Where Do Our Medicinal Mushrooms Come From?
5 minute read
Bringing you the best plant-based ingredients in the world means sourcing them from where they grow naturally and thrive. In the case of medicinal mushrooms, that environment is China. Let’s explore the amazing world of mushrooms, their origins and why we source all of our mushroom extracts from where they were first grown - China.
Why Are our Mushrooms Cultivated and Not Grown in the Wild?
Most exotic and medicinal mushrooms are extremely rare to find naturally in the wild, due to the specific conditions they need for growth. This also makes it hard to grow mushrooms in countries where you would not normally find them.
Things like humidity, temperature, light, moisture levels and even substrates available for mushrooms to grow on all impact their availability. These exacting requirements vary between species – of which there are estimated to be 140,000 on Earth!
What’s more, worldwide consumption of edible, medicinal and wild mushrooms has increased more than 30-fold since 1978. So, in order to keep up with growing demand for an already rare product, the vast majority of mushrooms are now cultivated on mushroom farms, usually in the countries and climates where they grow naturally in smaller yields.
Why Do We Source Our Mushrooms From China?
The deepest roots of mushrooms can be traced back to China, where they have been utilised as a food and functional medicine for thousands of years. Mushrooms have been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) since ancient times, when they were available exclusively to Chinese Emperors and their family.
More recently, China was the first country to begin cultivating mushrooms for the masses, starting in the early 13th century. Fast forward to the modern day and China is now the leading grower of mushrooms globally and produces 85% of the world’s mushrooms.
Sourcing our mushrooms from China allows them to be grown from their natural substrates as they have been for centuries, as opposed to growing them using grain substrates like rice and oats. These would not normally have anything to do with the actual mushroom itself and can affect the resultant mushroom's quality. Currently, China is the only country in the world where you can source mushroom extracts derived from real mushroom fruiting bodies.
Everything You Need to Know About Where We Source Our Medicinal Mushrooms
Using real mushrooms to make our extracts may be more expensive and time-consuming, but it is the best way to bring you their potent active ingredients with 100% transparency and unrivalled quality. Here’s what makes our mushrooms the very best you can get:
🇨🇳 Sourced from China
All of our mushroom extracts are sourced directly from China. The highest quality mushrooms tend to come from relatively small geographical locations, where the local microclimate supports their optimal growth. So, we get our mushrooms from our partnered Organic family farms in the beautiful mountainous scenery of China.
🌱 Certified Organic
We source our extracts from farms which have cultivated Organic mushrooms for almost 20 years. Many consumers worry that ingredients from overseas may not match up to organic standards here in the UK, but we work with the best producers who have international Organic certification.
🔬 Lab Tested
Our mushrooms are lab tested at all points of the manufacturing process to ensure both quality and purity. Each batch is tested for over 500 pesticide residues, 4 heavy metals and also microbial contaminants, to ensure nothing but 100% pure mushroom extract reaches us here in the UK.
🍄 Hot Water Extracted
Hot water extraction is the process we use to get the optimal nutrition from all our mushrooms in the most potent, bioavailable form. It is an age-old method used by herbalists and traditional medics to make a full-spectrum preparation known as a tincture.
This results in a mushroom extract that is rich in health-boosting beta-glucans, polysaccharides and triterpenes - at a potency you simply wouldn’t get with mushroom teas, fresh mushrooms or cooked mushrooms.
😇 100% Pure Mushroom Extract
You won’t find any hidden nasty ingredients such as bulking agents, fillers or artificial additives or preservatives in any of our mushroom extracts – or across our entire superfood blend range in fact! Just 100% organic, pure and natural mushroom extracts for the most bioavailable and potent active ingredients possible.
We believe that sourcing our mushrooms directly from their natural home in the mountains of China enables us to bring you the safest, cleanest and highest quality mushroom extracts available. We use Lion's Mane, Cordyceps, Reishi & Chaga mushrooms in our superfood blends and mushroom coffees, each chosen for their unique properties - try yours today to start enjoying the benefits of the very best medicinal mushrooms!
References
Global Trends in Medicinal Mushroom Consumption - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781119149446.ch2
Current Overview of Mushroom Cultivation - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319118795_Current_Overview_of_Mushroom_Production_in_the_World_Technology_and_Applications
Neuronal Health: Can Culinary and Medicinal Mushrooms Help? - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3924982/
Analysis of Several Heavy Metals in Wild Edible Mushrooms from Regions of China - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00128-009-9767-8
Use of Functional Mushrooms in Traditional Chinese Medicine - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3942920/
