Mushrooms are valuable health food - low in calories, high in vegetable proteins, chitin, iron, zinc, fiber, essential amino acids, vitamins & minerals. Mushrooms also have a long history of use in Traditional Chinese Medicine . Their legendary effects on promoting good health and vitality and increasing your body's adaptive abilities have been supported by recent studies. These studies suggest that Mushrooms are probiotic - they help our body strengthen itself and fight off illness by maintaining physiological homeostasis - restoring our bodies balance and natural resistance to disease. The compounds they contain have been classified as Host Defense Potentiators (HDP) which can have immune system enhancement properties. That is one of the reasons they are currently used as adjuncts to cancer treatments in Japan and China. "In Japan, Russia, China, and the U.S.A. several different polysaccharide anti tumor agents have been developed from the fruiting body, mycelia, and culture medium of various medicinal mushrooms (Lentinus edodes, Ganoderma lucidum, Schizophyllum commune, Trametes versicolor, Inonotus obliquus, and Flammulina velutipes). Both cellular components and secondary metabolites of a large number of mushrooms have been shown to effect the immune system of the host and therefore could be used to treat a variety of disease states.