Mushrooms have been one of my most successful weight management foods.

I love the large meaty flavoured mushrooms. I love that they are low calorie and one medium sized mushroom, grilled or seared until brown in a hot pan over a teaspoon of olive oil, become an excellent, healthy taste and texture substituted for a steak and they leave me feeling I have eaten a substantial hot meal, not just a 100 calorie snack.

Mushrooms are the great all rounder, useful vegetables in most people's shopping baskets.   Economy tip, I find Aldi stores the very best for use immediately sliced mushrooms and use with three days small button mushrooms. I prefer the fruit shop or IGA stores for the large meaty flavoried mushrooms.

Cup, button and Swiss brown. - Great for adding flavour to stews.

Chestnut:- Nutty flavour, firm texture.

Portabello - My snack meal favorite, its large size and meaty flavour makes it a great lunch, grill, BBQ, bake or pan heat sear it.

Enoki and Shimeji:- Asian delecacies that I have bought but I have not been able to get used to the flavour of, perhaps an aquared taste.  These are used raw or lightly cooked in soups and stir fries.

Shitake:- Firm and meaty flavoured, used in  Asian dishes, I have enjoyed these.

Oyster:-These come in pink, yellow and grey.  As a child I harvested the yellow oyster mushrooms from a paddock, the mushroom collectors I was with called them continental mushrooms and they were very familiar with them.  My mum refused to allow me to eat them as she was only familiar with the common paddock or field mushroom that grows well after rain, in Victoria.  It was a wise move, many people are poisoned every year eating what they believe to be field mushrooms which are in fact poisons toadstools.  If in doubt, throw it out.

Nutrition.

100 gram = 25 calories.
Vitamin B group, Vitamin D

Avoid slimy or shriveled mushrooms, they should be firm and dry.

Store in brown paper bag in fridge and use withing a few days.

Mudrooms are ideal for lightly cooked meals or eaten raw and can be added to almost any meal.


Vegetables in general and fruit in moderation are natures weight management tools.  Vegetables are low in fat and only avocado is high in fat and even that is highly beneficial in moderation I have up to 1/3 of an avocado as my oil serve for the day. All vegetables and fruit, contains fibre especially if you eat the skin and this is filling as well as healthy for the digestive tract.

Here is a list of great healthy eating vegetables, get to love them, use them generously, use the sweet versions like blueberries as lolly and sweet substitutes/ Remember that potatoes and corn are not fattening in themselves it is what you add to them that makes them fattening or in the case of potatoes, how you cook them.  These foods are our friends.

From 'Simply in Season'

• General Tips
• Apples
• Asparagus
• Beets
• Blueberries
• Broccoli
• Brussels sprouts
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Cauliflower
• Celeriac
• Celery
• Collards
• Corn
• Cranberries
• Cucumbers
• Edamame
• Edible flowers
• Eggplant
• Fennel
• Grapes
• Green beans
• Kale
• Kohlrabi
• Leeks
• Lettuce
• Melon
• Mesclun
• Mushrooms
• Okra
• Onions
• Parsnips
• Peaches
• Pears
• Peas
• Peppers
• Persimmons
• Potatoes
• Pumpkins
• Raspberries
• Rhubarb
• Rutabagas
• Spinach
• Summer squash
• Strawberries
• Swiss chard
• Sweet potatoes
• Tomatillos
• Tomatoes
• Turnips
• Wild greens
• Winter squash