The fascinating realm of medicinal mushrooms. Gerit Fischer's compact guide presents culinary and medicinal treasures for you to collect yourself

" Native medicinal and vital mushrooms " deals with mushrooms that you can grow in the wild. This identification, cooking and medicinal book provides helpful tips on safe collection, valuable information on the ingredients and practical recommendations for use.

Ancient knowledge rediscovered

Most people are probably familiar with delicious mushroom dishes with chanterelles, button mushrooms or porcini mushrooms. However, only a few people probably know that mushrooms can also be used to prevent, treat and alleviate illnesses. There are currently 120,000 known species of mushrooms, but it is assumed that there are a total of 1.5 million species. This means that there are more mushroom species than plant species in the world.

The millennia-old knowledge of the healing power of mushrooms from local forests, meadows and gardens has only recently been rediscovered by both folk medicine and medical research. In her new compact guide, nutritionist and mycomolecular consultant Gerit Fischer presents portraits of 20 local mushroom species, from oyster mushrooms to tinder fungus. As an identification, cooking and medicinal book in one, it covers the entire process from finding and collecting to characteristics and preparation to targeted disease prevention and treatment of numerous ailments. For interested laypeople, but also for experienced mushroom pickers, completely new opportunities are opening up to get to know popular and lesser-known edible mushrooms from a completely new perspective.

Mushrooms protect the environment and health

For thousands of years they have been highly valued in many cultures and have been used with great success both from a nutritional perspective and as medicinal mushrooms for preventive and therapeutic use. In the Eastern world they are an integral part of medicine, and western conventional medicine is also beginning to understand that the mushrooms contain highly effective antimicrobial substances and can be used successfully as controllable and regulating immune modulators. The rich mushrooms could even be used as a meat substitute to feed a large part of the world's population, thereby protecting health preventively and avoiding factory farming with all its problems and the excessive consumption of meat that makes people unwell.

Today, mushrooms can be cultivated extensively using ecologically controlled cultivation methods. In this way, they are completely free of environmental toxins and harmful substances. Experts are even convinced that mushrooms can save the earth and heal it from environmental damage. Mushrooms represent a large water reservoir for trees in times of drought, making them an important survival factor for forests in times of climate change.

Prevent and heal with fungi

In traditional Chinese medicine, knowledge about the therapeutic use of mushrooms has been cultivated for over 4,000 years. In Korea, Japan and China, the use of mushrooms is an integral part of medical practice. Modern Western medicine has so far only used microscopic mushrooms from which active ingredients such as penicillin are extracted. However, new studies are being carried out almost every day that precisely analyze the biochemical clinical properties of traditional medicinal mushrooms according to Western standards.

The importance of mushrooms in nutrition has also long been underestimated. Their nutritional strengths lie in their "functional" ingredients. They are the reason why mushrooms are now referred to as "superfoods" or "functional foods". Mushrooms provide little nutritional energy, but a lot of nutrients. Their polysaccharides and triterpenes in particular are unique. Their spectrum of effects can be roughly described as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-tumor and germ-inhibiting. Organically, the balancing and detoxifying effects are primarily - but not exclusively - located in the immune system, the digestive tract and the cardiovascular system.

Book tip:
Gerit Fischer: Local medicinal and vital mushrooms - 20 mushrooms for the kitchen and medicine cabinet, Mankau Verlag, 2nd revised and updated edition July 2023, paperback, 11.5 x 16.5 cm, 158 pages, 12.00 euros (D) / 12.40 euros (A), ISBN 978-3-86374-710-7.

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