Mushrooms: a climate opportunity?
EDWINA HUGHES
In this edition we’ve been treated to a peek inside Basil’s Fungi Farm with an inspiring recipe from Andrew at the Crown featuring some of the mushrooms grown there. This feels like an ideal opportunity to give a shout out to the more humble mushroom varieties–I’m talking closed cup, chestnut or button mushrooms–all the ones we see on every supermarket shelf. These mushrooms can be a wonderful feature of home cooked meals.
While exotic mushrooms are ideal to take a starring role in a dish, sometimes a more subtle approach is needed. This is particularly true for those of you who simply hate mushrooms! If you are a mushroom hater or have one in your household or immediate circle then you may cast a quick eye over dishes which star mushrooms,, sigh audibly, and flick on to the listings page. But wait! What if I told you that mushrooms can be a brilliant filler for some of your meaty ground beef dishes? What if I explained that replacing some of the meat in a lasagna, bolognaise or cottage pie with the humble ‘shroom could mean squeezing considerably more veg into the meal, enhancing the meaty taste with some smoky umami and doing a little for the climate too? That in fact mushrooms can enhance flavour rather than take away. Would you be interested?– Well, here’s hoping…
Because from a climate perspective, swapping a little ground beef for mushrooms can make a big difference to the climate impactfulness of a dish. While there are lots of brilliant arguments for veganism and vegetarianism, most of us have grown up eating meat, enjoy it and want to continue to do so. What’s the role for us? A big one actually! It turns out that because about 90% of the UK population eat meat, if we could all just eat a little less meat every week, we’d be making tons and tons (of CO2) difference!
Smuggling more mushrooms into a dish will increase the proportion of veg in there–a nutritional plus- while delivering a flavour hit and you will be doing your bit for the climate with the food choices you make. Just something to consider next time you’re cooking up a storm!
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