Chinese mushrooms

Chinese mushrooms

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 didnt 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. Sulfide 硫化氫has potential to cause allergies, mostly asthmatic. 10% of asthma cases are cause by an allergy to sulfides. It is a preservative, but strictly regulated. 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.