I was in China recently and we went
to a few "mushrooms steamboat " restaurants where we can select all
different kinds of mushrooms to put into our steamboat. It was very good.
The waiters in ALL such restaurants
told us NOT to eat until the soup has been boiling for at least 12 to 15 mins.
In the first restaurant, we were
very hungry , so we did not bother to wait for 12 mins and started to dish out
our mushrooms from the steamboat when the waiter ran over quickly to our table
to stop us from eating. Every restuarant gave us very stern warning that we
CANNOT eat until it is 15 mins of continuous boiling.
Apparently, they had to kill all the bacteria in the
mushrooms. I was thinking maybe it is toxic.
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Sulfide 硫化氫 has the potential to cause allergies,
mostly asthmatic. 10% of asthma cases
are cause by an allergy to sulfides. It is a preservative, but strictly
regulated.
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It has been
found that Mushrooms from China contain carbon disulfide二硫化碳 in them. Carbon disulfide is a
pesticide/fungicide with acceptable/legal residue levels defined for
fresh/dried foods.
Always discard the soak liquid and do not use it in the cooking process.
China's
regulations are questionable.
Most of the mushrooms on the market
are from China, and are contaminated with chemicals which are soluble in water.
Discard the water that you soak the dried mushrooms in to soften.
According to Mr. L.W. Chan of the Health Department (USA), most mushrooms are
smuggled into the country from China.
The recent opening of traffic
between China and Taiwan made it difficult for the government to control these
illegal activities.
It is better to use Taiwanese mushrooms or Japanese
Shiitake Mushrooms.
Soak them in
water before cooking and the water used to soak the mushrooms must be thrown
away.
Mr. Chan
continued to say that it is customary and a common practice for people to cook
the mushrooms with the water saved from soaking. This habit should stop,
because most fertilizers used in farming are water soluble.
According to tests in the past, it was known that mushrooms were contaminated
by fertilizer.
Mushrooms contain sulfur and when mixed in with
fertilizer, carbonate tests showed a 20% higher reading on carbon disulfide
which made it difficult to obtain a reliable reading on results.
