Microwaving might be essentially the most environment friendly option to scale back agaritine ranges in recent mushrooms.
There is a toxin in plain white button mushrooms known as agaritine, which can be carcinogenic. Plain white button mushrooms develop to be cremini (brown) mushrooms, and cremini mushrooms develop to be portobello mushrooms. They’re all the exact same mushroom, much like how inexperienced bell peppers are simply unripe pink bell peppers. The quantity of agaritine in these mushrooms might be decreased by means of cooking: Frying, microwaving, boiling, and even simply freezing and thawing decrease the degrees. “It’s subsequently really helpful to course of/cook dinner Button Mushroom earlier than consumption,” one thing I famous in a video that’s now greater than a decade previous.
Nevertheless, as proven under and at 0:51 in my video Is It Safe to Eat Raw Mushrooms?, in the event you look on the varied cooking strategies, the agaritine in these mushrooms isn’t fully destroyed. Take dry baking, for instance: Baking for ten minutes at about 400° Fahrenheit (“a course of much like pizza baking”) solely cuts the agaritine ranges by a couple of quarter, so 77 p.c nonetheless stays.
Boiling seems to be higher, showing to wipe out greater than half the toxin after simply 5 minutes, however the agaritine isn’t really eradicated. As an alternative, it’s simply transferred to the cooking water. So, ranges throughout the mushrooms drop by about half at 5 minutes and by 90 p.c after an hour, however that’s largely as a result of the agartine is leaching into the broth. So, in the event you’re making soup, as an example, 5 minutes of boiling isn’t any more practical than dry baking for ten minutes, and, even after an hour, about half nonetheless stays.
Frying for 5 to 10 minutes eliminates loads of agartine, however microwaving shouldn’t be solely a extra healthful option to cook dinner, but it surely works even higher, as you possibly can see right here and at 1:39 in my video. Researchers discovered that only one minute within the microwave “reduced the agaritine content material of the mushrooms by 65%,” and solely 30 seconds of microwaving eradicated greater than 50 p.c. So, microwaving might be the simplest option to scale back agaritine ranges in recent mushrooms. 
My approach is so as to add dried mushrooms into the pasta water once I’m making spaghetti. Between the reductions of 20 p.c or so from the drying and 60 p.c or so from boiling for ten minutes and straining, greater than 90 p.c of agaritine is eradicated.
Ought to we be involved in regards to the residual agaritine? In line with a evaluation funded by the mushroom business, under no circumstances. “The obtainable proof up to now means that agaritine from consumption of…mushrooms poses no identified toxicological danger to wholesome people.” The researchers acknowledge agartine is taken into account a possible carcinogen in mice, however then that knowledge must be extrapolated to human well being outcomes.
The Swiss Institute of Expertise, for instance, estimated that the common mushroom consumption within the nation could be anticipated to trigger about two circumstances of most cancers per 100 thousand individuals. That is much like consumption in america, as seen under and at 3:00 in my video, so “one may theoretically expect about 20 most cancers deaths per 1 x 106 [one million] lives from mushroom consumption.” As compared, usually, with a brand new chemical, pesticide, or meals additive, we’d wish to see the most cancers danger decrease than one in 1,000,000. “By this strategy, the common mushroom consumption of Switzerland is 20-fold too excessive to be acceptable. To stay beneath the restrict”—and hold danger down to at least one in 1,000,000—“‘mushroom lovers’ must limit their consumption of mushrooms to at least one 50-g serving each 250 days!” That’s a couple of half-cup serving as soon as in simply over eight months. To place that into perspective, even in the event you have been consuming a single serving each single day, the ensuing further most cancers danger would solely be about one in ten thousand. “Put one other method, if 10,000 individuals consumed a mushroom meal day by day for 70 years, then along with the 3000 most cancers circumstances arising from different elements, another case may very well be attributed to consuming mushrooms.” 
However, once more, that is all based “on the presumption that leads to such mouse fashions are equally legitimate in people.” Certainly, that is all simply extrapolating from mice knowledge. What we’d like is a large potential examine to look at the affiliation between mushroom consumption and most cancers danger in people, however there weren’t any such research—till now.
Researchers titled their paper: “Mushroom Consumption and Threat of Complete and Web site-Particular Most cancers in Two Giant U.S. [Harvard] Potential Cohorts” and located “no affiliation between mushroom consumption and whole and site-specific cancers in U.S. men and women.”
Consuming uncooked or undercooked shiitake mushrooms can cause one thing else, although: shiitake mushroom flagellate dermatitis. Flagellate as in flagellation, whipping, flogging. Beneath and at 4:48 in my video, you possibly can see a rash that makes it look as in the event you’ve been whipped.
Right here and at 4:58 in my video is one other picture of the rash. It’s regarded as caused by a compound in shiitake mushrooms known as lentinan, however as a result of warmth denatures it, it solely appears to be an issue with uncooked or undercooked mushrooms.
Now, it is uncommon. Solely about 1 in 50 individuals are even vulnerable, and it goes away by itself in every week or two. Apparently, it will possibly strike as many as ten days after consuming shiitake mushrooms, which is why individuals might not make the connection. One unlucky man suffered on and off for 16 years earlier than a analysis. Hopefully, loads of medical doctors will watch this video, and in the event that they ever see a rash like this, they’ll inform their sufferers to cook dinner their shiitakes.
