Compiled by Walter Sorochan Posted September 11, 2014; updated October 30, 2021. Disclaimer The information provided below is intended for educational purposes only. It is not meant to either directly or indirectly give medical advice or prescribe treatment. Mushrooms = mycelium The two words mushroom and mycelium are related but different. A mushroom is a fruit part of a fungus that consists of branching, thread-like hyphae, referred to as Mycelium. These hyphae form colonies composed of mycelium found as mold on plants and food, human infections as ringworm, jock itch, toe nail fungus and mostly in and on soil. Mycelium gives rise to a variety of fungi, molds, and mushrooms. We are probably most familiar with mushrooms, for we eat them as a delicacy and as a medicine! This article summarizes research since 1980 about both the mushrooms and its underground network of threadlike mycelium roots. Our interest in mushrooms is basically four-fold: we eat them, we use mushrooms as a medicinal and our recent awareness of using mycelium as a pesticide/herbicide and as a purifier of the environment. There are two kinds of mushrooms that one can can grow — decomposers and symbionts. The first kind, the decomposing fungi, are also called saprophytes, and they are the main type of mushroom considered for gourmet cultivation. These mushrooms include the oyster, lion's mane, hen-of-the-woods, shiitake mushrooms and also portobello, crimini, and button mushrooms, all of the same genus, Agaricus. The second kind of fungi is symbiotic with plants, and like the nitrogen producing bacteria present in the roots of garden peas and clover, they are a common and important part of forest ecosystems. Their mycelial nets, being much finer than plant roots, are able to gather large amounts of water and trace minerals from the soil, which are shared with plant rootlets. For its part, the plant shares the some sugar it produces photosynthetically with the mycelium, and so both organisms benefit. Mushrooms grow from the mycelia and are the fruit or reproductive part of the mycelium network. About 90 % of the mushrooms eaten in USA and Canada are white button mushrooms [ photo on right ]. Even though the white button, crimini, and portabellas are the same species, they have different nutrition profiles. Although the nutrient value of the mushroom changes as it matures, mushroom in general are very nutritional and are an excellent source of protein. The nutritional value of mushrooms can be viewed at the end of this article. List of a few sources of mushroom spawn [seed ] are available at end of this article. Medicine-health enhancing mushrooms in photos below:
Oyster mushrooms are rich in protein (up to 30 percent by dry weight), plentiful in B vitamins, have no cholesterol, and have significant levels of the cholesterol-lowering molecule lovastatin -- up to 2.8 percent by dry weight [Stamets, 2005; Alarcon, 2003]. Stamets: Oyster mushroom & health 2013 ALERT: All mushrooms, with the exception of truffles, should be cooked to best take advantage of their beneficial nutritional properties while deactivating heat-sensitive toxins. Stamets: Oyster mushroom & health 2013 The agaricus genus contain a natural compound agaritine, that has been identified as a carcinogen. According to a study published in the journal Article in Food Additives and Contaminants is no longer active., cooking mushrooms by boiling, frying or microwaving reduces the amount of agaritine between 35 and 70 percent. [ While data using reasonable doses of mushrooms for short periods of time does not prove agaritine to be harmful, it still might be possible that agaritine-containing mushrooms have long-term toxic effects. More studies need to be conducted looking at long-term consumption at functionally relevant doses. ] Meanwhile, this alert information is just that, eating cooked mushrooms is considered to be safe.Paul Stamets: Turkey Tail mushrooms save cancer mom 3:56 mns long: Paul Stamets, mycologist, talks about the antimicrobial properties of fungi, how they can be used as potent insecticides, and how they may help boost the human immune system. Feb 23, 2012 Video Length 11:37 mns:
Health benefits of mushrooms: Stamets: Oyster mushroom & health 2013 Collins: button mushroom benefits Fitzgerald: Mushrooms help immunity 2011 Grube: button mushrooms inhibit cancer 2001 USDA: Boost Immunity With Food and Sun 2010 Mushrooms and mycelia have complex sugars, polysaccharides, that the fungi produce to inhibit the growth of molds and bacteria in a mushroom. These sugars are linked to the medicinal and preventive health properties of mushrooms. Amazing cancer cure case studies with maitake mushroom has been clinically proven to prevent and heal cancer, as well as decrease and even eliminate cancerous tumors. Collins: Maitake mushroom fights cancer Maitake has the ability to lower blood sugar because it naturally contains an alpha glucosidase inhibitor. Collins: Maitake mushroom fights cancer Best cancer prevention mushrooms: Woodear, crimini, oyster, Italian brown, enoki, button, stuffing, shiitake, chanterelle, and Portobello mushrooms were compared to see which was best at inhibiting aromatase enzyme activity and prevent cancer. Video best cancer prevention mushrooms Length 1:42 mns As of June 2014, whole mushrooms or mushroom ingredients were being studied in 32 human clinical trials registered with the US National Institutes of Health for their potential effects on a variety of diseases and normal physiological conditions, including vitamin D deficiency, cancer, bone metabolism, glaucoma, immune functions and inflammatory bowel disease. USNIH: research mushrooms 2014 Mycelium can save the world: The science goes like this: fine filaments of cells called mycelium, the fruit of which are mushrooms, already cover large areas of land around the world. As the mycelium grows, it breaks down plant and animal debris, recycling carbon, nitrogen, and other essential elements in the creation of rich new soil. This is the most important news for fixing burned out crop soils in the world. Article by Upton: Heterokaryosis hypothesis 2014 is no longer active. UDSA: Glomalin restores soil 2002 Stamets has also discovered that the enzymes and acids that mycelium produces to decompose debris are superb at breaking apart hydrocarbons — the base structure common to many plastics and pollutants. So, for instance, when diesel oil–contaminated soil is inoculated with strains of oyster mycelia, the soil loses its toxicity in just eight weeks. This ability of mycelium has been used to restore oil spills on land shores. Mycelium facilitate fruit tree, lawn, crop and vegetable growth when grown in proximity to same. They make accessible nutrients not normally available to plants and transform woody material in soil or on the soil surface into rich hummus. Mycelium [fungus root] holds moisture in the soil and increases the soil food web's resistance to pathogens and imbalance: mycelium in your soil increases its resilience in the face of drought, flooding and pests. Article about Fungi Perfecti removing E Coli 2014 is no longer active. UDSA: Glomalin restores soil 2002 Recent research about mycelium: has new features.... low-tech, ecologically-friendly solutions to restoring earth: 1. regenerate dead soil into living humus soil; restores moisture in
soil, reduces soil acidity 2. has enzymes to decompose plant and animal debris: recycle oil
spills, garbage, recycle waste water, into essential reusable earth
chemicals 3. medical-health benefits: anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial,
anti-viral, anti-tumoral 4. create natural pesticide to control / fight ants, termites 5. detoxifies nuclear radiation "mushroom mycelium is a rich resource of new antimicrobial compounds, which work in concert, helping protecting the mushrooms -- and us -- from microbial pathogens."
Stamets: Oyster mushroom & health 2013
Mushroom expert Paul Stamets explains how mushroom cultivation [mycelium] can
save the world in his book: MYCELIUM RUNNING. Reclaiming desert and wasteland Real Time: A real example of applying fungus to reclaim wasteland and save the world. Professor Alok Adholeya’s
laboratory at TERI University [ The Energy & Resources Institute ], is south from New Delhi, India. As a microbiologist he began in 1974 to reclaim
60 acres of wasteland in India .... that had been ruined by alkali-chlor sludge along the shorelines of Gujarat in the country’s west. The research and reclaimation project took over 20 years.
The surrounding extreme alkaline fields of dust [ pH 11 ] in this region [south of Delhi] are poisonous to most plants, hospitable only for patches of the most rugged and ragged of plant species. Adholeya used mycorrhizae [myco for short] – to reclaim waste land. Myco forms new mycorrhizal bonds between two kingdoms of life
--- plants and fungi. What makes that all the more extraordinary is the fact that fungi are more closely related to animals than they are to plants – both genetically and in the ways they lead their lives. Fungi inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, just like us. They have to eat to survive; they’re no better than we are at photosynthesizing.
Fungi live symbiotically with plants: fungi receive sugar as food in
exchange forgiving soil nutrients and water to plants. Adholeya began by introducing Myco-enriched plants into the harsh earth, planted in a succession of species. The first plants
planted were the hardiest ones, those that were the most tolerant to salty soil.
These included a fruitless variety of a tropical tree that normally produces purple berries known locally as jamun. Poplar trees also went in. By 1993, the team was planting the next wave of species – hardy acacias and bamboo. By
1996, the groundwater was fresh and the land looked much as it does today, vegetated from scratch in less than a decade by embracing the natural union between fungus and plants.
Beneath the grass and under the shadows of rose bushes and bottlebrush trees, myco
is invisibly working its magic. “There are trees and grasses there that are
self-sustained – they’re not watering them,” Adholeya said. “The rainfall is sufficient.” The soil beneath the TERI campus’s green canopies is still yellow and sandy to the touch, but it is healthy – deceptively rich in carbon and no longer severely alkaline. That’s because the myco fungi produced acids that brought the pH level below 8. The acids and enzymes reshaped nutrients in the soil, making them useful for plants. “So-called poor soils have an abundance of non-available nutrients,” Adholeya said. And the soils now contain
glomalin. Discovered by America’s agricultural department in the 1990s, globs of glomalin are carbon-rich hunks of soil produced by myco fungi.
UDSA: Glomalin restores soil 2002
They are used as glue to gum up soil around growing mycelia, creating passageways for nutrients and water. Glomalin permeates organic matter, binding it to silt, sand, and clay particles. Not only does glomalin contain 30 to 40 percent carbon, but it also forms clumps of soil granules called aggregates. These add structure to soil and keep other stored soil carbon from escaping. UDSA: Glomalin restores soil 2002 Adholeya has reclaimed the alkali wasteland with mycelium. Adholeya began rearing plants enriched with myco-infused roots in an onsite nursery.
More recently, TERI had signed an agreement MoU with IOCL on January 24, 2013 to implement a project titled 'Introducing the concept of Nutri-gardens to address rural malnutrition by involving KSKs (Kisan Seva Kendras)' in the tribal regions of Thane district, Maharashtra.
Forests & mycelium: Networks of mycorrhizal fungal mycelium have recently been discovered by Professor Suzanne Simard
and her graduate students, at the University of British Columbia Faculty of
Forestry, that connect to the roots of trees and facilitate the sharing of resources in Douglas-fir forests of interior British Columbia, thereby bolstering their resilience against disturbance or stress and facilitating the establishment of new regenerations.
Mycelium
can grow underground into a small area [like a backyard garden compost bin] or
form a large forest colony or biomes hundreds of miles in size. Through the mycelium a fungus absorbs nutrients from its environment. It does this in a two-stage process. First, the hyphae secrete enzymes onto or into the food source, breaking down
the food into smaller units that can be absorbed into the mycelium [ breaking down leaves, old wood and debri into humus]. Secondly, since the mycelium colonies live symbiotically with the trees and vegetation,
the hyphae connect to the tree or plant roots, thereby providing the tree with food and water and in return, receive sugar from trees. Fungi can convert biomass into plant food: Not appreciated function
of fungi is its ability to convert biomass into compost. Composting can divert municipal solid waste from landfill
into compost, that in turn, can
restore humus into the soil. This means that fungial mycelium can make
unproductive soil become productive!
Fungi Perfecti removing E Coli 2014 Compost is an essential soil amendment and fertilizer for organic farming and gardening.
Article by Eirdosh: backyard grower is no longer active.
Researcher Paul Stamets points out that mycelium can be used to enrich burned
out farming soil as well as help purify waste water.
Fungi Perfecti removing E Coli 2014 There are many varieties of edible mushrooms. Since about 90 %
of the mushrooms eaten in USA and Canada are white button mushrooms, the
nutritive values of these mushrooms is displayed in the tables below: Nutritional Analysis of White Button Mushroom Explanation: Footnotes for Mushrooms, white, raw References: Armstrong W.P., "Amazing Trivia About Plants, Botanical Record-Breakers (Part 1 of 2)
January 26 2014. Article by Armstrong: Plant trivia is no longer active. Baker S. L., "White button mushrooms enhance the immune system to fight infections and cancer," Natural News, August 10, 2010.
Baker: button mushrooms enhance imunity 2010 "Clinical trials, "mushrooms" as search term". Clinicaltrials.gov. US National Institutes of Health, Clinical Trial Registry. June 2014. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
USNIH: research mushrooms 2014 Collins Danica, "Amazing Cancer Cure Case Studies with Maitake Mushroom,"
Collins: Maitake mushroom fights cancer
Collins Danica, "White Button Mushroom Health Benefits Have Been Uncovered," Underground health reporter.
Collins: button mushroom benefits
But the 900 million pounds of mushrooms Americans consume each year are mostly of the Agaricus bisporus variety, which includes regular white mushrooms (button, closed cup, open cup, and large flat) and brown mushrooms (also called chestnut, champignon marron, crimini, and portobello).
Eirdosh Dustin, "Farmers of Fungi - Growing Mushrooms and Mycorrhizae in Your Vegetable Patch," Homestead.
Article by Eirdosh: backyard grower is no longer active. Fitzgerald Patricia, "TEDMED: Can Mushrooms Help the Immune System Fight Cancer? Interview With Paul Stamets, Mycologist," The Huffington Post, November 02, 2011.
Fitzgerald: Mushrooms help immunity 2011 Fungi Perfecti, "FP's Mycofiltration Study Published in the Journal Ecological Engineering Date: July 01, /2014, 08:27; Posted by Fungi Perfecti Posted in: Mycotechnology
Fungi Perfecti removing E Coli 2014 Grube Baiba J, Elizabeth T. Eng, Yeh-Chih Kao, Annette Kwon, and Shiuan Chen, "White Button Mushroom Phytochemicals Inhibit Aromatase Activity and Breast Cancer Cell Proliferation1,2,"
J. Nutr. December 1, 2001, vol. 131 no. 12 3288-3293.
Grube: button mushrooms inhibit cancer 2001 Stamets Paul, "The Mighty Oyster Mushroom: The Workhorse of Gourmet Fungi," The Huffington Post, January 25, 2013.
Stamets: Oyster mushroom & health 2013 Stamets Paul, Mycelium Running - How Mushrooms Can Help Save The World, Book Upton John, "Fungi could help boost crops and slow global warming," Grist, January 14, 2014.
Upton: Fungi boost crops 2014 Upton John, "The Macro of myco," The Ascender Magazine, Issue 4 [Story Cover Photo: Mycelia by Laurel Fan]
Article by Upton: reclaiming deserts into fam land is no longer active. USDA, "Boost Immunity With Food and Sun," US Department of Agriculture, July 1, 2010.
USDA: Boost Immunity With Food and Sun 2010 USDA, "Glomalin: Hiding Place for a Third of the World's Stored Soil Carbon" Agricultural Research magazine,.September 2002.
UDSA: Glomalin restores soil 2002 Wikipedia, "Mycorrhiza." Wiki: plant mycelium link Wild Alissa, "Do Trees Communicate?" Wildness, July 14, 2014.
Wild: trees talk to each other 2014 |