Healing Mushrooms: A Practical and Culinary Guide to Using Mushrooms for Whole Body Health / Tero Isaukappila, 2017. Avery an imprint of Penguin Random House. 212 pages, illustrations in color and black and white.
Mushrooms, a kind of food that has somewhat mysterious origins are actually alive and living beneath us almost everywhere on earth. Chances are, if you’re barefoot in the great outdoors, standing on a grassy spot, in a forest, even at the water’s edge, roots are growing right under your feet. Just a few inches out of sight, roots for all kinds of plants, with mushrooms being more plentiful than green plants, are alive and well.
Mushrooms are ancient fungi that have developed and adapted their lifestyles to be that of provider, messenger and synthesizer. They are the support, natural fertilizer, and caretakers of the green-leaved plants, the ones we are familiar with as food sources. Green-leaved plants are all dependent in some way on mushroom roots.
Author Tero Isokauppila describes an area in Oregon that is known for having mushroom roots (called mycelium) growing under the topsoil in an area that’s over 2,000 acres in size! These mycelium, or roots are an organism about 2,000 years old at least.
That’s interesting for the green plants, but what about for human consumption of nutrients? What’s in mushroom roots for them?
Well, apparently there’s not as much nutrition in the roots as you find in the bodies of mushrooms according to Isokauppila—the part of the mushroom that grows into its characteristic toadstool or other unique shape above-ground and on dead or decaying barks of trees. That part of the mushroom, the fruiting body, is what humans have traditionally eaten, made their livelihoods from, or used for medicinal purposes.
Healing Mushrooms: A Practical and Culinary Guide to Using Mushrooms for Whole Body Health by Tero Isokauppila is a resource for the medicinal effects of ten mushrooms that are either found in the wild or are grown commercially in the U.S. and many countries world-wide. Author Isokauppila provides the science behind those odd-shaped, smooth or wrinkled-skinned, tail-less or not, fungi (mushrooms are a kind of fungi) we often see in variety on the produce shelves of supermarkets, even at the farmer’s markets, in season. And then there are mushrooms that while available for purchase through certain venues, are not regularly seen in stores: these include Chaga (grows on birch and other trees), Reishi, Turkey Tail, Lion’s Mane, Snow Fungus and Sun Agaric—although they may be found in health food stores, online, or even by foraging if you’re in the right place at the right time.
Medicinal mushrooms can supply substances that are needed for the adaptogenic response. Some of these are polysaccharides that moderate our response to invading organisms, viruses, etc., substances such as immunomodulators, beta-glucans and terpenes, anti-infection substances that have an affinity to fat in the body. All of these substances contribute to maintaining wellness, warding off disease and keeping the body immune from pathogens. Each of the ten has correspondence for a function of the body. Premier anti-oxidants, immunity boosting, mood-regulating, memory enhancing, blood sugar controlling, skin quality increasing, cancer fighting, age-reducing are some of the affects available from medicinal mushrooms.
Recipes in Healing Mushrooms are distributed by their best-known therapeutic property. But making and drinking Chaga Chai will have you enjoying a smooth cup of spicey brew rather than thinking you are having to drink your medicine for chronic inflammation. And Chaga aspic or jelly is another way to get an immune boost from a sweet- or savory-flavored gelatin (or agar, as you like). Mushroom Butter Coffee, Lion’s Mane Latte, or Reishi Cappuccino caps any delicious meal or treat by themselves for memory-boosting, mood, energy-building or weight-loss—depending on which mushroom is in the brew. Add a chocolate-mushroom treat or two from the recipe section, you’ll be impressed with your own gourmet style.
For a description of each of the ten medicinal mushrooms, highlighting what properties they have for the human body’s wellbeing as well as 50 recipes for you to enjoy these mushrooms in day to day fare, see Healing Mushrooms by Tero Isokauppila. Need more convincing? See the website at Four Sigmatic for more.
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