Summer and autumn are the right times to harvest many different varieties of mushrooms. Many people keep asking themselves whether the tasty fruiting bodies of the mushrooms are actually fruit or vegetables.

Mushrooms as a separate order

Many chefs and chain stores like to classify mushrooms as vegetables because of their culinary uses, but that's not entirely true. From a botanical point of view, fungi cannot be considered a vegetable at all, since they are not classified as plants, but form their own order between plants and animals called Funga. The difference to plants is based, for example, on the fact that fungi do not carry out photosynthesis and consist of more chitin than cellulose.

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Actually, the mushrooms grown for consumption are just the fruiting bodies of the respective mushroom varieties. Much more space is usually taken up by the mycelium of fungi, which branches out in fine ramifications underground.

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