I have two brothers. One has stated he will occasionally fill in here, the other recently said I should do a blog asking why in the hell anyone would ever buy canned mushrooms. Why not?
I began with some research. Which produces better results. This really does not depend on the application as you might expect. (For clarity's sake I am talking about the mushrooms not the research, but hey, that applies too.) I used a standard of sliced mushrooms because they are available in three forms at your local grocer-tech. The aforementioned canned, the also mentioned fresh, and one I was plainly ignorant as to the existence of, frozen. Now the benefits of canned are; they are ready to go, and have a longer shelf life. If that can does go bad though, it will not always swell, and you may be introduced to the hero of our story, botulinum toxin. The downsides; waterlogged, sodium filled, slimy nastiness. Frozen mushrooms have the benefit of a long shelf life, and barring any power outages, no risk of botulism. They produce a better result every time, compared to canned, and suffer only minimal cell breakage from freezing. that said, mushrooms suffer a lot from very small amounts of cell damage.
Our good friend fresh mushroom has the benefit of being fresh, they do actually keep quite a long time in a dry crisper drawer, and being fresh, have the nutrient content preserved. Don't get me wrong I do love me some canned goods, and subsisted many years solely on processed foods. But that was because I was broke, and herein lies the punchline.
One cup of canned mushrooms, not that they come that way, but using a measurement standard we all know, consists mostly of water weight, and costs $0.89. There is no way to compare by weight, as the fresh ones are dry, and the canned quite water-logged. Frozen comes in at $1.78 per cup. Fresh comes in at $0.62 per cup for sliced.
So the frozen mushrooms are the most expensive way to go, with mediocre results. The canned is the next most expensive, with the worst results, and lowest nutrient content. The fresh mushrooms are the cheapest, about 30% less than canned, with everything in them that is supposed to be there, nothing that isn't and better taste.
Also for those of you who do not watch the food network; mushrooms are grown in sterile dirt and are ready to use right out of the container. Also, the water absorbed by washing them, if you feel some pathological need to, (I do) barely registers on a digital kitchen scale for one whole pound. So no excuses. In this case fresh is cheaper and better. Check:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FruitVegetableCosts/vegetables.htm
If you don't trust me. Holy crap! a blogger citing a source!
As a footnote, fresh broccoli is $0.63 per cup and frozen is $0.62. No real difference there unless you eat it raw. But totally worth the extra penny.
