Reishi Mushrooms – A Forest Treasure

Ganoderma Mushroom Almost as Old as the World Itself

Back in 1400 AD, you might have loved the Reishi medicinal mushroom so much that you had paintings of it on your walls in your home. If you’re a woman, you may have even made sure that your dresses or pajamas had images of this wonderful medicine on them.

The history of this mushroom, called Ganoderma lucidum in Latin, goes back more than 2000 years. That’s how old the mushroom is!

And here’s a photo where Reishi really was quite old – and quite large. This mushroom is just about as large as the man is!

Wow, that’s a lot of therapeutic effects… maybe for a good decade. What a great legacy for the family!

One of the World’s Oldest Medicines

Reishi was considered the first ‘pharmaceutical’ drug in China in the Ming dynasty. It was prescribed for those with heart problems, memory problems, those dragging their body around in fatigue, and those who thought ahead of their time and simply wanted to live a good life into old age.

But that wasn’t all. Let’s say you had a cough, or worse yet, asthma. Chinese medical doctors would write the prescription for Reishi mushrooms. Are you short of breath? Dizzy? Can’t sleep? Reishi was the solution.

The problem back then was that you could only afford the sacred fungus if you were in the upper class of society. Soon though, the mushroom started becoming a popular traditional medicine in Asia and the entire world heard about it.

What Reishi Mushrooms Look Like

Reishi mushrooms have a shiny surface. They look almost like a little fan and can be red, black, blue/green, white, yellow and purple. The concentric rings on it make it artistically appealing to most people. The black version is popular in South China; the red one in Japan.

The other colors are found throughout the world. The different colors are indicative of a particular species, and there are many different species of this mushroom.

There are several thousand tons produced annually worldwide, with much growth in the market for double that.

What’s available are powders, dietary supplements, and tea. These are produced from different parts of the mushroom, including mycelia, spores, and fruit body.

You can also find specific products that extracted some of the medicinal ingredients from the shrooms such as triterpenes or polysaccharides. These are extracted with water or alcohol and then evaporated so they can be encapsulated.

The goals of many who take supplements include: • reduce inflammation in the body • bring down blood sugar levels • reduce symptoms of ulcer • stimulate the immune system after noticing signs of cold or flu • use it as an adjunct to other natural healing methods to ‘dry up’ tumors • reverse liver disease • anti-viral activity

All these effects are possible because of the polysaccharides in the Reishi mushrooms. All that’s required to make them bioactive is extract them with water or alcohol.

What To Do With Reishi Mushrooms

You can make tea with the powder form of Reishi, add it to coffee without worrying about it affecting the flavor that much, and even get creative and add it to recipes.

For example, you could make tea first, and then use that tea to replace water in a recipe for cupcakes, muffins, or cake. You could make chocolate for dipping berries and add the powder at the very end of the cooking time.

What About the Triterpenes in Reishi?

The triterpenes associated from Ganoderma lucidum include ganoderic acids A and B, ganoderals, ganoderiols, and 100 more, each with their own names.

They are all based on lanostane, a metabolite of lanosterol. More than four dozen are unique to the Reishi mushroom and not seen anywhere else in foods or plants. These triterpenes give Reishi its antioxidant and cholesterol-lowering effects. Triterpenes also give a bit of a bitter taste.

Commercial Growers

Cultivating Reishi mushrooms started in the 1970s, and growers found it was relatively easy to grow them on grain, sawdust, wood logs and cork.

Even those who start mushroom growing in a garage on their property or on their farm will use these types of bags to start the prolific Reishi mushroom farms.

They set up the simple bags and out pops the mushroom. It’s pretty much guaranteed that the crop will come.

All growers have to provide a temperature for the mushrooms between 30 and 35 degrees Celsius (86 to 95 degrees F), a pH of 4-4.5 and add some fatty acids, and they grow like wild.

Imagine what it’s like to grow them and to walk down the aisle of your mushroom room seeing them growing out, waiting to be plucked off the bag.

They are treasures in and of themselves, waiting to be used.

Check out some of our other articles on Reishi. Plant a seed of hope for your health by learning all about this wonderful mushroom.

Reference: Wachtel-Galor, S., Yuen, J., Buswell, J.A., et al. Chapter 9. Ganoderma lucidum (Lingzhi or Reishi). A Medicinal Mushroom. Found in Herbal Medicine: Biomolecular and Clinical Aspects. 2nd Edition. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92757/