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Mushrooms and weight loss

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This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Far be it from us to pander to awareness-themed events, but did you know it’s almost time for National Mushroom Month? As it happens, the journal Appetite has published a mushroom-related report (funded, not entirely surprisingly, by the Mushroom Council -- which refers to mushroom sandwiches on its website as ‘nature’s hidden treasure,’ which seems a tad hyperbolic a describer for a sandwich).

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University invited more than 50 volunteers of various sizes to eat mushroom- or meat-based lunches for four days. The mushroom-based lunches were of similar portion size but contained 444 fewer calories. Of the study’s four days, subjects eating the mushroom lunches weren’t measurably more hungry yet consumed fewer calories overall -- meaning they didn’t entirely compensate for their lighter lunches by eating more caloric meals at other times.

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Or, as the authors put it: ‘Total daily energy intake and fat intake were significantly greater in the meat condition than in the mushroom condition, while ratings of palatability, appetite, satiation and satiety did not differ significantly.’

Have you ever wondered what’s IN a mushroom, anyway? I know I have. Here’s a nutrition page that will tell you more than you likely need to know (with technicolor charts, what is more).

And here’s an article we ran a while back on ways that mushrooms might become even more nature’s-hidden-treasure-y, by exposure to UV light (less hidden, we know) to up their vitamin D content.

-- Rosie Mestel

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