Life is Healthy

Mushrooms are often overlooked in today's daily diet but they are loaded with nutrition and amazing health benefits.

One of the most nutritious mushrooms is the shiitake. (They are on the top left in the photo above). These mushrooms make great meat substitutes. You can eat them on their own sauteed with butter and garlic as a side dish or put them in stir fries and soups.

Shiitake mushrooms have been used medicinally by the Chinese for over 6,000 years. An eight ounce serving (at only 87 calories) will provide you with twenty percent of your daily recommended iron intake, and about ten percent each of Vitamin C, protein and fiber.

Shiitake mushrooms contain lentinan. Lentinan has amazing healing benefits. It boosts the immune system to fight infection or disease. It has been shown to be more effective than prescription drugs in fighting influenza and other viruses. It's also been shown to be effective at destroying cancer cells. And it lowers cholesterol levels in lab animals no matter what kinds of fats they are fed.

Nutrition is still a very young science and it was only just over a year ago that L-ergothioneine, an extremely powerful antioxidant, was discovered in mushrooms:

In research presented at the 2005 American Chemical Society meeting in Washington, D.C., an American research team revealed that mushrooms contain higher concentrations L-ergothioneine than either of the two dietary sources previously believed to contain the most: chicken liver and wheat germ.

Testing mushrooms consumed in the U.S., the team found that shiitake, oyster, king oyster and maitake mushrooms contain the highest amounts of ergothioneine, with up to 13 mg in a 3-ounce serving. This equals forty times as much as is found in wheat germ.

Of the most commonly consumed mushrooms, portabellas and criminis have the most L-ergothioneine, followed by white buttons. White buttons, the most popular of all mushrooms consumed in the U.S., contain up to 5 mg per three ounce serving-12 times as much as wheat germ and 4 times more than chicken liver. And more good news, L-ergothioneine is not destroyed when mushrooms are cooked.

Getting enough calcium helps us maintain strong bones and avoid osteoporosis. Over 20 million people in the US have osteoporosis.

Calcium has also been found effective in preventing and treating colon cancer, kidney stones, PMS and inflammatory bowel disease. Aside from deteriorating bones, people who are not getting enough calcium often suffer from muscle pain and spasms as well as tingling or numbness in their hands and feet.

How do you know if you're getting enough calcium? Dairy products are the main source of calcium in the North American diet. Three glasses of milk daily would give the average adult about ninety percent of their recommended daily amount. If the milk is 2%, that would add up to about 370 calories.

I don't drink milk (except in my coffee) and I don't see my friends drinking milk. I eat other dairy products which are high in calcium, especially lots of cheese, but this is probably not the healthiest choice of calories on a serious weight loss regiment (in my case I usually eat it with bread and rich slathers of butter). And I can't be smug about pouring milk into my coffee because coffee is actually one substance that depletes calcium reserves in our bodies.

Fortunately there are some great alternatives to dairy products. Topping the list would be spinach, collard greens, sardines, tofu and soya drinks.

Eating four cups of boiled spinach in a day would provide you with 100% of your calcium requirement for only 165 calories. Spinach is so incredibly rich in other nutrients though that you would be getting mega doses on some of the other key nutrients such as Vitamin K; four cups of spinach provides 4,500 percent of daily requirement(!), Vitamin A; at 1,200 percent; folate; 260 percent, iron; 140 percent, vitamin C; 120 percent; dietary fiber; 70 percent, and the rich list of spinach nutritional benefits keeps on going. (Read more here.)

Calcium is not sensitive to cooking. So boiling or frying your spinach until it is complete mush will not cut down on the calcium count.

No one is going to eat four cups of spinach on a daily basis, but the other foods mentioned here also provide an incredible wealth of other nutrients. Dairy products don't stand much of a chance in this competition. It's worth checking out their health benefits and incorporating them more often in your diet. See more about the benefits of collard greens, sardines, tofu and soybeans here.

The photo above is a tofu-based lunch by Blue Lotus.