When we feel of mushrooms and the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca, the 1st issue which typically comes to thoughts is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez and hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. But little by little that’s all shifting as a outcome of the groundbreaking work of Josefina Jiménez and Johann Mathieu in mycology, through their firm, Mico-lógica.

Based in the village of Benito Juárez, situated in Oaxaca’s Ixtlán district (a lot more frequently identified as the Sierra Norte, the state’s principal ecotourism region), Mico-lógica’s mission is threefold: to practice the two Mexicans and visitors to the place in the low-value cultivation of a assortment of mushroom species to teach about the medicinal, nutritional and environmental (sustainable) price of mushrooms and to carry out ongoing research with regards to ideal climatic areas and the variety of substrata for mushroom society.

The French-born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and in reality to Huautla de Jiménez, in 2005. “Yes, coming all the way to Mexico from France to go after my interest in mushrooms looks like a lengthy way to travel,” Mathieu defined in a latest interview in Oaxaca. “But there really wasn’t considerably of an chance to conduct studies and develop a organization in Western Europe,” he carries on, “given that reverence for mushrooms experienced been all but totally eradicated by The Church over the training course of centuries and I uncovered that Mexico even now maintains a regard and appreciation for the medicinal and dietary price of hongos. Mexico is far from mycophobic.”

Huautla de Jiménez is much more than a five hour drive from the closest metropolitan center. Appropriately, ancientpathnaturals.com/collections/amazing-grow-substrates-sterile-and-ready-to-grow at some point recognized that staying in Huautla, while holding an historic allure and becoming in a geographic area conducive to operating with mushrooms, would hinder his attempts to grow a organization and cultivate common curiosity in understanding about fungi. Mathieu turned cognizant of the burgeoning popularity of Oaxaca’s ecotourism communities of the Sierra Norte, and indeed the Feria Regional de Hongos Silvestres (regional wild mushroom pageant), held each year in Cuahimoloyas.

Mathieu satisfied Josefina Jiménez at the summertime weekend mushroom celebration. Jiménez had moved to Oaxaca from hometown Mexico Town in 2002. The two shared related passions Jiménez had analyzed agronomy, and for close to a 10 years had been doing work with sustainable agriculture tasks in rural farming communities in the Huasteca Potosina area of San Luis Potosí, the mountains of Guerrero and the coast of Chiapas. Mathieu and Jiménez turned organization, and then existence companions in Benito Juárez.

Mathieu and Jiménez are concentrating on three mushroom species in their hands-on seminars oyster (seta), shitake and reishi. Their one particular-day workshops are for oyster mushrooms, and two-day clinics for the latter two species of fungus. “With reishi, and to a lesser extent shitake, we are also instructing a reasonable little bit about the medicinal employs of mushrooms, so much more time is necessary,” says Mathieu, “and with oyster mushrooms it truly is predominantly [but not completely] a course on cultivation.”

Whilst training seminars are now only offered in Benito Juárez, Mathieu and Jiménez strategy to grow functions to contain equally the central valleys and coastal regions of Oaxaca. The item is to have a community of producers growing distinct mushrooms which are optimally suited for cultivation primarily based on the distinct microclimate. There are about 70 sub-species of oyster mushrooms, and therefore as a species, the adaptability of the oyster mushroom to various climatic locations is remarkable. “The oyster can be developed in a multitude of various substrata, and that is what we are experimenting with appropriate now,” he elucidates. The oyster mushroom can thrive when developed on items which would or else be squander, such as discard from cultivating beans, sugar cane, agave (such as the fibrous waste developed in mezcal distillation), peas, the common river reed recognized as carriso, sawdust, and the record goes on. Agricultural waste which may in any other case be left to rot or be burned, each with adverse environmental implications, can type substrata for mushroom cultivation. It need to be famous, however trite, that mushroom cultivation is a very sustainable, environmentally friendly market. Over the previous a number of several years Mexico has in fact been at the fore in many locations of sustainable sector.

Mathieu exemplifies how mushrooms can serve an arguably even greater environmental good:

“They can maintain up to 30 thousand times their mass, possessing implications for inhibiting erosion. They’ve been utilised to clear up oil spills through absorption and thus are an essential automobile for habitat restoration. Investigation has been completed with mushrooms in the fight against carpenter ant destruction it really is been suggested that the use of fungi has the potential to fully revamp the pesticide market in an environmentally welcoming way. There are actually hundreds of other eco-welcoming purposes for mushroom use, and in each scenario the mushroom remains an edible by-product. Just take a search at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, 6 Techniques Mushrooms Can Help save The World.”

Mathieu and Jiménez can often be identified selling their merchandise on weekends in the organic and natural marketplaces in Oaxaca. They’re the two a lot more than pleased to talk about the dietary value of their merchandise which selection from normally their refreshing mushrooms, but also as preserves, marinated with either chipotle and nopal or jalapeño and cauliflower. The mushroom’s vitamin B12 cannot be identified in fruits or greens, and appropriately a diet regime which contains fungi is extremely crucial for vegetarians who are not able to get B12, most often contained in meats. Mushrooms can simply be a substitute for meats, with the benefit that they are not loaded with antibiotics and hormones typically found in industrially processed meat merchandise.

Mico-lógica also offer teas and extracts produced from various mushroom species, each and every formulated as possibly a nutritional health supplement, or for their medicinal qualities. While neither Mathieu nor Jiménez has the pharmacological history to prescribe mycological treatment method for severe conditions, Mathieu’s own research details to the medicinal use of mushrooms relationship from pre-historical past, to the existing. He notes houses of mushrooms which can support to restore the immune system, and therefore the use of fungi as a complement in the treatment method of cancer and AIDS, and their utility in managing diabetic issues and managing high cholesterol.

“We need to all be embracing the natural and organic generation of mushrooms,” Mathieu concludes. “It is so straightforward, it entails a minimal cash investment decision, and it gives significant rewards, each for people ingesting hongos for nutritional and medicinal factors, and for the producers, even modest scale. Mico-lógica also sells dried mushrooms. However most of the dried mushrooms sold in Mexico are imported from China, and are not organic and natural. It’s a genuine disgrace on several stages.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *