"Here is a simple experiment we did one summer afternoon in Kamilche Point, Washington. We compared several forms of organically grown shiitake mushrooms, which had starting level of 100 IU/100 grams. We compared the vitamin D levels of three sets of mushrooms, all from the same crop. The first was grown and dried indoors. The second set was dried outdoors in the sunlight with their gills facing down. The third set of mushrooms was dried outdoors in the sunlight with their gills facing upwards for full sun exposure. The most vitamin D was found in shiitake dried with gills up that were exposed to sunlight for two days, six hours per day. The vitamin D levels in these mushrooms soared from 100 IU/100 grams to nearly 46,000 IU/100 grams (see chart). Their stems, though, produced very little vitamin D, only about 900 IU. Notably, vitamin D levels dropped on the third day, probably due to over-exposure to UV."
It's worth noting that this is Paul Stamets' work. He's definitely worth the google search if you've never heard of him and are into this sort of thing - super interesting guy. He is not educated as a scientist though so I usually take most of his stuff with a grain of salt.
Interestingly enough I did a deep dive on mushrooms and vitamin D about a month ago. You can easily find a lot of papers that demonstrate sunlight and vitamin D with mushrooms, so don't take the unofficial training as a knock (we should always be skeptical, but verification exists).
It's all about UV light. Some producers are now using UV to help increase the vitamin D of their mushrooms (along with killing bacteria) but they can also quickly lose it when in the fridge. So just set them out on the windowsill 15-90 minutes before you use them. The more the better. Surprisingly this even works for dried mushrooms, so just build the habit. If you don't, you basically shouldn't expect to be getting meaningful amounts of vitamin D from your mushrooms. The effects are this large.
In addition to this, make sure when you cook, that you start your mushrooms dry. This isn't a vitamin D thing, but most people cook their mushrooms wrong. They have a lot of water in them to begin with. Start dry, then when you add things they will soak up surrounding flavors and have a better texture (people's main concern), being more meaty than spongy/slimy.
> In addition to this, make sure when you cook, that you start your mushrooms dry. This isn't a vitamin D thing, but most people cook their mushrooms wrong. They have a lot of water in them to begin with. Start dry, then when you add things they will soak up surrounding flavors and have a better texture (people's main concern), being more meaty than spongy/slimy.
This is how they do it in Chinese soups, but honestly I haven't personally seen other cultures use dried mushrooms.
Is this a problem a lot of people have, the slimy mushroom thing? I don't do anything special or careful at all with mushrooms; I rinse them off, maybe halfheatedly salad-spin them, chop them up and put them in a hot pan with some fat. I've never had a slimy one.
“He is not educated as a scientist though so I usually take most of his stuff with a grain of salt.”
As someone who was educated as a scientist, you should reevaluate this opinion.
There are plenty of brilliant professional scientists. There are also a lot of idiots in science.
There are also a lot of brilliant people who decided that the scientific path was too restrictive or outright false, so they (brilliantly) invested their own scientific life force externally
Having a science degree doesn’t make one less fallible to mistakes. If anything it makes people more likely to fudge to get ahead.
> As someone who was educated as a scientist, you should reevaluate this opinion.
I would take a lot of science with a grain of salt too. Looking at the recent peanut butter allergy studies for example. Original 2016 study used 10 jewish children in Britain vs. 10 jewish Children in Israel. This study caused policy change around the world. Australia went from under 25% to over 80% of people feeding their children peanut butter under the age of 1. It had no discernible effect on allergies to peanut butter at all. They've followed it up with a larger study, 100 jewish kids in Britain vs. 100 jewish kids in Israel to prove out their original theory.
The person in question is definitely a good example of someone you SHOULD take with more than a grain of salt. From what I could gather (mainly from /r/mycology) he's not really well respected in his field, and seems to be rather a salesman who draws premature conclusions and evangelises them. The Netflix documentary with him also had my "this sounds too good to be true" sensors going off more or less constantly.
I am open to the idea that someone from a background outside of academia could come up with some really brilliant scientific work. I just know that I am not capable of discerning what is solid science in fields different from my own so I typically rely on signals like an academic background (although not exclusively) to help me gauge the trustworthiness of a claim.
Stamets makes some extraordinary health claims about mushrooms that afaik have never been clinically tested (ex. anticancer and antiviral applications). I think a grain of salt is appropriate in this case - but he could be entirely right!
> He is not educated as a scientist though so I usually take most of his stuff with a grain of salt.
Credentialing doesn't / shouldn't matter for science. The science should stand on it's own as long as you follow the scientific method, document your assumptions & results, and do work that is reproducible. Bonus points for good peer review. We should reserve the "grains of salt" for people who are sloppy or have been provably bad actors. </soapbox from someone who is "educated as a scientist">
I actually appreciate his wealth of knowledge (Paul Stamets) and his presentation of facts, often I learn a lot and his holistic approach is something that most universities would find impossible to implement as curricula. While not a classically-trained scientist, he is an erudite scholar of the highest caliber and his continual contributions to science and furthering our understanding of the natural world more closely correlates to the inceptive motivations of Science than would be found in the modern day tower of ivory.
> The vitamin D levels in these mushrooms soared from 100 IU/100 grams to nearly 46,000 IU/100 gram
Isn't 46000 IU well into the dangerous range? This procedure sounds like an easy way to poison your liver.
The number I found says 4000 IU is a recommended max. You could say that you should only eat <10 grams then, but how much variability is there in the amount?
In many countries, the standard of care for low vitamin D is a bolus dose of 60K IU once a month is perfectly fine. It's only a problem if you were eating this much every day.
The "100 IU/100 grams" starting point is with fresh mushrooms, before they were dried. It's not clear to me from the article whether "46,000 IU/100 grams" is per 100g of the fresh mushroom input or per 100g of the dried mushroom output. Mushrooms are ~80-90% water so it makes a big difference.
It makes a big difference, but even if you removed 90% of the fresh mushroom's weight without changing vitamin D levels, you'd still only have 1000 IU / 100 grams.
I think vit. D is generated from a reaction of a protein with UVB.
UVA is rather destructive, so I would assume that’s what’s going on — to much UV-A on a part of the shroom that by design is shielded from direct exposure, is basically breaking everything down.
This is touched on in the article, but these mushrooms would have vitamin D2. Studies find that supplementation with vitamin D3 is more effective(lower dose for the same effect) and longer lasting on blood vitamin D levels than vitamin D2. So frequently eating enough of the mushrooms would be important if facing a vitamin D deficiency.
So, for those who just want to get the Vitamin D, from the article:
1) Obtain fresh Organic shiitake, maitake, button, oyster, shimeji or other mushrooms.
2) On a sunny day in June, July or August, slice the fresh mushrooms. Place them evenly on a tray exposed directly to the sun from 10 am to 4 pm.
3) Before nightfall, cover the mushrooms with a layer of cardboard to block moisture from dewfall.
4) The next clear day repeat exposure to the sun from 10 am to 4 pm.
5) Remove the mushrooms and finish drying (if necessary in a food dehydrator until they are crispy).
6) When thoroughly dry, store in a glass jar or sealed container. Adding a tablespoon of uncooked rice as a moisture absorber will help keep the mushrooms dry. The mushrooms should be good for a year or more, depending upon conditions.
7) Take 10 grams daily per person, about a small handful. Rehydrate in water for one hour. The mushrooms will swell. Then cook as desired.
For the rest of us:
1) Obtain mushrooms.
2) slice the fresh mushrooms. Place them evenly on a tray exposed directly to the sun from 10 am to 4 pm.
3) Take them inside before nightfall, so they do not get dew on them.
4) The next clear day repeat exposure to the sun from 10 am to 4 pm.
5) Remove the mushrooms and finish drying (probably in the oven on warm setting).
6) When thoroughly dry, store in a sealed container.
7) Eat about a small handful a day. You can rehydrate in water for one hour. The mushrooms will swell. Then cook as desired.
There is another option which is just take a vitamin D supplement because there should be no difference. Or even better get sun because there does seem to be a difference there and your body autoregulates the vitamin D.
Last time this discussion came up, someone pointed out there's a significant difference actually. If I recall correctly, there's three different kinds of vitamin D, D1, D2 and D3, and there's a fairly big gap in the bioavailability of synthetic vs animal-based vitamin D. I can't find that comment right now though, so take this with a pinch of salt.
PSMS (Puget Sound Mycolological Society) member here...
Stamets is widely regarded as a crank and makes a lot of mostly unsubstantiated claims about fungi. He is a fun guy (lol fungi) to talk to but you can't take anything he says too seriously. At least without further research of your own. Stamets is an interesting speaker, as far as I know always welcome at PSMS events, but the default impression most people in the pacific northwest mycology community have of stamets is that he confabulates a lot.
My body stopped making Vitamin D on its own. Taking D3/K supplements was a life saver and for seasonal affective disorder. And now I seem to be back to typical levels with just sun exposure.
How do you know for sure your body stopped producing Vitamin D? Are you going out in the morning? That's when your get vitamin D, almost nothing in the afternoon.
How do you know for sure your body stopped producing Vitamin D?
Not who you are asking, but most folks find out with blood tests. It is also pretty common for folks to produce less as they age, and it isn't a small difference.
Are you going out in the morning? That's when your get vitamin D, almost nothing in the afternoon.
This just isn't true. How much you get is going to depend on the angle and strength of the sunlight, the amount you get, the amount of skin exposed, and the color of your skin. (dark skin produces less than light skin, and makes it difficult to produce enough the further north/south you are).
Where are you getting this information? My understanding is that Vitamin D production in the body is correlated with the directness of the exposure to the sun - therefore the most D is made at solar noon.
Nit but if you have an article with a fake name in the byline that's not a deepfake. That would just be an alias or misinformation but a deepfake gets its name from the deep neural net used to create fake images of real people.
1. Many people do not get enough sun exposure to create their own vitamin D.
2. Some bodies produce more Vitamin D for the same amount of sun exposure as other bodies. For example, darker skin produces less vitamin D.
3. Some bodies convert Vitamin D into other useful compounds less efficiently than others. This is commonly done in the liver and kidneys.
4. Those with Vitamin D deficiencies have problems with their muscles, bones, and immune systems. We do not fully understand the impact of Vitamin D, but it also seems to have an impact on mental health, and is a key part of SAD.
Contrary to popular belief vitamin D is a hormone. Hormones are your body's chemical messengers. Having a deficiency in a hormone can have a lot of negative effects.
There are two sources of vitamin D: food & supplements and synthesis by the body in the skin on exposure to ultraviolet rays from the sun. Since a lot of us spend a lot of time indoor or behind glass (which blocks the necessary wavelengths) it's important to monitor it.
People with darker skin also need more sun exposure to get the required healthy levels. People living in areas where winters are very dark and very long are also at risk of deficiency.
Um… search pubmed for vitamin D. It plays an essential role in arming and activating the immune system. Low vitamin d is associated with increased risk of cancer heart disease and overall mortality.
Does anyone have any idea how consuming this "Vitamin D enriched mushroom" can be compared to taking a vitamin D supplement? Are they absorbed by the body in the same way? Also wondering compared to just being out in the sunlight yourself
Mushrooms produce vitamin D2. Animals produce vitamin D3 endogenously. There's no medical literature in aware of showing that vitamin D2 is equally useful to the human body.
Readit News
"Here is a simple experiment we did one summer afternoon in Kamilche Point, Washington. We compared several forms of organically grown shiitake mushrooms, which had starting level of 100 IU/100 grams. We compared the vitamin D levels of three sets of mushrooms, all from the same crop. The first was grown and dried indoors. The second set was dried outdoors in the sunlight with their gills facing down. The third set of mushrooms was dried outdoors in the sunlight with their gills facing upwards for full sun exposure. The most vitamin D was found in shiitake dried with gills up that were exposed to sunlight for two days, six hours per day. The vitamin D levels in these mushrooms soared from 100 IU/100 grams to nearly 46,000 IU/100 grams (see chart). Their stems, though, produced very little vitamin D, only about 900 IU. Notably, vitamin D levels dropped on the third day, probably due to over-exposure to UV."
It's worth noting that this is Paul Stamets' work. He's definitely worth the google search if you've never heard of him and are into this sort of thing - super interesting guy. He is not educated as a scientist though so I usually take most of his stuff with a grain of salt.
It's all about UV light. Some producers are now using UV to help increase the vitamin D of their mushrooms (along with killing bacteria) but they can also quickly lose it when in the fridge. So just set them out on the windowsill 15-90 minutes before you use them. The more the better. Surprisingly this even works for dried mushrooms, so just build the habit. If you don't, you basically shouldn't expect to be getting meaningful amounts of vitamin D from your mushrooms. The effects are this large.
In addition to this, make sure when you cook, that you start your mushrooms dry. This isn't a vitamin D thing, but most people cook their mushrooms wrong. They have a lot of water in them to begin with. Start dry, then when you add things they will soak up surrounding flavors and have a better texture (people's main concern), being more meaty than spongy/slimy.
This is how they do it in Chinese soups, but honestly I haven't personally seen other cultures use dried mushrooms.
As someone who was educated as a scientist, you should reevaluate this opinion.
There are plenty of brilliant professional scientists. There are also a lot of idiots in science.
There are also a lot of brilliant people who decided that the scientific path was too restrictive or outright false, so they (brilliantly) invested their own scientific life force externally
Having a science degree doesn’t make one less fallible to mistakes. If anything it makes people more likely to fudge to get ahead.
I would take a lot of science with a grain of salt too. Looking at the recent peanut butter allergy studies for example. Original 2016 study used 10 jewish children in Britain vs. 10 jewish Children in Israel. This study caused policy change around the world. Australia went from under 25% to over 80% of people feeding their children peanut butter under the age of 1. It had no discernible effect on allergies to peanut butter at all. They've followed it up with a larger study, 100 jewish kids in Britain vs. 100 jewish kids in Israel to prove out their original theory.
Credentialing doesn't / shouldn't matter for science. The science should stand on it's own as long as you follow the scientific method, document your assumptions & results, and do work that is reproducible. Bonus points for good peer review. We should reserve the "grains of salt" for people who are sloppy or have been provably bad actors. </soapbox from someone who is "educated as a scientist">
Isn't 46000 IU well into the dangerous range? This procedure sounds like an easy way to poison your liver.
The number I found says 4000 IU is a recommended max. You could say that you should only eat <10 grams then, but how much variability is there in the amount?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30611908/#:~:text=In%20summa....
Not sure what happens if you eat 10 mushrooms though
Or is this a public relations piece from the mushroom marketing board?
- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_chromatography%E2%80%93mas...
https://www.sysrevpharm.org/articles/the-effect-of-temperatu...
UVA is rather destructive, so I would assume that’s what’s going on — to much UV-A on a part of the shroom that by design is shielded from direct exposure, is basically breaking everything down.
That’s my .02.
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Deleted Comment
Not who you are asking, but most folks find out with blood tests. It is also pretty common for folks to produce less as they age, and it isn't a small difference.
Are you going out in the morning? That's when your get vitamin D, almost nothing in the afternoon.
This just isn't true. How much you get is going to depend on the angle and strength of the sunlight, the amount you get, the amount of skin exposed, and the color of your skin. (dark skin produces less than light skin, and makes it difficult to produce enough the further north/south you are).
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Paul_Stamets
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Paul_Stamets_(mycologis...
2. Some bodies produce more Vitamin D for the same amount of sun exposure as other bodies. For example, darker skin produces less vitamin D.
3. Some bodies convert Vitamin D into other useful compounds less efficiently than others. This is commonly done in the liver and kidneys.
4. Those with Vitamin D deficiencies have problems with their muscles, bones, and immune systems. We do not fully understand the impact of Vitamin D, but it also seems to have an impact on mental health, and is a key part of SAD.
There are diseases associated with shortage of vitamins, such as scurvy for vitamin C, or rickets for D.
There are two sources of vitamin D: food & supplements and synthesis by the body in the skin on exposure to ultraviolet rays from the sun. Since a lot of us spend a lot of time indoor or behind glass (which blocks the necessary wavelengths) it's important to monitor it.
People with darker skin also need more sun exposure to get the required healthy levels. People living in areas where winters are very dark and very long are also at risk of deficiency.