Mushrooms are a Good Source of Protein

What do you think of when you think of life?

Living things! Animals, mammals, birds, fish!

We humans, as mammals, are also a member of the living world.

Then there are insects. There are millions of different species of insects.

And of course there are plants! Plants are also living beings, even though they are different life forms.

I recently came across a news article about plants communicating with each other, they have been proven to communicate with each other, did you know that?

In the observations made, it was understood that a caterpillar warns other plants by releasing certain chemicals into the air that the plant is a danger to other plants because of the leaves that it starts to eat. The other plants started to produce enzymes in their leaves that the caterpillar would not like. 

Thus, it is thought that the plants developed a way to fight the caterpillars.

Nature is really marvelous.

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There are single-celled bacteria in the living world. But I won't go there today.

In fact, viruses are also thought to be semi-living. After all, although viruses cannot reproduce on their own, they can reproduce by using the DNA production mechanism of the cell they enter, and this is the method of reproduction they use for the continuation of their species in the world of viruses.

Can this also be considered life?

Okay, viruses don't have all the characteristics of life, but somehow they reproduce and survive in their own way. 

I think they are another form of life. At least we can call viruses semi-living beings, even if not fully.

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But what else can we classify as living things?

For example, there is another life form that looks like a plant, but is not actually a plant, and in fact has no close resemblance to plants. Perhaps a life form that shows a little bit of insect characteristics, but is closer to animals in terms of nutrition.

What is this life form?

I say life form, because it's really a separate category, we can't include it in any class we call living things.

Yes, I'm talking about fungi!

Fungi are very interesting creatures. Mushroom cells have cell walls like plants, they look like plants, but there is no cellulose between the cell walls like plants, instead there is a substance called chitin like insects. In this respect they are similar to insects.

Fungi look like plants, that is, they are connected to the soil with their roots, and in this respect they are similar to plants.

However, fungi do not live by photosynthesis like plants. 

Like animals, they have to find food from outside to survive. They use other living things as food sources. All living things. In this respect, they are similar to animals.

Fungi are an important part of the life cycle. 

They are almost everywhere. There are many species of fungi in the oceans.

Fungi are a very ancient form of life.

The first fungi appeared almost a billion years ago. It is thought that the first mushroom-like organisms were formed one billion two hundred million years ago.

Fossils of mushrooms with hats have been found from very ancient times. These fossils are said to be from 300 million years ago.

In other words, we can say that mushrooms existed almost as soon as multicellular life came into existence.

Yes, fungi still fulfill their original role.

What is the role of fungi in life? 

The final stage in the life cycle of matter, the return to the essence! 

The decomposition of living organisms after they die!

Bacteria also do this, but fungi have the main role in this process.

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The fungi that do the job of breaking down living organisms are not fungi with a head like a hat. There are mushrooms with very different structures on earth.

It is said that there are one and a half million species of fungi, and there are some who say there are up to two million. 

Even if we say one and a half million, this number is almost five times more than plants. (It is known that there are 320 thousand plant species on earth!)

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In Turkish, we say mold, and the creatures that make mold are fungi. Whatever you see is moldy, the reason why it is moldy is fungi.

Although the common mushrooms, that is, the ones with hats, are multicellular, fungi are not the only type with hats, as I said, there are also mold fungi and even unicellular ones. 

The unicellular ones reproduce not by direct division but by budding. As far as I understand, they copy everything inside the cell into a small section of the body and release that sac into the environment. In other words, they bud just like potatoes under the soil.

The mushrooms that we know are called spores and they reproduce with seed-like things called spores. Unfortunately, there is no Turkish word for this spore and we can't exactly call it a seed.

Because in places where there is no living environment, these spores can remain lifeless for a long time. When they find a moist environment, they immediately take root in the soil. Yes, in this sense they behave like plants.

There are also mushroom species that spray the fungal seeds, called spores, not into the soil but into the air. 

In other words, the spores are not just little black grains under that hat. They are not even just black. 

Scientists who have been studying fungi for a long time could not understand their method of reproduction. Of course, the fungi in question are not the mushrooms we know. 

Some mushrooms spray spores into the air in particles and these spores can travel far away with the wind. Just like the pollen of flowers

It is said that even in the air we breathe, there are quite a lot of these tiny specks of fungal spores. 

So there are a lot of fungi living inside us too. They somehow enter our body.

There are also fungi that produce spores through sexual reproduction, as well as fungi that produce spores and reproduce through asexual reproduction. 

In other words, there are fungi that can produce spores from their own DNA without taking cell DNA from another fungus.

Of course, this method is not very efficient in terms of diversification, this asexual reproduction method is very inconvenient for acquiring new characteristics against changes in the external environment. 

In fact, the reason why sexual reproduction started is that it is much easier to adapt to the environment with sexual reproduction. Thus, the cell DNA improves every time.

Nevertheless, since there are asexually reproducing fungi that have survived to the present day, it means that their constitution is strong enough.

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Fungi, especially the beneficial ones, are actually present almost everywhere in our lives.

Yeast, for example, is actually fungal microorganisms. 

The fermentation stages of our fermented foods such as bread, beer and wine are thanks to these yeast fungi.

As I said, it is also fungi that cause mold. But since most mold fungi are poisonous, eating something moldy can be harmful.

In other words, mold fungi are an important part of the life cycle, of returning everything to its original state.

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But mushrooms have also been an important source of food. Humans have been collecting and eating mushrooms dating back to the stone ages.

There are even scientists who think that these mushrooms had an effect on the development of the human brain. There are some enzymes in mushrooms that biologically develop the brain.

Maybe mushrooms really are the reason why we are human.

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Mushroom roots actually grow in the soil, move through the soil and surround everything, similar to our nerves. Perhaps they may even communicate with each other like our nerves.

Of course, although we have been eating them as food since time immemorial, there are also very poisonous species among mushrooms.

Mushroom poisoning is very common.

In fact, even though their appearance is similar, we can say that they have almost the same appearance, there are both poisonous and non-poisonous mushrooms.

With these characteristics, mushrooms have also been the occasion for some assassinations throughout history.

According to a legend, Buddha, the god of Buddhism, died because he ate a kind of mushroom growing under the ground that a villager offered him.

There is even a Pope in Christendom who was killed by eating mushrooms.

In Ottoman history, as far as I know, there were statesmen who died from mushroom poisoning, although not at the level of the sultans.

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Some mushrooms also contain poison that, if it doesn't kill you, it can give you a high.

The peoples of Mexico and Guatemala used such hallucinogenic mushrooms in religious and mythological ceremonies in ancient times.

It is known that the Mayans were also a culture very interested in mushrooms.

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Speaking of mushrooms, it is important to mention that some mushrooms cure some diseases. However, I don't want to go into this topic too much in this article. 

I will only mention that penicillin is produced from fungi. 

Penicillin is an antibiotic discovered by Alexander Fleming in London in 1928 in a mold called Penicillium notatum.

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Yes, mushrooms are a really good source of protein. 

They are also delicious to eat, especially if you know how to distinguish between poisonous mushrooms and non-poisonous mushrooms.

There are many mushroom varieties in Russia. 

Since I don't know much about them, I prefer to buy only the ones that are wrapped in the market. 

Only cultivated mushrooms are sold in the markets. 

The ones they call champions here are the white ones, or the ones that are a little more delicious, the slightly gray ones, the ones they call worthy of kings are the ones we buy as a family. 

There is also a small variety called lisiçka here, also called tree mushroom.

Apart from these, there are only canned mushrooms and there are quite a lot of varieties among the canned ones.

In fact, there is another kind that Russians call white mushrooms, and when you say mushrooms, I think there is probably nothing more delicious. 

When I was working in Kostroma, the locals used to collect them from the forests there, as far as I know it is a mushroom specific to that region, because even from far away places, people would come and park on the roadsides and pick mushrooms from the forest.

That white mushroom for example, I think that is exactly the mushroom that you can say is fit for a king.

There is also a type of mushroom called gruzdi, which I like very much, which is a gray mushroom, they eat it marinated and it is a very delicious mushroom type.

There are really many types of mushrooms in Russia and Russians eat a lot of mushrooms. They know well which ones are poisonous and which ones are not.

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Of course, when we talk about corks, let me not forget the cork guns of my childhood and the corks in wine bottles.

I even had a bottle of Moldavian wine at home. There is a type of grape called Isabella produced in Moldavia, it is a fragrant grape and the wine is quite nice. At least I like it.

I was going to tell my wife that there were mushrooms in the fridge, they call them champignons here, I think in Turkey they sell them as cultivated mushrooms in the markets, the white ones, she should make them tonight, and I think a glass of Isabella would go very well with them. 

I don't eat much in the evenings, but I don't object if the lady has made something good.

Yes, I thought I would write a little bit about mushrooms today, but the article is quite long. 

Actually, there is a lot more to write about mushrooms. But I think this is enough for today.

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By the way, I almost forgot, when it comes to mushrooms, especially in Europe, the most famous type of mushroom is called trufel, I think it is called truffle in Turkish. 

It is a black mushroom found under the ground. It is a very expensive type of mushroom. 

They find these mushrooms with specially trained dogs. 

Although there are some in Russia, Russians find them mostly with pigs, but as far as I know, truffles are more famous in Europe, they are worthy of the tables of aristocrats.

I tried it once, but I think the white mushroom (the reddish mushroom in the picture) was much tastier, even though its color was not white, but I can say that I liked the truffle too.

Anyway, I am not an aristocrat, what do I know about aristocratic food.

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Eat mushrooms for protein, but be careful, don't eat what you don't know, and especially don't try to pick them yourself in the forests. Prefer the cultivated mushrooms sold in the markets.

I say protein source, since meat is so expensive, then mushrooms might be a solution to your protein needs.

How much do mushrooms cost in Turkey?

Love and respect to everyone from Moscow.