MycoRant

Among all the web news about fungi, posts about medicinal mushrooms are notably less common than those about just plain old “mushrooms.” Here’s a collection of recent medicinal mushroom mentions found using both Google and Bing (Honestly? Bing isn’t up to speed for my purposes).

A Melding of Performance Art and Mycological Culture?

It’s a pleasure to come across articles like Subtle Borsato: Artist finds magic in small moments by David Jager. An artist enters Toronto’s Chinatown markets to identify medicinal mushrooms.

“The fun is infectious in The Chinatown Foray, in which she leads members of the Toronto Mycological Society through the stalls of Chinatown grocery stores and Markham medicinal shops to identify different mushrooms.”

Indonesian Oyster Mushroom Entrepreneurs

Local residents strike gold with oyster mushrooms appears at the Jakarta Post.
“Oyster mushrooms are commonly cultivated across Asia, particularly in China and South Korea, for consumption. In addition to being a popular food, oyster mushrooms are also considered to have medicinal properties because of their high levels of statins, such as lovastatin, which work to reduce cholesterol levels. In the backyard of his house, Putu has built a small bamboo shed to grow the oyster mushrooms. He bought 1,000 logs which he inoculates with mushroom spawn. He says he was so happy the first time he saw the mushrooms grow healthily in less than a month.”

Button Mushroom on the Medicinal Radar

I’ve seen several references recently to increased research interest in your grocery store variety button mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus). One of note is Study Finds Breast Cancer Fighting Properties within Mushrooms.

“Dr. Chen and her team state: “Results from this and other laboratories support the hypothesis that white button mushrooms may be an important dietary constituent for reducing the incidence of hormone-dependent breast cancer in women. Prevention strategies involving mushrooms are readily available, affordable, and acceptable to the general public.”

Shiitake in India

According to Medicinal mushrooms grow in Himachal, farmers have started growing Shiitake mushrooms (Lentinula edodes) having medicinal qualities at Solan in Himachal Pradesh, India.

Cordyceps Against the Flu?

That is implied by some of the statements in Super-mushrooms are natural way to fight flu by one Dr. Gifford-Jones.

“Investigation shows that some imported mushroom preparations from China contain only rice flour and nutmeg. Others produced in the U.S. were found to have few of the active ingredients required to increase immunity. What these preparations should have contained was a mushroom called Cordyceps sinensis, one of a group of powerful fungi. A natural mushroom product called ImmuneAssist 24/7 has been developed by a U.S. nutraceutical company. ImmuneAssist 24/7 is prepared by a method called “hybridization” and contains Cordyceps sinensis, plus five other super-mushrooms. Hybridization isn’t the same as genetic modifications, such as cloning. Rather, it’s a traditional method of crossbreeding mushrooms to enhance their natural immune-stimulating powers.”

Wolf on Mushrooms

Here’s my lone find with Bing. Maybe you have heard of David Wolfe but I hadn’t up until now. This is a fairly recent video of his about medicinal mushrooms. He sounds somewhat knowledgeable and partially whack.

Tags: cancer, influenza, medicinal mushrooms, mushroom growing