THE MUSHROOM CENTER
Wood vs Grain
Wood vs Grain
The right food makes all the difference
Just like plants and animals, mushrooms need the right food to grow into their best selves.
HOW THEY GROW
In the wild, medicinal mushrooms grow on trees and fallen logs.
Cordyceps is an exception to that rule, it grows on caterpillars.
Cultivated mushrooms for supplements are grown on a variety of substrates from sterilized sawdust to grains.
BENEFITS OF WOOD
Wood contains high amounts of an important compound called lignin.
Lignin composes about 30% of the dry mass of wood.
Lignin is the primary food source for mushrooms.
Mushrooms convert lignin into carbon to use as food.
GRAIN
Grain contains much lower amounts of lignin than wood does.
In addition, grain is lacking in many other compounds that are present in wood and rotting logs.
This results in mushrooms that have lower levels of many beneficial compounds, including beta-d glucan.
In addition, the beta-d glucans in grain-grown mushrooms tend to have fewer branching side chains.
MUCH CHEAPER
It is much cheaper for companies to grow their mushrooms on grain and starch than to use wood.
As you can imagine this is why most companies do this.
STERILIZED SAWDUST
Many mushroom supplements that are made from cultivated mushrooms are grown on sterilized sawdust.
This sawdust is a byproduct of wood mills.
This sawdust lacks the natural variety that comes from the different types of trees that mushrooms would grow on in a forest.
Some mushrooms grow wild on specific trees, which gives them additional benefits.
Chaga mushrooms need to be grown on birch wood to get their full benefits. Chaga mushrooms grown on standard sawdust will not have many of the same benefits as wild chaga grown on birch wood.
So not just wood, but the right type of wood is often important.
Sterilized sawdust does not contain the microorganisms present in fallen logs in the woods, which reduces the amount of environmental stressors the mushrooms are subjected to.
A reduction in environmental stressors will reduce the amount of beneficial compounds produced by the mushrooms.
SUSTAINABILITY
It is important that wild mushrooms are harvested sustainably in order to avoid pushing the mushrooms to extinction.
Knowing exactly who is harvesting them and where they are being harvested is essential to being able to verify the sustainability of a wild mushroom supplement.
FARM-TO-BOTTLE
We are very proud that we can trace all of our mushroom supplements back to their exact source and harvesters.
Knowing exactly where and how your mushrooms were harvested is an important part of our Farm-To-Bottle project.
The only way to know for sure that your mushroom supplements were produced ethically and responsibly is to have 100% traceability.
Without the right food, your mushroom supplement will be sorely lacking. Wood-grown mushrooms are the right choice if you want the best possible mushroom extract.