 As with any plant food throughout human history, we consume them out of caloric necessity in the context of survival. Animal foods serve as the basis for primitive diets with plant foods supplemented depending on the climate and region. These past plant foods, thousands and thousands of years ago, were of wild quality. So when considering if a food should be consumed or not for health purposes, ask yourself, is it of wild quality? Supermarket mushrooms certainly aren't. Before we jump into nutrients, mushrooms are like sponges. They absorb whatever pollutants are in their environment, so they accumulate heavy metals and toxins very easily. And as with any plant food or just food in general, their nutrient content greatly depends on the soil they are grown in. Quality breeds quality. So those cheap button mushrooms in the store are likely bad for you, whereas that wild Chanterelle mushroom is on the other end of the spectrum. From a nutrient perspective, mushrooms have a decent amount of vitamins B3 and B5, some potassium, a fair amount of copper, little bit amount of iron, even tinier amount of all of the amino acids, and an even tinier amount of certain fatty acids. Mushrooms do have vitamin D2 if they were in the sun, but vitamin D2 is not utilized by the body. We need to obtain vitamin D3 from the sun or in a supplemental form. So on paper, from a vitamin and mineral perspective, it's hard to say anything in mushrooms is particularly beneficial or sort after. All of these nutrients are fairly easy to get on any diet, but mushrooms do have two antioxidants that are beneficial to our body, glutathione and ergothione. Glutathione is the chief antioxidant. By far the most important antioxidant in our bodies are livers storing the majority of it. Mushrooms do contain glutathione, but levels have been shown to vary over 20 fold depending on the mushroom variety. The most important nutrients for glutathione synthesis in our bodies are contained in animal foods. And since mushrooms are an inconsistent source of glutathione and that mushrooms do not provide precursor nutrients for our bodies to metabolize glutathione, it's safe to say that mushrooms are not a reliable source of glutathione or its precursors, therefore we should not seek any potential benefits from this specific antioxidant by consuming mushrooms. Ergothione is a naturally occurring amino acid acquired exclusively through the diet, its main role as an antioxidant in the body. It is the highest in mushrooms out of any single food, dozens of times higher than the next highest source being liver. Precursor amino acids required to form ergothione are histidine, cysteine and methione. As with glutathione, there is a significant variance in mushrooms, but levels of ergothione coincide with glutathione. So they appear to be synergistic in the nutrient profile of the mushroom, therefore we can assume that the soil quality likely has something to do with this. Ergothione may actually explain some benefits that people are seeing from consuming various mushroom supplements and I think out of everything we're going to speak about today, ergothione is the highest benefit for consuming mushrooms. Again, the variance should be noted in the soil quality, the quality of the mushroom that you're consuming. Many of you have heard of polyphenols, plant compounds said to have various health benefits which is commonly referenced as a positive for just about every single fruit or vegetable that we talk about. Resveratrol for example is said to be the reason why drinking red wine can be good for you. On the other hand, you have lignans which are phytoestrogens that can cause adverse hormonal effects. Both positive and negative polyphenols have been observed. We have to understand that these positive benefits have been observed in the context of studies and when people consume lots of vegetables and fruits, they tend to be more health conscious in general resulting in healthy user bias and an invalid study. What we should be doing is isolating specific polyphenols or even specific foods and trying to observe mechanic metabolic changes in the human body. There is evidence that certain polyphenols such as flavonoids can inhibit carotene conversion and I'm inclined to believe that the dozens and dozens of polyphenols, hundreds of polyphenols that exist aren't actually beneficial compounds in the human body because as humans we don't require polyphenols as an input whereas we do require certain vitamins and minerals so their importance has definitely been overstated in the context of general health. Moving on to agarateen which is said to be a carcinogenic toxin that occurs in mushrooms specifically in species of the genus agaricus. The most commonly known being the portobello mushroom which includes the button and crimini mushroom as these are simply different stages of maturity. Button mushrooms are the baby, crimini mushrooms are the teenager and portobello mushrooms are the adult. Cooking can decrease the amount of agarateen in the mushrooms but should we even be concerned about agarateen in the first place? All of the studies looking at agarateen used unrealistic doses and injected them into mice and this tends to be the case with many carcinogens. If you give someone a large amount of anything it can cause issues. You can die drinking water, I know that's been said a lot so I don't really think agarateen is a concern. It's very little proof that in its food form it's harmful in any way whatsoever. We also have phytochemicals that were isolated from white button mushrooms and are said to block the enzyme aromatase from producing estrogen from testosterone. This can kill hormone dependent breast cancers therefore is said to have anti-cancer properties. But in the study they actually said that the small amount of conjugated linoleic acid found in the mushroom were more likely responsible than the phytochemicals for inhibiting aromatase and as we've spoken about in the past conjugated linoleic acid is a very beneficial fatty acid specific to quality animal foods. This study like the agarateen study used an extract so it's unlikely this can be replicated by eating mushrooms but any problems pertaining to the aromatase enzyme in our modern society is due to excess body fat as fat is where aromatase primarily functions in the male body. Beta-glucans are sugars found in cell walls in various things including bacteria, fungi, yeast, certain plants, mushrooms and these beta-glucans are said to have anti-inflammatory properties but studies demonstrate that beta-glucans increase the immune response by activating macrophages, white blood cells and natural cell killer functions. Basically your body is having some type of allergic reaction to the beta-glucans and they are saying it's a good thing. Doesn't really make any sense. Another poorly conducted study but what's new? Lion's mane is a mushroom commonly taken as a supplement to improve brain health and focus. There is a study commonly referenced to Lion's mane where they again took a chemical extract of Horaceum aeronaceous and showed that nerves can regrow in the brain but it didn't show neuroprotective effects. I think the main explanation for this is that mushrooms contain choline. Choline is a very important precursor for acetylcholine which is a key neurotransmitter for mental focus and learning. We actually spoke about this in our allergy video yesterday, certain allergy medications inhibit acetylcholine which results in loss of focus and memory issues as well as a bunch of other issues in the body. Many people don't consume enough high-choline foods, particularly animal foods, therefore when they consume mushrooms they might be addressing the lack of choline in their diet. This would also explain why some people see a benefit from consuming mushrooms such as Lion's mane and why some people don't. Triterpenoids are another compound usually referred to in a positive light pertaining to mushrooms commonly known as the ricey and chaga mushrooms. Studies have attempted to isolate certain triterpenoids but have been fairly inconclusive. In traditional Chinese medicine they believe mushrooms have a detoxification effect on the body, cleaning, cleansing as well as healing wounds might be why vegans like mushrooms so much D-E-T-O-X detox. After reviewing this substantial amount of information it's easy to understand why mushrooms have played a role in traditional medicines as well as shamanistic rituals throughout human history and why they still play a role in humans in treating various health issues. These substances in mushrooms are specific to the soil quality so if we do have a high quality mushroom grown in said wild soil a combination of all of these various things we've spoken about could be beneficial in some cases. My theory or well another possibility is that mushrooms may contain certain soil based microbes missing in modern diets that are beneficial for your gut bacteria but again that's just an idea that I was thinking of last night. So there are both positive and negative aspects to understand pertaining to mushrooms but overall our initial principle still applies. If you want to consume mushrooms ask yourself is it of wild quality? I would go for something that is wild but organic if you're buying in the supermarket. These high quality plant foods tend to be inaccessible for many people also are prohibitively expensive. If you want to eat the mushrooms by all means they are a low carbohydrate delicious addition to any meal. From a culinary perspective there are so many varieties of mushrooms and they truly are one of the most enjoyable foods. So thank you guys for joining me I didn't want to talk about medicinal mushrooms in this video it's just way too much information guys I was up till 3 am last night reading about mushrooms was in my mind so if you guys could please like the video subscribe hit that bell icon and above all please please please share the video guys if you do want to support me further check out Frankie's Free Range Meat we just got some grass fed beef belly can't get it anywhere else online you can't even buy regular beef belly online so definitely go to frankiesfreerangemeat.com check that out you can also check out Frankie's Naturals minimal ingredients minimally processed hygiene and cosmetic products thanks again for joining me guys and enjoy the rest of your day.