Mushrooms: Nature’s Mysterious Healers and Hidden Wonders

Mushrooms are among the most fascinating things growing on Earth. After reading these facts, you’ll be filled with wonder and gratitude to Hashem for His amazing creations.

Besides their health benefits, mushrooms have some truly surprising traits. Let’s explore them!

Before jumping into the wild world of mushroom facts, here are a few things to know:

• People who study mushrooms are called mycologists.

• The mycelium is the part that looks like a stem, and the cap holds the tiny spores, called hyphae, that help it grow and spread.

• Some mushrooms grow in small areas, like the ones sold in stores. But one mushroom in Michigan, USA, stretches across 9 square kilometers underground and it’s believed to be about 2,000 years old!

• Mushrooms aren’t regular plants. They can’t make their own food from sunlight like other plants do.

• The blessing we say over mushrooms is "shehakol", not "borei pri ha’adama," because they don’t grow from the soil in the usual way.

The Amanita Muscaria Mushroom
This bright red mushroom with white dots may look like it came out of a fairy tale, but it’s very toxic. It can cause hallucinations, people who eat it may feel like they’re in another world, but it’s very dangerous and can lead to hospitalization or even worse. In Israel, it’s considered poisonous but not listed as an illegal drug like some other mushrooms.

Did You Know Penicillin Came from a Toxic Mushroom?
Penicillin, the first antibiotic that saved millions of lives, came from a harmful mushroom called Penicillium chrysogenum. This mushroom weakens certain bacteria by breaking down their cell walls so they can’t survive.

This discovery changed the world of medicine and made it possible to treat many illnesses that once had no cure. Even today, many modern medicines are made using mushrooms. One expert explained that because mushrooms grow in dirty places full of bacteria and viruses, they’ve developed powerful ways to fight back. That’s why they’re such good sources for medicine.

One of the most popular medicines today, Lipitor, used to treat high cholesterol and diabetes, comes from a red mushroom that grows in China.

Mushrooms and Cancer
For years, mushroom experts wondered why people in some rural areas of Japan almost never got cancer. Their big discovery: these people eat lots of mushrooms as part of their regular meals. In Japan, shiitake and enoki mushrooms are even given to cancer patients as part of their treatment but many healthy people eat them daily without waiting to get sick.

The Coal Mushroom (Chaga)
This mushroom looks like a burnt piece of wood or coal, but it’s packed with powerful health benefits. It contains high levels of antioxidants, including betulinic acid, which may help fight cancer.

The Smart Yellow Mold Mushroom
Professor Toshiyuki Nakagaki, a scientist in Japan, became famous for an experiment he did with a yellow mold mushroom. He placed the mushroom in a small maze with a sugar cube at the end.

Most mushrooms grow in even rings, but this one behaved differently. It stretched long filaments through the maze until it found the sugar.

Then came the amazing part: when he placed the same mushroom in a similar maze, it remembered the way and went straight to the sugar cube without wandering! This “memory” was tested again and again, and every time, it worked the same.

The Mushroom That Controls Ants
In the rainforests of Cameroon, scientists studied a strange group of ants called “scented ants.” Every year, around the same time, these ants climbed a tall tree, stopped at the same height, bit into the tree and died.

Why? A mushroom called tomentula was behind it.

The ants had breathed in the mushroom’s spores. Once inside their bodies, the mushroom took control and made them climb the tree. After they died, a new mushroom grew right out of their heads.

Even more incredible: this only happened when the mushroom “felt” it was ready to grow. The ants acted like soldiers, helping the mushroom survive even if it meant giving up their lives.