Mushrooms: Culinary, Wellness and Psychedelic

They come in all sizes and shapes, most of their body exists underground, and estimates guess there are around 14,000 of them and counting.

What are they? They’re the fruiting members of the two to three million fungi species that produce what we call mushrooms. Some are delicious to eat and beneficial for your health, Some are poisonous and can kill you quickly. Some are too hard or bitter to eat but are rich in wellness compounds that extract into hot water. Some expand your mind and produce visions of other realms!

Mushrooms play an essential role in both nature and our health. They decompose leaves, dead trees and other organic matter in the forest to turn it all into nutritious soil. Full of vitamins, minerals, polysaccharides, terpenes, proteins and antioxidants, mushrooms can have profound effects on our health, immunity and longevity. They bring us unique compounds from the nature kingdom which aren’t available in any other food we eat.

Culinary mushrooms and their umami flavor

It used to be the only mushrooms you could find in the grocery store were white button mushrooms. Then came the cremini mushrooms, with their brown caps and richer flavor. Following them, portobello mushrooms, which are full grown creminis, became widespread in the mushroom set and desirable as the yummy meat alternative for vegetarians. 

The first exotic Asian mushrooms to become popular in the USA were the shiitake mushrooms, introducing their buttery umami flavor, the fifth taste after sweet, salty, bitter and sour, to the American palate. “Umami” denotes a ‘pleasant savory flavor’ in Japanese. Shiitakes, with their slightly smokey and meaty texture, are perfect in stir fries, soups, sauces and vegetarian dishes.

Now if you shop in a specialty food store, you’re likely to find a big range of mushrooms that come in all sizes and shapes from slender enoki mushrooms, to frilly maitake mushrooms, to many colors of oyster mushrooms. If you haven’t yet been adventurous in your mushroom consumption, now’s the time to start experimenting and here’s why: 

Mushrooms are one of the best sources of Vitamin D in our diets after fatty fish and egg yolks. Hard to find minerals like selenium and zinc are concentrated in mushrooms because they can absorb minerals from soils rich in organic matter and also from dust settling on mushroom caps. These rare minerals have become increasingly hard to get from our diet because our topsoil has been depleted by industrial agricultural practices. 

Mushrooms can improve the efficiency and help maintain a strong immune system.  At the same time, they  are also helping to protect the cells’ DNA to promote longevity, which is why they are so highly reputed in the Asian diet.

Last but not least are the wild mushrooms that won’t adapt to cultivation and they’re one of the best wild foods you can enjoy. Think of truffles, those prized mushrooms that hide from predators underground and give unparalleled umami flavor to Italian dishes. Porcini mushrooms, which only grow symbiotically on the roots of pine trees in forests, and chanterelles, another symbiotic forest mushroom with their delicate fruity flavor, have to be foraged for in the wild. 

But watch out. It can be easy to mistake a wild edible mushroom for a poisonous one. Wild mushrooms are so valued in Europe that towns have their local mycologist, or mushroom specialists, inspect the harvests of their inhabitants so they don’t accidently get poisoned by mistakenly picking and eating the wrong variety.

Wellness or medicinal mushrooms are valued all over the world

The group of mushrooms called medicinal mushrooms includes species found across the globe and revered for thousands of years in many different cultures. The tradition of eating many different mushroom species is found in Asian cultures, among native people living In the arboreal forests of N. America and Europe, and in indigenous tribes in the rainforests of Central and South America.  

At Teeccino, we like to call them ‘wellness’ mushrooms to distinguish them from mushrooms that have psychoactive properties and are used medicinally for mental health. You may also hear of them referred to as ‘functional’ mushrooms but many people aren’t familiar with that term which is more commonly used by industry.

Chaga, reishi, lion’s mane, cordyceps, turkey tail and tremella are all wellness mushrooms that, with the exception of lion’s mane, are not edible in culinary dishes. Teeccino utilizes each one of these wellness mushrooms as an extract to make their nutrients easy to absorb from drinking a brewed liquid. 

Many brands market these newly popular mushrooms by calling out a singular function for each one to make it simple for customers to understand their use. The truth is that all the wellness mushrooms have adaptogenic properties that reduce stress, increase energy, and endurance, protect against illness, and possibly increase longevity. Yes, you can identify a special function like lion’s mane for enhanced cognition or turkey tail for prebiotic gut health, but truly their complex contribution to one’s health can’t be covered by such simplistic concepts.

Designing Teeccino’s Mushroom Adaptogen blends for optimal health

When I designed Teeccino’s Mushroom Adaptogen blends, I decided to pair a single wellness mushroom with an adaptogenic herb to guarantee that an effective dose of each ingredient would be in every cup. Other brands combine multiple mushrooms in a single mushroom product but compromise their impact by lowering the content of each ingredient. 

The biggest controversary in the mushroom industry is the exclusive use of mycelium by many brands without the inclusion of the mushroom’s fruiting body.  The fruiting body is what we commonly think of as a mushroom, the part that grows above ground and produces spores for reproduction. It’s what we eat when we eat a mushroom. Mycelium, which you can think of as a mushroom’s roots and branches growing underneath the ground, doesn’t have the long history of use that exists for fruiting bodies. It also hasn’t been studied for very long. 

Adding to the controversy about mycelium is the fact that it is usually grown on grains like rice and oats. Approximately 40% of the mycelium that is grown on these grains remains as starch which hasn’t been converted to mycelium. 

My research, however, led me to respect mycelium as new studies emerge about its health benefits and particularly its potential impact on immunity. Mycelium itself can live for hundreds, even thousands of years. With diverse cultivation methods now being developed, mycelium has endless applications beyond being a superfood. Scientists have turned mycelium into a meat alternative, construction materials, fake leather, and a plastic replacement. 

Finding a superior source of mycelium that didn’t contain such a high quantity of starch led me to sorghum as the best substrate for its growth. Sorghum is more completely digested by mycelium resulting in over 90% conversion. Thus, I decided to include both the fruiting bodies and the mycelium in our Teeccino Mushroom Adaptogen blends in order to be sure that all the health benefits of the entire fungus would be in each cup of Teeccino.

Ergo, the super nutrient for longevity

The most exciting new research into wellness mushrooms involves a naturally occurring amino acid called Ergothioneine, or “Ergo” for short, that is found in substantial quantities in mushroom fruiting bodies. Our bodies have a special transporter in our digestive tract for Ergo that takes this antioxidant and anti-inflammatory protein directly to cells that need help. 

If you’d like to learn more about Ergo and its beneficial effects, please read my blog post, Mushrooms, Longevity and Immunity. I’m super excited about enhancing our health with Ergo!

To learn more about the health benefits of each of the mushrooms used in Teeccino’s blends, check out our Wellness Mushroom ingredient page . 

Psychedelic Mushrooms are going mainstream

Although psychedelic mushrooms including psilocybin, peyote and Amanita muscaria are still illegal to possess or consume and are listed on the FDA’s Schedule lll Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, researchers finally have been given permission to study these amazing mushrooms. 

In 1999, a John’s Hopkins University professor, the psychopharmacologist, Roland Griffiths, who also pioneered the work proving that caffeine is addictive and produces withdrawal symptoms, led the research into the beneficial effects of journeying with psilocybin. Now studies have burgeoned in both the US and Europe. There is an expectation that psilocybin mushrooms along with other psychoactive substances such as MDMA and LSD will be legalized eventually.  For good reason though, the FDA is very cautious because it is unclear how to best control their distribution. 

Nevertheless, early results of treating PTSD and trauma-related disorders as well as end-of-life anxiety in the terminally ill with psychoactive doses of psilocybin look very promising. Larger studies are underway with better controls to prove safety and efficacy. Everyone agrees that “set and setting” – meaning working beforehand to set  intentions and then journeying in a safe, secure space – are essential to getting the best therapeutic results. 

Alongside doses that produce psychedelic experiences, there is an increasing trend to experiment with micro quantities or “microdoses” of psilocybin. An online survey of nearly 9,000 people around the world who use microdoses, found a variety of motivations including reducing depression and anxiety, improving mood, and enhancing mindfulness, cognition, learning and creativity. 

Comparing people who had experience with microdosing with people who have never microdosed, all of whom reported mental health concerns, those taking microdoses reported lower levels of depression, anxiety and stress. The difference was small but significant. Of course there were no controls for how much or how often people microdosed or even of the quality of the ingredient itself, but this large survey at least gives researchers food for thought on constructing future studies.

 As of January 2023, Oregon legalized psilocybin for use in therapeutic settings with a licensed practitioner. The clinics are just getting under way but the hope is that Oregon will serve as a model for how the rest of the country can responsibly handle legalizing psychedelic therapy. The cost of individual sessions, which can last 5 or more hours with a therapist, is high but compared to the steep cost of dysfunctional lives and the suffering involved for all, supporting psychedelic therapy could play a very significant role in the challenging mental health problems society is experiencing today.

Choose your best way to get health benefits from mushrooms 

I hope this article has offered you a number of ways to include more mushrooms in your life to receive their many benefits for your health. Be adventurous in your cuisine and taste new mushroom species. Recipes for how to cook with them are easily found on cooking blogs.

Drink mushroom coffees and teas like Teeccino Mushroom Adaptogen blends to see the effect wellness mushrooms have on your energy and health. It usually takes drinking them consistently for a period of time to notice the difference they make, but by doing so, you’ll experience the reason why they’ve been revered for thousands of years!