The Health Benefits Of the Chicken Mushroom

The Chicken mushroom  or chicken of the woods, (Laetiporus sulphureus) is claimed many of its admirers to be an edible fungus for the gourmand. It is said to resemble a chicken in flavour and texture. It also has some interesting medicinal properties. The fungus grows as a bracket type, a basidiomycete having a saprophytic habit which means it enjoys growing on a dead trees.

Flavour And Aroma

It has a strong flavour.

Components In the Chicken Mushroom

The mushroom contains a number of compounds including quercetin, kaempferol, caffeic acid, and chlorogenic acid (Olennikov et al., 2011) which are often found in other foodstuffs and have potent antioxidant properties. Caffeic acid and chlorogenic acids are found in coffee which gives this beverage a number of benefits associated with reducing the risk of diabetes. It is to be reasoned that these components would also be of benefit from the chicken mushroom.

It also contains one other interesting group of compounds, lanostanoids. These are molecules that are capable of blocking the growth of certain cancer cells (Rios et al., 2012). 

Antimicrobial properties

Extracts from this mushroom inhibit the growth of other fungal pathogens such as Aspergillus flavus (Petrovic et al., 2013).