Vegetables and everything else
Mushrooms on a GLP-1: protein, portions and how to actually eat it
About 3 g of protein per 100 g (3.5 oz), raw, white or brown, for around 22 calories. A cup, sliced, about 100 g (3.5 oz), gives roughly 3 g of protein for 22 calories.
How mushrooms sits on a GLP-1
Mushrooms are about 3 g of protein per 100 g (3.5 oz) raw and they shrink by half in the pan, so the protein is not the reason they are here. The reason is flavour. Mushrooms are rich in the savoury glutamate taste that the medication seems to dull in many people, and a handful of them cooked into eggs, a sauce or a soup makes the whole dish taste of something. Cooked soft they take no chewing; raw in a salad they take a lot.
When your appetite is small
Cook them hot and hard in butter until they brown, then put them under or over a protein. Browned mushrooms folded through two eggs is a 14 g breakfast that tastes like a proper meal; a spoon of mushroom sauce over a small steak or a chicken thigh is often the difference between a plate finished and a plate pushed away.
Three ways to prepare it
Browned in butter and folded into eggs
Hot pan, butter, do not crowd them, salt at the end. Then two eggs on top. About 14 g and the mushrooms do the flavour.
Blended into a mushroom soup with milk and parmesan
Mushrooms, stock and onion cooked down and blended with milk and a handful of parmesan. A savoury mug of about 10 g for a day when meat is impossible.
As a sauce over a small steak or chicken thigh
Sliced mushrooms, a splash of cream, thyme. A wet, savoury sauce that makes 100 g (3.5 oz) of meat easy to eat.
What to eat it with
Eggs, steak, chicken, parmesan, cream, thyme, garlic, soy sauce. Mushrooms make protein taste better; they do not replace it.
How it compares
| Food | Protein per 100 g | Energy per 100 g | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mushrooms | about 3 g | 22 kcal | this page |
| Spinach | about 3 g | 23 kcal | See the page |
| Eggs | about 13 g | 150 kcal | See the page |
| Steak | about 29 g | 210 kcal | See the page |
All figures are typical values for the food as eaten, raw, white or brown, not laboratory figures for a particular brand.
Australian, US and UK names
Button, cup and flat mushrooms in Australia and the UK, white and portobello in the US. Swiss brown mushrooms in Australia are chestnut mushrooms in the UK and cremini in the US. Mycoprotein, sold as Quorn in all three countries, is a mushroom relative made into a meat substitute at about 11 to 14 g of protein per 100 g (3.5 oz), which is a different food from the mushrooms on this page.
Questions people ask
Are mushrooms a good source of protein?
No: about 3 g per 100 g (3.5 oz) raw, and less once they cook down. They earn their place by making eggs, meat and soup taste savoury when your palate has flattened. Quorn, made from a fungal protein, is the mushroom relative that carries real protein.
Your number comes first
Knowing what is in a food only helps once you know how much you are aiming for. The target is 1.2 to 1.6 g of protein per kg of your goal weight, not your current weight, which for most people is 90 to 140 g a day.
Work out your protein targetMore on eating well when your appetite is small: high protein foods for a small appetite, how much protein on a GLP-1, and every food we have written up. The whole system in five documents is the Keep Muscle Kit, A$47 / US$29 / £23.
EverStrong provides nutrition and strength coaching and education. It is not medical advice and does not replace your prescribing doctor.