Next to supplements, nothing contains more nourishment value per gram of edible material than "superfoods" which WebMD defines as “multitasking food substances that provide multiple disease-fighting nutrients”. Although a quick internet search will reveal dozens of various foods that claim "superfood" status, including eggs, yogurt, algae, various fruits and vegetables, none can boast more nutritional value than the humble, crepuscular and manure-munching mushroom.
Mushrooms and their uncouth and downright toxic cousins called toadstools (“tod” is the German word for death) are neither plant or animal or bacteria. They instead fall into a separate classification called fungi. They are botanically referred to as “fruiting bodies”, a plant structure that produces spores. Spores can be thought of as a type of seed specific to fungus and molds.
Mushrooms are members of one of the six great kingdoms of life, the Fungi (the others are the Plant, Animal, Archaeal, Protistal and the Bacterial). Like their fungal cousins, molds and yeasts, they have tremendous medicinal value. Although many are inedible and some deadly, the nutritional relevance of edible mushrooms, appreciated by culinary types as a delicacy since ancient times, is off the charts.
