Mushrooms the good and the bad

Shiitake Mushroom

The good

I've read many times that mushrooms are very healthy for you and can even help fight cancer.

Per cancer.org:

"Promoters claim that shiitake mushrooms contain several compounds with health benefits. A compound called lentinan is believed to stop or slow tumor growth. Another component, activated hexose-containing compound (also known as 1,3-beta glucan), is also said to reduce tumor activity and lessen the side effects of cancer treatment. The mushrooms also contain the compound eritadenine, which is thought to lower cholesterol by blocking the way cholesterol is absorbed into the bloodstream. "

It seems that they are still doing studies/clinical trials to see if mushrooms are indeed helpful in the fight for cancer. But really, everything above sounds really, really great with mushrooms.

The problem

The bad news is that I can't stand (have a very strong aversion to) mushrooms. I usually just refer to them as fungus. It's a texture thing for me. My husband also has an allergy to mushrooms and we don't include mushrooms in any of our dishes. After reading about mushrooms, I really want to like them, but I just can't.

The problem is that lot's of plant based recipes include mushrooms. I'll find a really great looking marinara or stir-fry recipe and it calls for mushrooms. These are the recipes that I just currently ignore. I read that you can possibly replace mushrooms with eggplant in some recipes.

Here's my question--Can you just leave out the mushrooms or do you have to replace them with something else in a recipe? Are they essential to the dish? I'm going to have to research this in the next coming weeks.

 Do you like mushrooms?  If you do, good for you. I'm envious.