Microwaving might be essentially the most environment friendly method to cut back agaritine ranges in recent mushrooms.
There’s a toxin in plain white button mushrooms referred to as agaritine, which can be carcinogenic. Plain white button mushrooms develop to be cremini (brown) mushrooms, and cremini mushrooms develop to be portobello mushrooms. They’re all the exact same mushroom, just like how inexperienced bell peppers are simply unripe crimson bell peppers. The quantity of agaritine in these mushrooms could be lowered by way of cooking: Frying, microwaving, boiling, and even simply freezing and thawing decrease the degrees. “It’s subsequently really useful to course of/cook dinner Button Mushroom earlier than consumption,” one thing I famous in a video that’s now greater than a decade previous.
Nonetheless, as proven under and at 0:51 in my video Is It Secure to Eat Uncooked Mushrooms?, when you take a look at the varied cooking strategies, the agaritine in these mushrooms isn’t utterly destroyed. Take dry baking, for instance: Baking for ten minutes at about 400° Fahrenheit (“a course of just like pizza baking”) solely cuts the agaritine ranges by a few quarter, so 77 % nonetheless stays.
Boiling seems higher, showing to wipe out greater than half the toxin after simply 5 minutes, however the agaritine isn’t truly eradicated. As a substitute, it’s simply transferred to the cooking water. So, ranges throughout the mushrooms drop by about half at 5 minutes and by 90 % after an hour, however that’s principally as a result of the agartine is leaching into the broth. So, when you’re making soup, as an example, 5 minutes of boiling is not any simpler than dry baking for ten minutes, and, even after an hour, about half nonetheless stays.
Frying for 5 to 10 minutes eliminates a whole lot of agartine, however microwaving is just not solely a extra healthful method to cook dinner, but it surely works even higher, as you may see right here and at 1:39 in my video. Researchers discovered that only one minute within the microwave “lowered the agaritine content material of the mushrooms by 65%,” and solely 30 seconds of microwaving eradicated greater than 50 %. So, microwaving might be the simplest method to cut back agaritine ranges in recent mushrooms. 
My approach is so as to add dried mushrooms into the pasta water once I’m making spaghetti. Between the reductions of 20 % or so from the drying and 60 % or so from boiling for ten minutes and straining, greater than 90 % of agaritine is eradicated.
Ought to we be involved concerning the residual agaritine? In line with a overview funded by the mushroom trade, in no way. “The obtainable proof up to now means that agaritine from consumption of…mushrooms poses no recognized toxicological threat to wholesome people.” The researchers acknowledge agartine is taken into account a possible carcinogen in mice, however then that knowledge must be extrapolated to human well being outcomes.
The Swiss Institute of Know-how, for instance, estimated that the common mushroom consumption within the nation could be anticipated to trigger about two instances of most cancers per 100 thousand folks. That’s just like consumption in the USA, as seen under and at 3:00 in my video, so “one may theoretically anticipate about 20 most cancers deaths per 1 x 106 [one million] lives from mushroom consumption.” Compared, usually, with a brand new chemical, pesticide, or meals additive, we’d prefer to see the most cancers threat decrease than one in 1,000,000. “By this method, the common mushroom consumption of Switzerland is 20-fold too excessive to be acceptable. To stay underneath the restrict”—and hold threat down to 1 in 1,000,000—“‘mushroom lovers’ must limit their consumption of mushrooms to 1 50-g serving each 250 days!” That’s a few half-cup serving as soon as in simply over eight months. To place that into perspective, even when you had been consuming a single serving each single day, the ensuing further most cancers threat would solely be about one in ten thousand. “Put one other means, if 10,000 folks consumed a mushroom meal day by day for 70 years, then along with the 3000 most cancers instances arising from different elements, yet one more case may very well be attributed to consuming mushrooms.” 
However, once more, that is all based mostly “on the presumption that ends in such mouse fashions are equally legitimate in people.” Certainly, that is all simply extrapolating from mice knowledge. What we want is a large potential research to look at the affiliation between mushroom consumption and most cancers threat in people, however there weren’t any such research—till now.
Researchers titled their paper: “Mushroom Consumption and Threat of Complete and Website-Particular Most cancers in Two Massive U.S. [Harvard] Potential Cohorts” and located “no affiliation between mushroom consumption and complete and site-specific cancers in U.S. ladies and men.”
Consuming uncooked or undercooked shiitake mushrooms could cause one thing else, although: shiitake mushroom flagellate dermatitis. Flagellate as in flagellation, whipping, flogging. Beneath and at 4:48 in my video, you may see a rash that makes it look as when you’ve been whipped.
Right here and at 4:58 in my video is one other picture of the rash. It’s regarded as attributable to a compound in shiitake mushrooms referred to as lentinan, however as a result of warmth denatures it, it solely appears to be an issue with uncooked or undercooked mushrooms.
Now, it’s uncommon. Solely about 1 in 50 persons are even inclined, and it goes away by itself in per week or two. Apparently, it may strike as many as ten days after consuming shiitake mushrooms, which is why folks could not make the connection. One unlucky man suffered on and off for 16 years earlier than a analysis. Hopefully, a whole lot of medical doctors will watch this video, and in the event that they ever see a rash like this, they’ll inform their sufferers to cook dinner their shiitakes.