decay, we know that they only appear to decompose matter. We know that in nature they are the "undertakers". They serve no other purpose than to feast on rotting, dead material. That is what we know. But suddenly, when we enter the area of nutrition and include these same commissioners of decay, we experience this cognitive dissonance that we do not want to admit to ourselves, because the texture and the stimulation that we experience in our mouth when we eat mushrooms, cooked, seasoned, and combined with all sorts of other flavors that we cleverly hide, tastes good to us. We like the taste, so we are not willing to relate what we know about the role of mushrooms in nature to what we eat.

So that is the problem. It is about being honest about what the actual thing is and about our behavior that we do not really want to give up, because it stimulates the mouth, you know. And generally speaking, you construct flavors and textures so that they are enjoyable. You never eat raw mushrooms. You will never simply take a handful of mushrooms and call it a delicious meal.

Who does that? No one. You always eat them in the context of a large salad portion with spices fatty sauces and oils. It is simply the texture, this chewy texture in your mouth, that is pleasant when it is mixed with other flavors that cover the mushroom taste, what it actually is – a mushroom.

And I know that you know that. When would you use mushrooms? If mushrooms are necessary to stay in the plant world, right, to avoid other things that are worse, then eat as many mushrooms as you want.

No restrictions, eat as many as you want, and again, it is plant material, it is plant matter, it will be better for you and bring you health benefits, compared to an otherwise even worse, stimulating diet with cooked oils, cooked salt, dead animal body parts, eggs, dairy products, God forbid, cheese, and so on, and processed junk food. Yes, it is an infinitely better choice to eat mushrooms. If you need mushrooms to support your transition to a better diet, then use them. Feel free to use them. They are a good treat, I used to use them, they can taste very good, they can result in very interesting flavors and interesting dishes. Use them. What I want to teach you is to be honest with yourself about what you eat, and not have illusions about what you eat. Don't let yourself be misled into believing that you are eating something that is just as ideal for you as fruit and green leafy vegetables, because it is not the case.

But if you want to eat them as an occasional treat, then do it. Yes, sure, just understand that it is not ideal, and that you definitely should not do it constantly, so that your body can recover from the damage that has been done. But, you know, have fun with it, yes, it is okay, it will not kill you, but just understand what they are and what it is, so that you are not misled. That is all I say.

One of the great things about mushrooms is that when you cook them in a pan, they actually release a lot of liquid. One of the great applications of mushrooms in a wok or something is that you do not need oil. You do not need oil, you do not need water, you can just put them in the pan, add some heat and then they start to release all this wonderful mushroom juice. Then you can add your other vegetables and make a sauté or Bok Choy or whatever, and add anything. The mushrooms give a lot of their flavor when cooking. That is a fantastic use for mushrooms. So you can get creative, and they help you avoid other harmful foods. That is a good use for mushrooms.

Okay, so do that, without forgetting everything else that we discussed in this post.

The goal should be to eat fruit, green leafy vegetables, and adequate amounts of nuts and seeds.

Are you looking for support to successfully navigate your dietary transition?
Then become a member of my APP NOURISHED BY COCOANEL, there you will find recipes, meal plans, detox programs, video courses, workouts, and much more that will help you master your diet so that you actually see results and achieve your individual goals.

If you need intensive, 1:1 guidance, you will find the options to work with me HERE.