Ask and ye shall receive

We all want validation. Some is immediate, some takes years, but being right feels so good!

I've always felt uncomfortable about J and his mushrooms, that he was essentially eating air and a little dirt mixed with Ranch dressing. But I felt that encouraging a vegetable or salad of any sort is most important, not to mention that I like getting to go to Ruby Tuesday's, too.

Behold, I didn't need to feel muddled. I was doing the right thing even if I didn't know it.

In this article from Tuesday, 5 foods that should have a place in your diet, mushrooms pull up the end. They confirm I'm a great mother after all, especially considering that J wouldn't touch a glass of orange juice for a million bucks.


5. Mushrooms
Misconception: Mushrooms are a low-calorie food with little nutritional benefit.

Why they're good for you: They may be 90 percent water and have only 18 calories per cup, but mushrooms are getting serious scientific attention. Laboratory reports and animal studies show that compounds in mushrooms may do everything from bolster immune function to suppress breast and prostate cancers to decrease tumor size. And now, Penn State researchers find that mushrooms, from the humble button to the giant portobello, harbor large amounts of an antioxidant called L-ergothioneine. The scientific buzz is that fungi, for the moment, are the only foods that contain this compound.

While scientists work to figure out how these findings will translate to dietary advice, there are plenty of reasons to enjoy mushrooms. Clare Hasler, Ph.D., a well-known expert in functional foods and executive director of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science at the University of California, Davis, points out that mushrooms offer a healthy helping of the blood pressure-- lowering mineral potassium. "Most people might be surprised to learn that while orange juice is touted as one of the highest potassium foods, one medium portobello mushroom actually has more potassium," she says. "And five white button mushrooms have more potassium than an orange."


Hurray for mushrooms!