Mushrooms: coming soon to a burger near you

[simonebrunozzi]

I've been living in San Francisco for almost six years now, and only recently discovered that people go "mushroom harvesting" (or mushrooming? How do you say it?), something that it's super popular where I come from (Umbria, Italy - "umbra" means shadow in Latin, as you can guess it's a forest area).

More than eating mushrooms, I think we should all spend some time to harvest mushrooms ourselves, assuming we know what we are doing!

[scruple]

There are a number of things you can forage for in the United States, but edible mushroom hunting is generally pretty difficult because of the identification component as well as the time investment. I pick Bolete Mushrooms when I am out, sometimes, depending on where I am. Those are generally easy to pick, but there are poisonous look-a-likes you need to be aware of depending on where you are. I've also had luck with Chanterelles. It's hard, where I live (Southern California), because it is very dry in the mountains here, and even in the Sierra Nevadas. When I was in Oregon a few years ago, we stopped on our way home and picked 5 or 6 lbs. of Warabi from just off of the road at higher elevations.

I think the reason it's not more common is also that you tend to need to always go a little bit deeper in to the mountains or forest than you expected to find what you're looking for, which can turn off the more risk-averse among us.

[FLUX-YOU]

I think I'll pass on letting anyone do it: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mushroom-sicknes...

[KozmoNau7]

Absolutely! And please, bring someone who has mushrooming experience, don't take chances on unknown shrooms.

[crowbahr]

Come si direbbe in Italiano? Fungicaccia?

[KozmoNau7]

Mushrooms are tasty, nutritious, very simple to grow, and they grow fast. The claims made in the article about the supposed fussiness of mushrooms does not fit with my experience.

We should all eat more mushrooms, not necessarily as a meat substitute, just in general. They can bring their own fantastic richness and flavor to so many dishes, if you venture beyond the boring white button mushrooms. At least go for portobellos or something, they're so much more interesting.

[maxerickson]

Mushrooms aren't all that nutritious. They don't have many vitamins and don't have many calories.

They do have nice flavor and a good mix of calories though.

[Alex3917]

> The claims made in the article about the supposed fussiness of mushrooms does not fit with my experience.

Growing mushrooms indoors on a commercial scale is very different than order an oyster kit or having a couple shiitake logs in your backyard. IMHO the mushroom that pairs best with beef is ishnoderma resinosum, and I'm not sure anyone even knows how to cultivate that.

[bitumen]

Emphasis on tasty! The savory “umami” nature of mushrooms complements and enhances meat wonderfully. I’ve blitzed up some dried mushrooms in a blender and mixed it into panko breadcrumbs, and it works like MSG only better. Mushrooms are basically culinary magic, and criminally underused (other than as you say, those nasty white ones) in this country.

No really, I love mushrooms.

[spodek]

Since we're mostly geeks here, I'll indulge in sharing that the term "plant-based" leaves out mushrooms, yeast, and other fungi. They're a whole other kingdom.

> "Still, mushroom cultivation is not a green panacea."

For one thing, they don't photosynthesize.

[Turing_Machine]

While the relationship isn't very close, fungi are actually more closely related to animals than they are to plants.

[KozmoNau7]

You're technically correct, the best kind of correct.

[mythrwy]

FTA: "research has shown that substituting one-quarter of the beef in meals with mushrooms decreases caloric intake by about one-third"

So what am I missing here? Substituting 1/4 of a burger with air shouldn't reduce calories by 1/3.

(maybe they are talking about the entire sandwich, in which case meat had a relatively lesser quantity of calories anyway?)

[exprN]

Perhaps people don't finish a mushroom-burger? :-)

[ape4]

Yeah that doesn't make sense. Other articles mention the 25-30% mushroom but not the other claim. https://www.fastcompany.com/40539024/now-you-can-get-sonics-...

[kbutler]

...so if you substitute all of the beef, you get negative caloric intake?

Sorry, bulimia doesn't sound fun to me.

[tyingq]

My son regularly cooks up a meatless dish of squash, mushrooms, zucchini, and enhancers like worcestershire that is crazy good.

[jostmey]

So Nature, the most prestigious peer reviewed journal in science, might now be running paid articles for Sonic

[bad-joke]

I don't mean to detract from the scientific discussion, but would like to note that this is a wonderful example of the "submarine piece" as described by Paul Graham:

http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

[KozmoNau7]

Astute observation, and the cyclical nature of news reporting makes it even more common.

[mangix]

The most unhealthy part of a burger is the bun. This does nothing to help that.

[KozmoNau7]

No, that would still be the red meat and saturated fat (cancer risk increase and calories).

Carbs have gotten an undeservedly bad rep, due to bro science. But there is still no actual proof of these assertions, only speculation.

[KozmoNau7]

Yes. Lower calorie intake is healthier. Simple.

And less meat means less beef needs to be produced, which is better for the environment.

Guilt free? Not quite. But less guilt.

[portofcall]

Adulterating food with cheap alternatives is a way to disproportionately screw over poor people. Everyone else will just add beef to their “buy organic 100%...” list of products and pay a premium. If you want to help poeple, help them, educate them, don’t patronize them. If you want to help the environment there are economic (hold companies financially responsible for externalities) and scientific ways (additives such as seaweee to cow feed to drastically reduce methane emissions).

It’s a nasty and unfair thing to assume that when someone gets a burger, they’re “overdoing it” every time. Plenty of people have an occasional burger and just want beef, not filler. For people living in food deserts, and people poorly educated or just poor, how about giving their kids healthy and edible school food? How about heavily subsidizing healthier foods for people on food assistance, and going out of our way to make those options readily available? How about bringing back Home Ec?

[KozmoNau7]

Eating beef is disproportionately bad for the environment (and your health) and should accordingly be priced at a premium.

You can't fix it effectively through changing the feed or livestock farming practices, you have to replace the beef with a fundamentally less harmful alternative.

[testvox]

Why not both? Not everyone wants to pay a premium for a 100% beef burger when they could be eating a cheaper, healthier alternative. Having more options is better not worse.

[kbutler]

It was interesting to check out the marketing on the Sonic website: "Cheeseburgers Prepare to be delighted with 100% pure beef..."

[golergka]

Coming? I think that most of chain burger places around (above McDonald's level) have some sort of burger with mushrooms, I didn't even think it was some kind of novelty.