Losing a few dress sizes - easy

These guys will help you lose
weight... in all the right places!

Today being Thursday, the fungi news day, I surfed the web for anything mushroom-related, and went across  two sets of stories. The first one was cultivating mushrooms with discarded coffee grounds is becoming a profitable business in several UK cities. Hmm, I'm more of an information-producing type than goods-producing one, but it is one line of production I might be interested in. After all, there are lots of coffee shops in my town that could supply me with free substrate, and there are also a fair number of restaurants who might be interested in organically produced exotic mushrooms...

The second set of stories was about the latest diet craze, apparently endorsed by numerous celebrities that lets you lose inches off your hips while keeping your bust the same size. Also, lose weight.

Now, mushrooms are very low calorie food, so no wonder that substituting them for meat allows you to shed pounds. At 16 kcal per 100 grams they are at the same level as salad leaves, celery and cucumbers. In fact, they are a negative calorie food because it takes more energy to digest them than they yield as the result. If you don't believe me, go to a seaside town and watch a herring gull as it deals with a discarded sandwich. It would eat bread, ham, cheese, drops of mayo, everything. Except salad and cucumbers, which it carefully puts aside. I'm sure if there were sandwiches in existence with raw mushrooms and celery, they would be scorned, too. Birds have no time for zero-calorie food because their digestive systems are small and their exercise routine is such that professional human sports don't even come close. Lifting your body off the ground using just muscle power is no joke.

Anyway, back to the humans and their news stories. I wholeheartedly approve of a mushroom diet. In fact, I got a pack of baby button mushrooms today so that I could eat them tomorrow at lunch. However, I just wish those journalists would stop calling mushrooms "vegetables". As in:

"Not only do mushrooms help with weight loss – the super vegetable can help improve your looks too."

What can I say...

MUSHROOMS ARE NOT VEGETABLES!

Image credits:
Button mushrooms, Agaricus bisporus
Paris Tuileries Garden Facepalm statue