Food - An Introduction to Mushrooms
by Michael Russell
Mushrooms belong to the Fungi group. They are fleshy plants that grow from decaying materials. They need the nutrients that they get from the decay because they do not have chlorophyll. This means that they cannot produce their own food. They usually grow in the more temperate regions of the world and during the seasons when the weather is warm and moist.
Mushrooms can most likely be found in pastures, meadows and woodlands. There is a wide variety of mushrooms and they have many different colors. Some mushrooms are brown or white while others are red, orange, or in shiny pastel colors. They also differ in shape and sizes. The most common mushrooms are short with thick stems and caps that look like umbrellas.Inside these umbrella-like caps are thin sheets of flesh called gills. The gills grow between the cap lining and the stem. These gills house the tiny spores that grow as the mushroom ages. Eventually, these spores are blown away by the wind and settle on the ground. In time, these spores grow into new sets of mushrooms just like the seeds of other plants do.Some varieties of mushrooms are delicious to eat. However, there are other kinds of mushrooms, like those commonly called "toadstools", that are poisonous when consumed. Also others may not be poisonous but are still inedible because they are either too tough to chew or simply do not taste good enough to be served. For mushrooms that grow in the wild, there is no rule or completely safe way to distinguish which is edible or not.
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