China Agriculture View

According to incompletely figures, There are more than 2,500 mushroom varieties grown in the world today. Mushrooms are the above ground fruiting bodies of an organism called a fungi. The fruiting bodies come in a wild variety of colors, shapes and sizes.

Some of the fungi are edible, but others are not.In simplistic terms, you could divide mushrooms into two groups, those shaped like umbrellas and those not. The mushrooms shaped like umbrellas have a stem and a cap. The underside of the cap will have either gills, teeth or look like a sponge. The purpose of mushroom is to produce spores, tiny dust like reproductive cells. A key component of identifying many mushrooms is the color of the spores.

Long known for being low in fat and high in fibre, mushrooms are also a good dietary source of B vitamins.The B vitamins perform a wide variety of functions in your body and are essential for good health.

Cultivated mushrooms (as distinct from edible field mushrooms, which vary in their content according to where they grow) are an excellent source of copper and selenium. Copper, along with iron, is needed for your body to make red blood cells. It also helps in keeping the nerves, blood vessels, bones and immune system in good condition.