If you fry your mushrooms (because hey, who doesn’t?), you could be losing out on beneficial nutrients.
That’s according to a new study which determined that microwaving and grilling mushrooms were the best and healthiest methods for cooking them.
These methods actually ended up increasing the levels of antioxidant activity in the mushrooms, while others diminished them.
The study, published in the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, discovered that frying mushrooms resulted in severe losses in protein, ash and carbohydrates content, while increasing the fat and energy content.
Boiling them improved the total glucans content - sugars found in the cell walls of fungi, which can contribute towards the maintenance of normal blood cholesterol levels. Yet both methods also resulted in a decrease in antioxidants.
Conversely, grilling and microwaving the mushrooms were both found to boost antioxidant activity.
The authors wrote: “Since cooking techniques clearly influence the nutritional attributes of mushrooms, the proper selection of treatments is a key factor to prevent/reduce nutritional losses.
“Microwaving and grilling were established as the best processes to maintain the nutritional profile of mushrooms.”