Very last 7 days a good friend of mine referred to as me up simply because she was hunting for a particular medicinal mushroom. She had been buying it from Hong Kong for her aunt due to the fact of its medicinal houses even so, for some reason, the supplier had ceased to export mushrooms to Canada.
The mushroom she was seeking for is known as Yun Zhi in China, and my buddy was paying around 800$ for every bottle for it. Yun Zhi, what is that? You may well feel that 800$ may pay out for a label with a botanical identify on it so men and women outside of China know what they are really acquiring. I had to cross reference Chinese mushroom names to scientific names to learn that Yun Zhi is in fact Trametes versicolor.
My jaw hit the flooring. 800$ for Trametes versicolor!!? (Aka. Coriolus versicolor / Turkey Tail). If you are a mushroom picker, you will probably be considering both that you gotta’ start off picking and promoting this stuff, or that my good friend was being completely ripped off. “Ripped off” because T. versicolor is a common mushroom in every single temperate zone in the globe. If you have walked in the forest ever in your life, there is a fifty percent decent possibility that you have observed this mushroom.improve the 5 12 months survival charge of lung most cancers clients by 400%.
I had to seem much more into it. The real item that my good friend was purchasing was a polysaccharide extract. Based on which mushroom strain it will come from, these extracts are possibly named PSK or PSP, and there is important proof for their use in most cancers therapy. The literature is in depth for case in point, Robert Rogers book, The Fungal Pharmacy references legit, peer reviewed research indicating that these extracts “inhibit the proliferation of lymphoma and leukemic cells by apoptosis… “, “restore antibody (IgG) manufacturing in mice with sarcoma a hundred and eighty… “, increase the five 12 months survival charge of lung most cancers sufferers by 400%, enhance the survival rates of colorectal cancer, gastric most cancers, and breast most cancers sufferers. Rogers also writes that there had been at the very least sixteen papers that have studied the extracts capability to inhibit most cancers cell proliferation, 40 that studied their ability to inhibit tumor expansion, thirteen that researched their ability to counteract the unfavorable consequences on the immune system of most cancers therapy, and 24 that showed that PSK and PSP boost most cancers affected person survival charges. The well being rewards of these extracts go on.
In any case, 800$!!? About 3 quarters of T.versicolor is complicated carbohydrates, and the only resource I could locate stating just how much of it is PSK or PSP suggests that the mushroom is normally >40% PSK or PSP. So, we are not talking about some supercharged, concentrated extract, we are speaking about taking out the, unwanted fat (one.seven%), protein (eleven%) (Rogers), fibre, and perhaps the odd unwanted starch or standard sugar, leaving you with shut to 50 percent of the mushroom by dried fat.
The 1st retailer of Yun Zhi that pops up on a Google search where I am, sells a bottle of five hundred, 400mg capsules for 550$ This performs out to 1248$for every pound. Now viewing as the extract is about 50% of the mushroom, that signifies that the unprocessed mushroom would be about 624$ per pound.
I will flatly point out that this is absurd, and that if you are getting this item, you are getting taken gain of. A typical mushroom that is effortlessly cultivated simply because it grows on wooden is not really worth 600$ a pound. For comparison, Pacific Rim Mushrooms sells dried wild picked morel mushrooms which can not be commercially cultivated, for 150$ a pound.
What is the moral of my tale? Know what you are acquiring. Mushrooms are mysterious, even much more so when they are sold with Chinese names, so find out what the botanical or the English identify is with a basic Google look for. I did. I needed to uncover a less pricey however trustworthy resource for Yun Zhi for my friend. After a quite brief research, not for Yun Zhi, but for Turkey Tail extract, I discovered a internet site that expenses 44.ninety six$ for one hundred twenty 500mg capsules (340$ per pound). This is considerably better. Though, if Devour Medicated Chocolate wished Yun Zhi, I would just go for a extended wander with a basket in hand.
I even identified extract from a organization in California for as reduced as 175$ per pound.
Shop around. See what else you can find. Clearly the very best just isn’t essentially the least expensive, but preserve in mind a pair items
There is no indicator that Asian mushrooms are excellent to North American mushrooms, so for some thing like T. versicolor which grows globe wide, really feel cost-free to acquire from Canadian and American growers or pickers.
Make sure you know if you are acquiring extract. There is query as to whether or not the polysaccharides can be digested in the uncooked type.
Do you have confidence in the supply? Do you know exactly where it was developed and processed? Are you ready to pay out a lot more for organic and natural products?
Be sure you are not getting taken edge of. Use your street perception are their statements of superiority substantiated by a reference, or a very good explanation? Are they creating you scared to use someone else’s item just to influence you to buy their own?
There are tremendous positive aspects to mushrooms as medication and meals. A very good book, website, or regional mushroom club is a excellent area to learn about medicinal mushrooms.