mushrooms (vitamin D)

vegan_steve

I heard that when you place button or other mushrooms in the sun for as little as 20 minutes they greatly increase their vitamin D content. Is this true? if so how much? and can u incorporate that in your program under add food tab/mushrooms? also is their any way we can save dishes like vegan chilli for example into favorites then add entire dish into the add food tab rather then one item at a time? its hard to estimate the contents in one bowl of chilli when batch cooking in a crook pot but if I use the same size bowl I could count everthing once then just enter something like "vegan chilli bowl" right into the add food tab. thank you for your time

TheRegents

I'll only answer your first question because I know the answer to that one, and the answer is yes. And the increase in vitamin D is quite significant -- one study reported an increase of about 750% compared to mushrooms not exposed to sunlight or UVB light[1]. In that study the mushrooms not exposed to either sunlight or UVB light had about 17 IU vitamin D2 compared to about 1200 IU for those exposed to UVB or sunlight (basically an increase of about 750%).

A different study showed large increases in vitamin D2 (700 IU after sun exposure) as well and that after only 15 minutes the mushrooms had the same amount of D2 in them as Atlantic salmon[2].

Cultivated mushrooms that have not been exposed to sunlight (or artificial UVB) have, for all intents and purposes, no vitamin D2 at all[3]. So you're best to stick 'em in the sun for a while just to make sure.

NCDB Food #456851 (Mushrooms, raw) lists just 7 IU for vitamin D so presumably these are mushrooms that didn't go to the beach.

Edit: Oh, in the first study the mushrooms were exposed to either UVB or sunlight after harvesting not when they were still growing.

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[1] Simon, R., Phillips, K., Horst, R., & Munro, I. (2011). Vitamin D mushrooms: Comparison of the composition of button mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) treated postharvest with UVB light or sunlight. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 59(16), 8724-32.

[2] Urbain, P., & Jakobsen, J. (2015). Dose-Response Effect of Sunlight on Vitamin D2 Production in Agaricus bisporus Mushrooms. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 63(37), 8156-61.

[3] Mattila, Konko, Eurola, Pihlava, Astola, Vahteristo, . . . Piironen. (2001). Contents of vitamins, mineral elements, sand some phenolic compounds in cultivated mushrooms. Journal Of Agricultural And Food Chemistry, 49(5), 2343-2348

vegan_steve

thank you so much for taking the time to answer I would much rather get my vitamin D through plants then supplements and its hard on a vegan diet; this will help me immensely.

Hilary

Have you guys seen NCCDB Food#3197865 "Brown mushrooms (Italian or Crimini mushrooms), raw, high in vitamin D"

TheRegents

@vegan_steve No worries. I actually read about all this a while ago when my Dr suggested that I should take a vitamin D supplement and I decided that a natural source was a better way to go as well and it's easy to put the mushrooms in the sun for 15 minutes (just in case they were grown in the dark, which they probably were because I cannot afford wild mushrooms)

vegan_steve

do you know roughly how many button mushrooms I would have to expose to sun for 15 mins to meet the daily requirement for an adult male?

TheRegents

Umm. The figures I quoted above were for 100g (they were for 84g in the first paper but I converted them to per 100g... I should have mentioned that; very sloppy of me). The US RDA is 600 IU for adults, so just 50g would likely give you that much based on the above figures. So, maybe just 2 mushrooms (I'm guessing how much a white button mushroom weighs ) Lots cheaper than a tablet!

Edit: 2 mushrooms doesn't sound very filling... better to eat 6 I reckon

vegan_steve

Great! Thanks again!!

bracconiere

@TheRegents if you can't afford wild mushrooms, growing them yourself is a fun hobby! could do it under a black-light, lol

And as a side, with vit d there is a $59 blood test to make sure your actually getting enough from your suntanned shrooms...

plenty of online labtest places that will let you order your own tests...

TheRegents

@bracconiere I could always try going out into the sun myself sometimes as well

bracconiere

but then you wouldn't have the fun of entering a custom food into cron-o-meter! lol

and i don't think the exercise tab has a nutritional value, just calories....

bracconiere

i just had a thought about my satirical comment....

there are online cals that you can use to calculate how much sun exposure to get so much vit d based on your location...maybe we should continue this in the feature request forum...

quick google pulled this up...

https://vitamindwiki.com/UV+and+Vitamin+D+calculators

Hilary

Hey @vegan_steve in regards to your second question, you can create a custom recipe in Cronometer!

Creating a custom recipe is a great way to quickly enter meals into your diary. For example, if you often eat a breakfast consisting of quick oats, raisins, brown sugar, cinnamon, and milk, it can be time consuming to always enter all five of these ingredients every day. Instead, you can create a 'My Breakfast Porridge' recipe which contains these ingredients. Once created, you can just search and add your recipe to your diary.

1. Click the Create New Recipe button.

2. Enter a name for your recipe and choose the category to which it belongs.

3. Add notes to the recipe. This is a great place to add cooking instructions! Drag the bottom right corner to make this area larger to view more text.

4. To add your ingredients, click on the green "+" icon next to the "Ingredients" section.

5. Add one or multiple serving sizes using the green ‘+’ button. By default, the recipe will contain a 'Full Recipe' serving for the complete ingredients.

If you choose a weight based serving size after you have entered all your ingredients, Cronometer will default to enter 1 full recipe weighing the total gram amount of the recipe. You can add additional serving sizes by choosing the green ‘+’ button.

If you choose to set your serving size as ‘Servings Based’, Cronometer will still default to 1 full recipe and instead of showing a gram amount will tell you how many servings are contained in the full recipe. You can add additional serving sizes by choosing the green ‘+’ button.

6. Make sure you save your recipe!

7. You can now search for your recipe by name and add it to your diary just like any other food. (You can also mark it as a favorite if you use this recipe often! To search for a custom food or recipe more easily, search using the ‘Custom’ tab in the Search dialogue.

8. To delete your recipe, open the recipe in the Foods tab. Choose the settings button in the top right corner of your page.

9. You can also use this settings menu to edit a copy of the recipe, or export your recipe to a CSV or JSON file.

vegan_steve

thank you Hilary that was the answer I was looking for this will make thing much easier for me.

Bracconiere : absolutely if u feel we can get more specific info regarding vitamin D content based on where we live, seasons, temperature and other factors that play a part in this feel free to start a conversation in the feature request forum just drop me a message when u do so I know where to find the conversation as I am brand new here and brand new to forums of ant kind. For that reason I hope that you could start the conversation. I have thought about this and came to the conclusion that u did aswell, that is that I don't have enough facts to go ahead with this given im vegan and this would be my only source of vitamin D likely and im afraid of getting to little or too much as that window is relatively small. so if you could do that that would be awesome!!! Don't forget to let me know how to find it. Thanks

TheRegents

@Hillary Wow. Sorry, I completely missed your reply regarding NCCDB Food#3197865. I should have guessed that there'd be an entry for suntanned brown mushrooms already! I'm actually surprised that I don't see "vitamin D 'enriched'" mushrooms for sale as functional foods; perhaps there's a market opportunity there.

Food number 3197865 also gives the average weight of a mushroom (20g) so I wouldn't have had to guess that in one of my other answers I was pretty close... I am the scale master!

@vegan_steve brown crimini mushrooms are actually the same species (Agaricus bisporus) as white button mushrooms, it's just that when they're immature they can assume one of two different colours, white or brown, and any colour in between really. As they age they grow in size and these larger mushrooms -- both white or brown -- are known here in Australia as portobello mushrooms. Despite the different names they're all the same species, as mentioned, so if it was me I'd use the entry that Hilary provided and call it a day.

Hilary

@TheRegents LOL suntanned Mushrooms! I have seen Vitamin D enriched (Exposed to light) mushrooms marketed! It usually will say somewhere on the package that they have been exposed to light! Also, FYI, I tried searching for "Mushrooms light" in the Cronometer database, and found quite a few convenient options! Check it out!

TheRegents

@Hilary there goes my cunning business plan

Susan_RD_101

I answered this question on a different post but because vitamin D content from mushrooms can be unreliable, it's important to have your levels checked at least twice a year until a stable value can be reached.

Much of the research I have seen on vegans and low bone mass can be attributed to a lack of vitamin D intake.

While I prefer a vegan supplement of vitamin D (mostly as a precaution), I would support someone using mushrooms provided their bloodwork showed that the D is being used by the body.

StevenMorgan

Can somebody share with me the link to study? I really want to do some research on this topic. I've been using medicinal mushrooms for a long time now. I've read some news and studies on https://qitraditions.com/blogs/news/ganoderma-reishi-mushroom-of-immortality, and there are quite truthful. From my personal experience, I can relate that my body has experienced many changes since using them. But, of course, it wasn't only because of mushrooms. I've changed my lifestyle completely. I am eating healthy, doing sports, and stopped smoking!

StevenMorgan

Can somebody share with me the link to study? I really want to do some research on this topic. I've been using medicinal mushrooms for a long time now. I've read some news and studies on https://qitraditions.com/blogs/news/ganoderma-reishi-mushroom-of-immortality, and there are quite truthful. From my personal experience, I can relate that my body has experienced many changes since using them. But, of course, it wasn't only because of mushrooms. I've changed my lifestyle completely. I am eating healthy, doing sports, and stopped smoking!

Susan_RD_101

@StevenMorgan

I'm not sure which study you are referring to but you can search for your topic of interest in PubMed (pay wall may block full access but you can still read abstracts):

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/