Mushroom food table. Nutritional features of mushrooms. Features of the structure of cap mushrooms

The vital activity of fungi in nature proceeds under the influence of many environmental factors, which are especially diverse on land, where most modern species live. These are the chemical composition of the substrate, humidity and air temperature, the concentration of carbon dioxide and oxygen in it, precipitation, wind speed, intensity of solar radiation, interaction with other living organisms, and anthropogenic influences.

Heterotrophs and saprotrophs

Fungi differ greatly in their ability to absorb various organic compounds. Some can consume only simple carbohydrates, alcohols, organic acids (sugar mushrooms), others are able to secrete hydrolytic enzymes that decompose starch, proteins, cellulose, chitin and grow on substrates containing these substances.

There are sometimes highly specialized groups among saprotrophs. An example is keratinophils, which degrade the resistant animal protein keratin and grow on tissues containing it (horns, hooves, hair). Such fungi have avoided competition with other rapidly growing fungi by occupying such a specific substrate.

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Mushrooms belonged to the lowest plants until the end of the 20th century. In 1970, they were finally separated into a separate kingdom of Mushrooms, tk. have a number of features that distinguish them from plants and close to animals.

general characteristics

The kingdom of mushrooms is one-celled and multicellular organisms. Currently, taxonomists have counted more than 100 thousand species of mushrooms.

Fungi are heterotrophic organisms that do not have chlorophyll. They occupy an intermediate position between animals and plants, as they are characterized by a number of properties that bring them closer to animals and plants.

Common signs of fungi and animals:

There is chitin in the cell membrane;
as a spare product, they accumulate glycogen, and not starch;
as a result of the exchange, urea is formed;
lack of chloroplasts and photosynthetic pigments;

Common signs of fungi and plants:

Unlimited growth;
absorbent food, i.e. not swallowing food, but absorption;
the presence of a pronounced cell wall;
reproduction by spores;
immobility;
the ability to synthesize vitamins.

Mushroom nutrition

Many species of the Kingdom of Fungi live in cohabitation (symbiosis) with algae and higher plants. Mutually beneficial cohabitation of the mycelium of fungi with the roots of higher plants forms mycorrhiza (for example, boletus with birch, boletus with aspen).

Many higher plants (trees, durum wheat, etc.) cannot grow normally without mycorrhiza. Fungi receive oxygen from higher plants, excretion of roots, and compounds that do not contain nitrogen. Mushrooms "help" higher plants to assimilate hard-to-reach substances from humus, activating the activity of enzymes of higher plants, promote carbohydrate metabolism, fix free nitrogen, which is used by higher plants in a number of compounds, give them growth substances, vitamins, etc.

The Kingdom of Mushrooms is conventionally divided into lower and higher. The basis of the vegetative body of mushrooms is the mycelium, or mycelium. Mycelium consists of thin filaments, or hyphas, similar to fluff. These filaments are found inside the substrate on which the fungus lives.

Most often, the mycelium occupies a large surface. Across mycelium there is absorption of nutrients by osmosis. The mycelium of lower fungi is either divided into cells, or there are no intercellular septa.

Mono- or multinucleated fungal cells are in most cases covered with a thin cell membrane. Under it is a cytoplasmic membrane that envelops the cytoplasm.

In the cell of fungi there are enzymes, proteins and such organelles (lysosomes) in which proteins are cleaved by proteolytic enzymes. Mitochondria are similar to those in higher plants. The vacuoles contain reserve nutrients: glycogen, lipids, fatty acids, fats, etc.

Edible mushrooms are rich in vitamins and minerals. Approximately 50% of the dry mass of mushrooms are nitrogenous substances, of which proteins account for about 30%.

Mushrooms reproduce asexually:

Specialized cells - spores;
vegetatively - by parts of mycelium, by budding.

The process of sporulation may be preceded by the sexual process, which is very diverse in fungi. A zygote can be formed as a result of the fusion of somatic cells specialized in gametes and sex cells - gametes (formed in the genitals - gametangia). The resulting zygote germinates immediately or after a dormant period and gives rise to hyphae with organs of sexual sporulation, in which spores are formed.

Spores of various fungi are spread by insects, various animals, humans and air currents.

The value of mushrooms in nature and human life

Molds inhabit food, soil, vegetables and fruits. They cause spoilage of benign products (bread, vegetables, berries, fruits, etc.). Most of these fungi are saprophytes. However, some molds are the causative agents of infectious diseases in humans, animals and plants. For example, the trichophyton fungus causes ringworm in humans and animals.

Everyone is well aware of the single-celled mushroom mucor, or white mold, which settles on vegetables, bread and horse manure. Initially, white mold has a fluffy bloom, and over time it turns black, since round heads (sporangia) form on the mycelium, in which a huge number of dark-colored spores are formed.

Antibiotics are obtained from a number of genera of mold (penicillin, aspergillus).

Mushrooms are divided into four groups based on gastronomic characteristics. This classification is widely known and convenient for distinguishing between dangerous and harmless to human health species.

Group of edible mushrooms combines species that do not need pretreatment before eating. They can only be cleaned of dirt and hardened fabrics and doused with boiling water.

All these mushrooms are divided into four subgroups based on nutritional value and taste.

The first subgroup includes real milk mushrooms, porcini mushrooms, mushrooms.

The second - aspen mushrooms, champignons, boletus, boletus, etc.

By the third - morels, autumn honey agarics, chanterelles, moss. The fourth - dung beetles, oyster mushrooms, ryadovki, talkers. This division into subgroups of more or less valuable mushrooms is conditional and differs in different countries. So, in Russia, the real milk mushroom is attributed to the subgroup of the most nutritious and tasty mushrooms, and in a number of European countries this species is generally recognized as inedible. But oyster mushroom, on the contrary, is highly valued in Europe, in contrast to the CIS countries.

To conditionally edible mushrooms attributed those species that contain poisonous components in the fruit bodies, bitterness, which can dissolve in water during cooking, and are often inactivated with prolonged drying. This group unites almost all types of morels, milkers, milk mushrooms. After such mushrooms have been boiled, the water must be drained.

Mushrooms from the group inedible do not contain poisons, but are not suitable for consumption, as they have a bitter taste or an unpleasant odor, or are excessively harsh. These phenomena are not eliminated even with culinary processing, like in a gall fungus.

The fourth group is poisonous mushrooms. The fruiting bodies of such mushrooms include poisons and toxins that provoke poisoning in humans. So, when eating the lines, severe poisoning is manifested by disorders of the central nervous system with the development of seizures, delirium, as well as shortness of breath, jaundice. Death is likely.

Less dangerous are mushroom poisoning with a local stimulating effect, manifested by mild disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. They can be caused by ryadovki, some types of mushrooms, lactarius, russula.

Fungi that affect the human nerve centers, due to the content of the alkaloid muscarine, include fly agarics. When they are used, hallucinations, behavioral disturbances, visual disturbances occur, and even death.

The most dangerous are such deadly poisonous mushrooms as smelly fly agaric, pale grebe, false mushrooms, lepiota.

In autumn, the most mysterious inhabitants of our planet - mushrooms - become heroes of the day. People go to them to bow, they talk about them, they are gathered to the table ... And in St. Petersburg they even arrange a special annual exhibition of mushrooms, where, like at the first ball of Natasha Rostova, newcomers are presented.

Despite the fact that about 350 thousand specimens of 30 thousand species of the described mushrooms are already stored in the herbarium of the Botanical Garden, new ones are discovered regularly.

Reverse organisms

A mushroom is not an animal or a plant, but something very special, it is not for nothing that biologists distinguish them into a kind of separate kingdom. Why?

Olga Morozova, Senior Researcher, Laboratory of Systematics and Geography of Fungi, Botanical Institute, explains:

Mushrooms have long been considered plants due to their immobile lifestyle. However, they are characterized by a fundamentally different type of nutrition, they do not have photosynthesis. Mushrooms cannot themselves synthesize organic substances like plants, but consume ready-made ones, like animals. At the same time, mushrooms are opposite organisms. Their body - mycelium - consists of the finest filaments - hyphae, which can be compared to an inside-out gut. Only if in animal organisms enzymes are produced inside the intestines, where food is digested, then the fungal mycelium releases enzymes into the external environment, into the substrate in which it lives, decomposing it and absorbing decomposition products.

By the way, mushrooms are rightfully considered the most ancient (over 400 million years old) and the largest living organisms on the planet.

Forest internet

Avid mushroom pickers have many signs and beliefs. For example, it is believed that a mushroom seen by a person, but not picked, will certainly wither. Or: the mycelium is capable of transmitting the necessary signals to its "organs", therefore, when you entered the forest, the mushrooms already know about it. If they want, they will run out to meet, if they do not want, they will hide.

Mycologists consider much of this mythology to be empty inventions. Nevertheless, Olga Morozova explains:

The real life of the fungal organism proceeds hidden from us, we often do not even guess what complex relationships develop between the mycelium of different fungi. It is interesting that macromycetes (this is also the name of forest cap mushrooms) always have a retinue of micromycetes - fungi that can only be seen under a microscope.

As for the signals that fungi communicate with each other ... Of course, they do not have a nervous system, but such a large organism must function smoothly, and therefore the changes that occur in one part of the mycelium are, of course, transmitted to its other parts. In addition, fungi are able to form mutually beneficial bonds with woody plants - mycorrhiza, supplying plants with water and minerals and receiving organic substances directly from them. If we take into account that one mushroom is associated with several plants, and one plant with several fungal organisms, it turns out that the mycelium connects all members of a diverse forest community, like our Internet. How this "underground web" works is not fully understood.

Why do they run out onto the roads

As a mushroom picker who has lived in Siberia for many years, I know that mushrooms often "run out" on paths, paths and even to an asphalt highway. I was always surprised at this fact: it would seem that I came to pick mushrooms - go deeper into the forest. But no! You usually find the richest harvest in unexpected places, as if the boletus and white boletus really "come out" to your bow. Olga Morozova is not surprised at this fact:

Fruiting bodies are formed in the greatest quantity in places of some mycelium disorders. This is a common property of a living thing - when unfavorable conditions occur, there is a danger of switching to sexual reproduction, so that in case of death, offspring will remain, possibly more adapted to new conditions of life. That is why mushrooms are more often found on the edges, along paths, that is, where human intervention in mushroom life is most active.

Is it possible to eat boletus

It's funny: despite the fact that mushrooms are the most ancient inhabitants of our planet, they began to be used for food relatively recently. Moreover, in different countries and even in different regions of our Fatherland, the traditions of using mushrooms are very different. So, Vladimir Nabokov, describing his Petersburg childhood, recalls that his mother, a passionate lover of mushroom picking, contemptuously treated all kinds of lamellar (up to chanterelles and saffron milk caps), paying tribute only to boletuses - white, boletus, boletus. And my husband's Siberian ancestors, for example, revered only milk mushrooms as a "real mushroom": everything else in his great-grandmother's family was considered second grade. At the same time, the inhabitants of the tundra, Khanty and Mansi laugh at the Russians, who consider mushrooms a delicacy: in their opinion, this is food "only for deer."

Olga Morozova tells how, at one of the scientific conferences, a Norwegian colleague taught those present to eat porcini mushrooms "the Norwegian way": raw. In this mushroom country, by the way, in general, the attitude towards mushrooms is peculiar: every summer and autumn, special "control posts" are set up on the roads leading from the forests, where experienced mushroom pickers are on duty. They help the neophytes, who are picking up all sorts of things in their baskets, to figure out which mushroom can be carried from the forest to the kitchen, to the table, and which one is better to throw away immediately. By the way, one of our compatriots, who has lived in Norway for a long time, told how such a "green patrol" strongly advised to take out and discard the wonderful boletus from her basket - according to the Norwegians, they are absolutely unsuitable for food.

In the middle lane, in the Urals, in Siberia, in the North-West, mushrooms are usually subjected to a sufficiently long heat treatment before being eaten in order to protect themselves from toxins. However, in this case, many useful biologically active substances are also destroyed. Knowledge of the variety of mushrooms and their properties can resolve this contradiction.

By the way, in the Leningrad region there are about 1300 species of cap mushrooms. Of these, only about 40 are traditionally used for food, although there are many more little-known edible mushrooms. But there are mushrooms, ingestion of even small pieces of which can be fatal. For example, in the same Leningrad region, at least 6 species of only poisonous fly agarics are known, among which there is also a deadly poisonous pale grebe. And in some spiderweb mushrooms, the poisonous properties are all the more dangerous that they can appear only two weeks after consumption.

Cheese and mushroom sticks

Roll one layer of puff yeast dough half a centimeter thick, grease half of it with a mixture of mushroom caviar and grated cheese, cover with the other half and roll out again. Then cut into strips about one and a half centimeters wide and twist them into spirals 8-10 times. Place the finished spirals on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Bake at 180 degrees until golden brown.

Do the same with the second layer of dough. For 0.5 kg of dough, 100-120 grams of mushroom caviar and 100-120 grams of cheese.

They talked about new discoveries in mycology, about new wonderful finds of Petersburg mushroom pickers at the exhibition, which is traditionally held in the Botanical Garden. And also its organizers, members of the St. Petersburg Mycological Society (SPbMikO), publish the popular science magazine "Planet of Mushrooms" and organize regular bus excursions to the forest. But not to stuff the baskets with mushrooms. First of all - to teach the townspeople to navigate among the inhabitants of the "third kingdom".