Mushrooms are used for far more than cooking. They serve as food, medicine, building material, leather substitute, environmental cleanup tool, and even a treatment for mental health conditions. The global mushroom market hit $72.89 billion in 2025 and is projected to nearly double by 2032, reflecting just how many industries now rely on fungi.
Nutrition and Cooking
The most familiar use for mushrooms is simply eating them. They’re low in calories and surprisingly rich in protein for a non-animal food. White button mushrooms contain about 3 grams of protein per 100 grams raw, with oyster mushrooms close behind at 2.75 grams. They’re also a solid source of potassium (358 mg per 100g in white mushrooms, comparable to a small banana), phosphorus, and zinc. Oyster mushrooms stand out for their iron content, delivering roughly four times as much per serving as button mushrooms.
One of the most unusual nutritional tricks involves vitamin D. Mushrooms contain a compound called ergosterol that converts into vitamin D2 when exposed to ultraviolet light. Commercially, UV treatment can take shiitake and oyster mushroom powder from undetectable vitamin D levels to significant concentrations. You can even do a simplified version at home by placing sliced mushrooms gill-side up in direct sunlight for 15 to 30 minutes before eating them.
How you cook mushrooms matters. Gentle sautéing or steaming preserves and can even boost levels of protective antioxidants, including ergothioneine, a compound that shields cells from damage. Deep-frying, on the other hand, destroys heat-sensitive nutrients while adding fat and calories. If you’re eating mushrooms partly for their health benefits, keeping the heat moderate pays off.
Immune Support and Beta-Glucans
Mushrooms contain complex carbohydrates called beta-glucans that interact directly with immune cells. When you eat them, these compounds pass into the small intestine where they bind to receptors on macrophages, a type of immune cell that patrols for threats. The macrophages break the beta-glucans into smaller fragments, which then activate other immune cells, including ones involved in targeting abnormal cells like tumors. This mechanism is well-established enough that beta-glucans are formally classified as “biological response modifiers,” meaning they measurably shift how the immune system behaves.
Species especially rich in beta-glucans include shiitake, maitake, turkey tail, and reishi. These are widely sold as supplements in capsule or powder form, though eating whole cooked mushrooms delivers beta-glucans too.
Brain Health and Nerve Growth
Lion’s mane mushroom has gained significant attention for its effects on the brain. It contains compounds that stimulate production of nerve growth factor (NGF), a protein your brain needs to grow, maintain, and repair neurons. This has made it a focus of research into neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
The most notable clinical trial involved Japanese adults aged 50 to 80 with mild cognitive impairment. Those who took lion’s mane extract for 16 weeks showed significant improvements in cognitive performance compared to a placebo group. The catch: benefits declined after they stopped taking it, suggesting ongoing use is necessary to maintain the effect. A separate preliminary trial in patients with early-stage Alzheimer’s found improvements in memory recall and reduced neuropsychiatric symptoms. Both studies are promising but small, and researchers acknowledge that larger trials are still needed to confirm how well this works at scale.
Psilocybin and Mental Health Treatment
Psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in “magic mushrooms,” is being studied as a treatment for depression with striking results. The FDA has granted breakthrough therapy designations to multiple psilocybin programs: one for treatment-resistant depression (through COMPASS Pathways), one for major depressive disorder (through the Usona Institute), and another for a psilocybin-derived molecule targeting major depression (through Cybin). Breakthrough status doesn’t mean approval, but it signals the FDA considers the treatment a potential substantial improvement over what’s currently available and fast-tracks the review process.
Psilocybin therapy typically involves one or two supervised sessions where a patient takes the compound in a clinical setting with trained guides, combined with preparatory and follow-up talk therapy. It’s not yet legal as a prescription treatment in most places, though Oregon and Colorado have established regulated access programs. The trajectory of psilocybin mirrors a broader shift toward psychedelic-assisted therapy, though the FDA’s 2024 rejection of MDMA therapy for PTSD showed that regulatory approval is far from guaranteed, even with encouraging trial data.
Packaging and Leather Alternatives
Mycelium, the root-like network of fungal threads that grows beneath a mushroom, is being developed as a replacement for plastic packaging and animal leather. For packaging, mycelium is grown on agricultural waste products like wood chips or crop stubble, forming a solid material that can be molded into protective shapes. The resulting product is lightweight (about 0.255 grams per cubic centimeter), naturally water-resistant on its outer surface for over 76 hours, and fully compostable at end of life. When broken apart, the material absorbs water readily, which actually speeds up composting. The core challenge remains cost: biodegradable materials still struggle to compete with the economies of scale behind plastic production.
For textiles, mycelium mats are grown on substrates like jute fabric over roughly 20 days, then treated with tannins or other natural solutions and dried to create a leather-like material. These mats can be sewn on a standard sewing machine with a lining fabric. The process produces a flexible sheet without raising or slaughtering animals and without the heavy chemical processing that conventional leather tanning requires. Several companies are actively scaling production, though mycelium leather remains a niche product for now.
Environmental Cleanup
Mushrooms can break down or absorb an impressive range of pollutants, a process called mycoremediation. Fungi produce enzymes that dismantle complex toxic molecules, and their vast mycelial networks can absorb and concentrate heavy metals from contaminated soil.
The list of substances fungi can tackle is long: petroleum hydrocarbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (the carcinogenic compounds in oil spills and coal tar), chlorinated pesticides, textile dyes, and pharmaceutical residues including antibiotics. On the heavy metal side, mushrooms can remove cadmium, copper, mercury, lead, manganese, nickel, zinc, and arsenic from soil. Researchers have even explored using fungi to immobilize uranium in areas contaminated by depleted uranium ammunition from military conflicts. The appeal is that mycoremediation is far cheaper and less disruptive than digging up contaminated soil or treating it with chemicals, though it works best in combination with other remediation strategies rather than as a standalone fix.
Functional Foods and Cosmetics
Beyond whole mushrooms and supplements, the industry is rapidly expanding into powders and extracts blended into everyday products. Mushroom powders now appear in coffees, protein bars, skincare serums, and pre-workout supplements. Reishi and chaga extracts are common in cosmetic formulations marketed for their antioxidant properties. The global market’s projected 9.6% annual growth rate through 2032 is driven largely by this diversification, with innovation focused on smart cultivation systems and modified-atmosphere packaging that extends shelf life for fresh mushrooms while enabling new product formats.