Dave Smith wrote:
>
> Arri London wrote:
>
> >
> > Not convinced mushroom growing medium is full of pesticides though. It
> > is sterilised prior to use, which would break down most pesticides.
>
> Actually, it is a biochemical process that deals with the pesticides in the
> previous level of the food chain. A lot of the basic components of the
> "growing medium" is hay, grass, grains, feed and whatever else the horse
> ate. Most of the rest of it is the straw bedding from the stalls. The first
> step of the "growing medium" retrieval is called "mucking out" in stable
> talk..... cleaning stalls. It is trucked away to the mushroom farms where it
> is composted and, as some have indicated, sterilized in autoclaves.

But there still can be residues and unmetabolised pesticides which the
sterilisation would inactivate.