4 ms·

They should grow mushrooms not salad greens. No light needed, humid conditions, constant temp.

open-source-ux 7y ago
Mushrooms are an excellent source of vitamin D, but when they are grown in total darkness they contain virtually no vitamin D. Some supermarkets in the UK now sell mushrooms treated with UV light to elevate their vitamin D levels. However, there is a simple 'hack' if you don't have mushrooms grown outside or treated with UV light. Place the mushroom in natural light (e.g. on a windowsill) for about an hour before you're about to cook them. The natural light will help raise the level of vitamin D in the mushrooms. In case you're wondering about the veracity of this info, it's from a 2017 book published in the UK called How to eat better. The author is a botanist, science writer and TV presenter called James Wong. (He has appeared on a couple of BBC TV shows.) Here is the relevant passage in full from the book: > Doing one simple thing to your shop-bought fresh mushrooms can transform them from containing virtually zero vitamin D to one of nature’s richest food sources in as little as an hour or two, according to Penn State University. Popped on a sunny windowsill, the mushrooms (which commercially are grown in near total darkness) will react to the UV light, churning out loads more of the antioxidant vitamin to defend themselves from damage from solar radiation. > The Penn State team found that a serving of white button mushrooms exposed to UV lamps for just 1 second could go from containing essentially zero vitamin D, to an astonishing 824 per cent of your daily recommended intake. When they tried the same thing with shiitake and oyster mushrooms, their vitamin D content skyrocketed way over a thousand times what you need to consume each day. In the world of food science, this really is as close as you can get to alchemy. > With such tiny amounts of UV light needed to create such an enormous impact, it doesn’t have to be a blazingly sunny day for you to do this at home either – simply lay your mushrooms out on a windowsill for an hour or two anytime between 10am and 3pm and their levels should peak significantly. As the gill tissue (the brown underside of the mushroom caps) is more sensitive to light, placing them with the gills facing up will trigger the strongest spike. You can now even buy special vitamin D-rich mushrooms at a premium price in some posher supermarkets where this UV treatment has already been done for you. Just three of these mushrooms should give you your entire daily dose. But as tumbling your mushrooms out on the work surface for an hour or so will do the exact same job, you may want to save your cash.
- squish78 7y ago
  Incredible, thanks for sharing
- markdown 7y ago
  > James Wong The guy is a must-follow on Twitter. Lots of good info.
- sornen 7y ago
  The light that is required to increase vitamin D production is UVB. The Penn State researchers used a pulsed UVB source for their research. Lower frequency light will not activate the conversion to vitamin D. Glass absorbs most UVB light therefore laying out mushrooms on a window sill will not work.
- hammock 7y ago
  >Place the mushroom in natural light (e.g. on a windowsill) for about an hour before you're about to cook them. The natural light will help raise the level of vitamin D in the mushrooms. Or you could just stand in front of the window yourself for an hour... :)

Mushrooms are an excellent source of vitamin D, but when they are grown in total darkness they contain virtually no vitamin D. Some supermarkets in the UK now sell mushrooms treated with UV light to elevate their vitamin D levels. However, there is a simple 'hack' if you don't have mushrooms grown outside or treated with UV light. Place the mushroom in natural light (e.g. on a windowsill) for about an hour before you're about to cook them. The natural light will help raise the level of vitamin D in the mushrooms. In case you're wondering about the veracity of this info, it's from a 2017 book published in the UK called How to eat better. The author is a botanist, science writer and TV presenter called James Wong. (He has appeared on a couple of BBC TV shows.) Here is the relevant passage in full from the book: > Doing one simple thing to your shop-bought fresh mushrooms can transform them from containing virtually zero vitamin D to one of nature’s richest food sources in as little as an hour or two, according to Penn State University. Popped on a sunny windowsill, the mushrooms (which commercially are grown in near total darkness) will react to the UV light, churning out loads more of the antioxidant vitamin to defend themselves from damage from solar radiation. > The Penn State team found that a serving of white button mushrooms exposed to UV lamps for just 1 second could go from containing essentially zero vitamin D, to an astonishing 824 per cent of your daily recommended intake. When they tried the same thing with shiitake and oyster mushrooms, their vitamin D content skyrocketed way over a thousand times what you need to consume each day. In the world of food science, this really is as close as you can get to alchemy. > With such tiny amounts of UV light needed to create such an enormous impact, it doesn’t have to be a blazingly sunny day for you to do this at home either – simply lay your mushrooms out on a windowsill for an hour or two anytime between 10am and 3pm and their levels should peak significantly. As the gill tissue (the brown underside of the mushroom caps) is more sensitive to light, placing them with the gills facing up will trigger the strongest spike. You can now even buy special vitamin D-rich mushrooms at a premium price in some posher supermarkets where this UV treatment has already been done for you. Just three of these mushrooms should give you your entire daily dose. But as tumbling your mushrooms out on the work surface for an hour or so will do the exact same job, you may want to save your cash.

squish78 7y ago
Incredible, thanks for sharing
markdown 7y ago
> James Wong The guy is a must-follow on Twitter. Lots of good info.
sornen 7y ago
The light that is required to increase vitamin D production is UVB. The Penn State researchers used a pulsed UVB source for their research. Lower frequency light will not activate the conversion to vitamin D. Glass absorbs most UVB light therefore laying out mushrooms on a window sill will not work.
hammock 7y ago
>Place the mushroom in natural light (e.g. on a windowsill) for about an hour before you're about to cook them. The natural light will help raise the level of vitamin D in the mushrooms. Or you could just stand in front of the window yourself for an hour... :)