Mushrooms as Food Supplements: Mg, K, Se-Zn/P in Dried Mushrooms

Modern nutritionists often prescribe and recommend various nutritional supplements to their patients, taking into account their specific needs. Five essential minerals for the human body are magnesium, potassium, zinc (metals), and phosphorus and selenium (non-metals). Walking through our cities, we see many pharmacies, drug stores, and herbalist's shops displaying colorful signs with the words "MgKS"—dietary supplement—in their windows. These supplements are often expensive, but poor mountain populations have access to mushrooms directly from the pristine wilderness, free of charge. We, who have been analyzing fresh, pickled, frozen, dried, and freeze-dried mushrooms since 1980, have found that these elements (Mg, K, P, Se, Zn), essential for the human body, are present in good concentrations in wild edible mushrooms found locally. To this end, we analyzed the "edible" mushrooms listed in Annexes 1 and 2 of Presidential Decree 376/1995 of the Italian Republic, obtaining significant information. Some of these mushrooms are coveted by mushroom hunters for their deliciousness and high price, and therefore these products quickly fly onto the market; other edible mushrooms, sometimes valuable, are neglected and often left to rot in the woods: we are referring to Leccinum and Suillus, various Lactarius and Ruusula, many Agaricus, Tricholoma, and Macrolepiota, as well as the numerous less valuable Boletaceae (Butyriboletus, for example). By exploiting this food (and economic) resource with a healthy walk in the woods, you can therefore obtain excellent supplements, and therefore we are convinced that these data have scientific value as well as a health and social purpose.