Can you name a vegetable
that doesn't need sunlight to grow? You can't. I know you can't
because it's a trick question. All vegetables get their energy
to grow from the sun, but there's something else we eat
that's mistakenly called a vegetable, which prefers the dark. It's a mushroom, but - How Does It Grow? Mushrooms are actually the fruit
of a fungus that grows underground. They're great for your inmune system
and an amazing source of potassium - that's good for your blood pressure. One portobello mushroom has even
more potassium than a banana. The reason you never see
a wide open field of mushrooms, like you see a field of lettuce or corn, is because farmers grow
their mushrooms indoors. But we're among the lucky few
who get to go inside. Chester County, Pennsylvania,
is the mushroom capital of America. Half of all the mushrooms
produced in the US come from here, and we're at Phillips Mushroom Farms, one of the area's biggest growers. Jim Angelucci has been growing
mushrooms here for 40 years. You can't look cute in a hairnet! The planting beds are six racks high
in this mushroom house, which can produce nearly
a million mushrooms in one harvest. Usually it's misty and wet because if there's one thing
a mushroom loves most is moisture. 92% of a mushroom is made of water. (Jim): The mushroom... On a mushroom, this is the cap, obviously, the stem, and this white stretched piece
of tissue here is called the "veil", and as the mushroom matures,
and in a couple of days, this mushroom... this veil will actually
pull away from the stem, and expose the gills. (Nicole): These are the gills? (Jim): These are the gills. Mushrooms don't have seeds,
they have spores; they're microscopic. Every mushroom has
about 16 billion spores. (Nicole): 16 billion... (Jim): 16...that's what they told me... (Nicole): This is the fungus,
and the fungus works like the root system of the mushroom.
(Jim): Correct. (Jim): After about 14 days, the mycelium has reached the surface. The mystical thing about mushrooms is that it will double
their size in 24 hours. When they harvest the mushrooms,
what they...our harvesters do is -- they grab the mushroom,
push down and twist, and pull it up and then this...the bottom
is trimmed with the knife. (Nicole): Every single one? (Jim): Every single one.
(Nicole) Wow... (Nicole): But not all mushrooms
prefer to grow in the ground. Some prefer to grow in trees
and decaying logs, like Shiitake, a mushroom
you'll often find in Asian cooking. To grow Shiitake, farmers make their own fake logs
out of sawdust and other plant material. The logs, of course,
have to be kept moist. In the forest, that would be the job of
the rain and the shade of overhead trees; on the farm, the logs get dunked. The farm grows
other log-loving mushrooms, like Oyster, Royal Trumpet, and Maitake, also called,
Hen-of-the-Woods, they're famous for
their cancer fighting qualities. They are even these crazy looking,
spongy Pom Poms, sometimes called, Monkey Heads. When all the mushrooms are picked, they come to the farm's packing center where they are sorted,
packaged, and shipped off to thousands of grocery stores
across the country, ready to be eaten.
What's going on in the mycelium is more interesting than what's going on in fruiting bodies. I highly suggest people look up the life cycle of fungi. It's strange and awesome.
I made some tasty sautéed mushrooms this morning, what a nice coincidence