Mushroom juice!!! Hooooraahhh!

[Juicerguy]

Hello everyone!

So I experiment with lots of different juices and try new combinations daily. So amongst my research and reading about juice cleansing for extended periods of time. The question of vitamin B12 and also vitamin D has come up a lot. I am also writing a research paper for my English/Writing class in college right now. I chose the topic of "Juice Cleanse For Health". I am working on a pretty bulky paper(maybe longer than it needs to be in some sections) and am finding so much out along the way! The vitamin B12 is a whole topic of itself which is the chapter I am working on right now, but vitamin D also came up as well...Ok so to the point!!! LOL

I searched and found that as far as fruits and vegetables are concerned. Vitamin D in any useful amount and form that the body can take in can only be found in mushrooms. Your body also naturally makes vitamin D if you get enough sun in a day. Putting that aside though and looking for it in vegetable/fruit food sources it can only be found in Mushrooms... Hmm...I was thinking well you can't juice mushrooms. I have looked and have never heard of anyone juicing mushrooms...Well I decided to look again and then found an article on livestrong.com about how to juice mushrooms...It is not a very long article, but it does say you can juice them...Again to the point! haha... I am so enthused about this at the moment!

I happened to have a few mushrooms in my fridge..Literally just about 5 regular crimini mushrooms. Not the shitakes, reishi, maitake or anything like that, but I am sure they would do the same. So i cut the bigger ones in half and stuck them all inside of my masticating juicer...Holy toledo! LOL...what do you know...juice starts coming out and into my juice collector! whewww!!!! Not a small amount of juice either...These little guys put out a lot of juice for only 5 mushrooms! wow! So there it is! You can juice mushrooms!!! If anyone ever wondered well there you have it! YOU CAN JUICE MUSHROOMS!!! I can't wait to start incorporating these into some of my juices! I just wanted to share my excitement with you all! So for anyone wondering if you juice mushrooms...Oh yeah! You can!!!

[MysticTree]

Lots of water in freshly picked mushrooms.

[LexieW]

Love your enthusiasm Juicerguy. You'll have to let us know how mushroom juice tastes!

[MysticTree]

Mushroomy :)

[Juicerguy]

LOL MysticTree said it right. It tastes exactly like a raw mushroom, just in liquid form. I am going to have to buy some more mushrooms and try it again so I can be a little more descriptive. haha. Then again at first taste that summed it up. I am going to be messing around with some recipes. When I have some that taste decent I will share them here. :) Shitake mushroom juice anyone? Ohhh yeaaaa!

[Juicerguy]

Ok..wow...Update on my mushroom juice experiments...Went ahead and bought some shitake mushrooms yesterday. I made two different juices this morning and wanted to share what I have thus far learned. Shitake mushroom juice is potent indeed... My girlfriend said and I quote " It smells like you juiced a skunk and drank it". LOL. I have to say both of my juice experiments so far were NO GO...haha. So maybe a lot of people might think, well just add some more apple to it that always makes a juice more bearable...Oh not with shitake mushroom juice!!! I would say it makes it worst. I am going to try it with cucumber again however. It seemed to taste better with just the shitake juice and cucumber juice... Once I started adding anything else..The flavor changed dramatically... I also had to brush my teethe a few minutes after as i was unbearable to be around... haha. Ok will keep this thread updated as my mushroom juice experiments continue!

[LexieW]

Thanks for keeping us updated. I've never much enjoyed mushrooms - they are fairly tasteless to me when raw, and when cooked I didn't like the texture.

[SunshineMN]

I have the same problem Lexie, except to me they always taste like dirt. I can't stand the texture of cooked ones either for the most part. They always make me think of what texture I think a french delicacy that comes in a spiral shell would feel like.

I'm still going to try to get to like raw ones however, because I do think they are good for you. But Juicerguy, you can keep your mushroom juice! LOL Have fun with the experimenting. :)

[MysticTree]

did you try it with lemon and parsley? These work well with cooked mushrooms so might be good with mushroom juice. Some mushrooms should never be eaten raw so best avoid those.

[Juicerguy]

Hehe not everyone is a fan of mushrooms. I love them! I will give that a shot MysticTree with the lemon and parsley. Thank you for the idea. :)

[The Sproutarian (Mr Raw)]

[QUOTE=Juicerguy;694011]Vitamin D in any useful amount and form that the body can take in can only be found in mushrooms. [/quotre]

That's not true. Mushrooms are a good source of D2, but so are sunflower greens and various other plant foods.

Your body also naturally makes vitamin D if you get enough sun in a day.

In many cases, yes. But in colder months in the southern and northern countries there has been increasing argument that this is not the case. l recently made posts about this.

Showering is also a problem with the body and D3.

Now if you want to write a research paper that is worthwhile, l would also be addressing how stable Vitamin D is in mushrooms that have been picked days or weeks before, because as we know, vitamins in plant foods decline after foods are harvested. Addressing this factor is important because not everyone has access to freshly picked mushrooms. And if you want to write a worthwhile research paper instead of light weighted nonsense, l would be addressing plant sources of vitamin D that can be freshly grown or bought where the vitamin D isn't diminished Obtaining plant sources of vitamin D that everyone has access to and is in fresh growing foods (very very important) are out there...numerous plant sources of vitamin D2 that l think would prove superior to mushrooms bought from supermarkets or farmers markets.

Lots of vitamin D nonsense written on the internet that doesn't get to the true reality of vitamin D, so l hope you aren't getting all your information from there.

Research research and do some more research and follow the guidelines l have talked about, because if you do, you will get an A+++ instead of a D.

-----
l know l am being a tough old bugger, but l always am on products and teachers of the public education system. l am so tried of students and professors who lack proper research skills...most of them want it easy and don't put in the work required to do thorough research. Getting a good mark means more than learning a topic properly to many of them.

[walnutty]

Mr. Raw, do you have a website?

[Juicerguy]

I actually read a lot of your post about vitamin D Mr. Raw. I thought it was very interesting about the whole showering thing and how it degrades vitamin D3. I also know that there is less vitamin D absorbed through the skin in more northern climates. I believe it is above the 37th parallel or so they say that it starts to decline a lot. I have barely been starting to read about the vitamin D thing and that particular vitamin itself wasn't part of my research paper. It just came up alongside the whole question about vitamin B12 and raw diet. So I wasn't stating that what I was saying was the final or absolute knowledge about it. At the time that was all I had been able to find so far. Which is funny now that you say it is only a source of D2. That is not the same as D3. So again the information I found was a little off as well in that area.

As you probably know you have to do a lot of digging to find the truth about a lot of this kind of stuff. You have to sift through layers and layers of BS to finally find some study somewhere or some solid information that actually has truth in it. With vitamin D I haven't really done a whole lot of that yet and from what I had found at that point it was all about the mushrooms. I would be GREATLY interested if you could point me in the direction of where to find more information on the other sources of vitamin D in vegetable's or fruits. I am also glad to hear that sunflower sprouts contain vitamin D! That is awesome as I am growing these now and my girlfriend and I are going raw in 2 days!

The research paper I am writing now is about juice cleansing for health. It is already 5 or more pages over the maximum required. I have enough on my hands as it is just trying to keep some of the simpler topics on the subject shorter. When I have the time and am able to pick those topics you mentioned above, maybe I will be able to write something more bulky on those topics. lol. So far all of the information I have learned about juicing alone has been amazing! Along the way a lot of my doubts about a raw diet have also been dispelled and addressed. I am very excited about going raw now and do not have the same worries about it I had before. Thanks Mr.Raw for chiming and sharing some of what you know about all of this. If you have any other posts about vitamin D and where else to find it in raw foods that would be great if you could link them!

I will also keep up my search for a decent tasting mushroom juice. :) Happy health!

[Charybdisjim]

White button or similar mushrooms would probably go very well with tomato and celery and that combination may be more pallatable for those who don't like the taste of straight up mushroom juice. The earthy flavor of the mushrooms would probably go pretty well with them.

If the mushrooms have lost some of their original moisture, I would suggest preparing the tomato and celery juice before juicing them and then soaking the washed mushrooms in it for a short while before putting them in the juicer and adding the mixing that back into the celery/tomato juice.

I'd reccomend something like button mushrooms over shitake in general as a staple of a raw food diet though. The levels of ergosterol and/or vitamin d2 in shitake mushrooms can be quite high. The ratio of the two varies based on sun/uv exposure and the balance can be upwards of 42,000 IU per 100 g. For either ergosterol or vitamin D2, that approaches levels which can begin to have negative health effects if sustained for several months. It's completely safe once in a while or in moderation, but high enough that it might not be the best thing to be juicing every day. It is important to note though that shitake (sun-dried in particular) may be an extremely useful and powerful soure of anti-carcinogenic compounds. This means it may be potentially very useful as a natural medicine. As with powerful medicines though it might not be helpful to intentionally or accidentally self-medicate with high doses for a disease you don't have. Consumed occasionally though it could play a role in reducing cancer incidence - possibly enough to more than offset the extremely tine increased cancer incidence (.01%) associated with the regular consumption of mushrooms (compared to those who do not eat mushrooms when other dietary contributing elements are eliminated.)

Also, beyond the percentage of people who have trouble tolerating raw or sometimes even cooked mushrooms roughly 2% of people are at risk of a seperate reaction specific to shitake. It is not a particularly dangerous reaction like acute allergies, but it in those who are susceptible it will produce a rash starting roughly 48 hours after consuming raw shitake and last for upwards of 10 days beyond that. Most people have probably figured out whether or not they can eat raw shitake themselves, but its something to keep in mind if your sharing juice with friends or family. I definitely wouldn't serve shitake juice or raw shitake in general to someone who I was trying to get to try some raw vegan food for the first time.

[Juicerguy]

I definitely wouldn't serve shitake juice or raw shitake in general to someone who I was trying to get to try some raw vegan food for the first time.

Haha. Neither would I. I actually don't think I would share shitake mushroom juice with another living creature on this planet after my first experience. LOL. I personally like mushrooms of all kinds myself. Not everyone does. I definitely do not eat shitake mushrooms as a staple food. They are very costly unless you can grow them yourself I guess. Crimini mushrooms(Baby Bella)actually made a decent tasting juice as far as mushrooms go. I would like to try the two suggestions I have had which included yours to go along with that mushroom juice. I have just been so busy as it is the last two weeks of school here and I have had other stuff in life keeping me busy as well, including a decent sized community garden plot we were able to get this week! I have been a shoveling fool!

Shitake mushrooms do have a lot of healing properties as well as anti cancer compounds. I am also interested in the maitake mushroom. As for juicing them every day...lol. That was never in my plans. I do however like to try new and different ideas, and it seemed like something fun to experiment with. Something about coming up with the perfect decent tasting mushroom juice just had me excited! hehe. Thank you for your ideas about the tomato and celery juice in addition. I actually love celery juice and love that it has so many goodies in it for our health! That would be an interesting juice if the flavors meshed well together. Ok time for bed here now. Dreams of gardening in our plot ahead....... Have a good one. :)