When we believe of mushrooms and the southern Mexico point out of Oaxaca, the first factor which historically comes to mind is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez and hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. But slowly that’s all changing as a consequence of the groundbreaking work of Josefina Jiménez and Johann Mathieu in mycology, by way of their organization, Mico-lógica.

Primarily based in the village of Benito Juárez, positioned in Oaxaca’s Ixtlán district (far more frequently identified as the Sierra Norte, the state’s principal ecotourism area), Mico-lógica’s mission is threefold: to train equally Mexicans and site visitors to the country in the lower-price cultivation of a selection of mushroom species to teach about the medicinal, nutritional and environmental (sustainable) price of mushrooms and to conduct ongoing research with regards to optimum climatic areas and the range of substrata for mushroom lifestyle.

The French-born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and in simple fact to Huautla de Jiménez, in 2005. “Yes, coming all the way to Mexico from France to go after my interest in mushrooms looks like a long way to travel,” Mathieu explained in a recent interview in Oaxaca. “But there truly was not a lot of an possibility to carry out reports and increase a enterprise in Western Europe,” he carries on, “because reverence for mushrooms experienced been all but fully eradicated by The Church over the training course of generations and I discovered that Mexico even now maintains a respect and appreciation for the medicinal and nutritional worth of hongos. Mexico is far from mycophobic.”

Huautla de Jiménez is far more than a 5 hour generate from the closest metropolitan middle. Accordingly, Mathieu sooner or later realized that remaining in Huautla, even though keeping an historic attract and getting in a geographic location conducive to functioning with mushrooms, would hinder his endeavours to grow a business and cultivate prevalent fascination in learning about fungi. Mathieu turned cognizant of the burgeoning reputation of Oaxaca’s ecotourism communities of the Sierra Norte, and certainly the Feria Regional de Hongos Silvestres (regional wild mushroom festival), held every year in Cuahimoloyas.

Mathieu achieved Josefina Jiménez at the summertime weekend mushroom function. Jiménez had moved to Oaxaca from hometown Mexico City in 2002. The two shared equivalent pursuits Jiménez experienced researched agronomy, and for shut to a ten years experienced been functioning with sustainable agriculture projects in rural farming communities in the Huasteca Potosina area of San Luis Potosí, the mountains of Guerrero and the coastline of Chiapas. Mathieu and Jiménez became enterprise, and then lifestyle partners in Benito Juárez.

Mathieu and Jiménez are concentrating on a few mushroom species in their palms-on seminars oyster (seta), shitake and reishi. Their 1-working day workshops are for oyster mushrooms, and two-working day clinics for the latter two species of fungus. “With reishi, and to a lesser extent shitake, we are also training a fair bit about the medicinal uses of mushrooms, so more time is necessary,” claims Mathieu, “and with oyster mushrooms it is predominantly [but not completely] a course on cultivation.”

Although instruction seminars are now only presented in Benito Juárez, Mathieu and Jiménez strategy to grow operations to consist of equally the central valleys and coastal areas of Oaxaca. The object is to have a community of producers growing different mushrooms which are optimally suited for cultivation based mostly on the distinct microclimate. There are about 70 sub-species of oyster mushrooms, and therefore as a species, the adaptability of the oyster mushroom to diverse climatic regions is exceptional. “The oyster can be developed in a multitude of various substrata, and that’s what we are experimenting with proper now,” he elucidates. The oyster mushroom can thrive when grown on items which would or else be waste, this kind of as discard from cultivating beans, sugar cane, agave (like the fibrous waste produced in mezcal distillation), peas, the widespread river reed acknowledged as carriso, sawdust, and the list goes on. Agricultural waste which might otherwise be still left to rot or be burned, each with adverse environmental implications, can form substrata for mushroom cultivation. It should be observed, even though trite, that mushroom cultivation is a hugely sustainable, green industry. In excess of the earlier several a long time Mexico has in truth been at the fore in a lot of regions of sustainable sector.

Mathieu exemplifies how mushrooms can serve an arguably even better environmental very good:

“They can hold up to 30 thousand occasions their mass, having implications for inhibiting erosion. They’ve been used to cleanse up oil spills by way of absorption and thus are an critical motor vehicle for habitat restoration. Analysis has been accomplished with mushrooms in the fight in opposition to carpenter ant destruction it really is been proposed that the use of fungi has the potential to completely revamp the pesticide sector in an environmentally friendly way. There are practically hundreds of other eco-friendly programs for mushroom use, and in every single case the mushroom remains an edible by-item. Consider a seem at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, six Techniques Mushrooms Can Preserve The Entire world.”

Mathieu and Jiménez can often be located offering their products on weekends in the organic markets in Oaxaca. They are equally far more than happy to talk about the dietary value of their items which variety from normally their clean mushrooms, but also as preserves, marinated with either chipotle and nopal or jalapeño and cauliflower. The mushroom’s vitamin B12 are not able to be identified in fruits or veggies, and accordingly a diet which consists of fungi is incredibly critical for vegetarians who cannot get B12, most frequently contained in meats. Mushrooms can simply be a substitute for meats, with the advantage that they are not loaded with antibiotics and hormones frequently found in industrially processed meat merchandise.

Mico-lógica also sell teas and extracts made from different mushroom species, each formulated as both a nutritional health supplement, or for their medicinal houses. Whilst neither Mathieu nor Jiménez has the pharmacological history to prescribe mycological therapy for severe conditions, Mathieu’s very own analysis details to the medicinal use of mushrooms courting from pre-background, to the current. He notes houses of mushrooms which can help to restore the immune system, and thus the use of fungi as a enhance in the treatment method of most cancers and AIDS, and their utility in managing diabetes and managing higher cholesterol.

“We must all be embracing the organic and natural creation of mushrooms,” Mathieu concludes. “It really is so simple, it entails a small capital expenditure, and it offers significant rewards, both for those ingesting hongos for dietary and medicinal causes, and for the producers, even tiny scale. Mico-lógica also sells dried mushrooms. Yet most of the dried mushrooms marketed in Mexico are imported from China, and are not natural. It truly is a real disgrace on many amounts.” puremushroomstores.com