Healing properties of Oyster Mushroom

The most important therapeutic effect of oyster mushroom is its antioxidant properties. Another important health-promoting feature is lowering blood sugar levels. It also helps to lower LDL cholesterol in the blood due to a substance called lovastatin.

How to recognize it, what does it look like?

The mushroom cap can reach up to 15 cm, but there are more branchy specimens. The mushroom is named after its fruiting method. It grows sideways to the trunk and resembles an oyster. You can find many color varieties of the mushroom, from white, through cream, gray, sometimes falling into a graphite or blue shade. There are also breeding varieties that have a beautiful orange color.

The gills are light, usually white with a cream shade. In older fruiting bodies, they darken a little and become gray, brown, coffee. The leg is short and laterally attached to the ground - i.e. the tree. It resembles a clam attached to a stone with a necklace. The flesh is firm, hard with a mushroom smell and a slightly mushroom flavor.

On what and where does it grow, how to look?

When we do not feel like walking in the woods, the easiest way to buy it is in the supermarket, but you can also grow it at home :) I recommend it to everyone, because it is fun and a lot of joy to observe growth. In nature, the fungus grows on deciduous trees, mainly felled or felled willow or beech poplar trunks, but also on standing trees. The fungus appears in late autumn and grows even until February. It grows in large clusters, and sometimes one place is enough for a whole basket of mushrooms :)

Application in the kitchen

In the kitchen, we mainly use young fruiting bodies, because the stars are stringy and fibrous. Oyster mushrooms can be boiled, fried and even dried or frozen. Marinated in vinegar is also very tasty.