When we think of mushrooms and the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca, the first factor which usually arrives to mind is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez and hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. But slowly and gradually that is all shifting as a result of the groundbreaking operate of Josefina Jiménez and Johann Mathieu in mycology, through their firm, Mico-lógica.

Primarily based in the village of Benito Juárez, positioned in Oaxaca’s Ixtlán district (a lot more commonly identified as the Sierra Norte, the state’s main ecotourism region), Mico-lógica’s mission is threefold: to prepare each Mexicans and website visitors to the country in the minimal-value cultivation of a assortment of mushroom species to educate about the medicinal, nutritional and environmental (sustainable) worth of mushrooms and to perform ongoing research relating to the best possible climatic areas and the diversity of substrata for mushroom lifestyle.

The French-born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and in simple fact to Huautla de Jiménez, in 2005. “Indeed, coming all the way to Mexico from France to go after my curiosity in mushrooms would seem like a lengthy way to journey,” Mathieu explained in a recent interview in Oaxaca. “But there genuinely was not considerably of an chance to carry out studies and grow a organization in Western Europe,” he carries on, “given that reverence for mushrooms experienced been all but completely eradicated by The Church above the system of generations and I uncovered that Mexico still maintains a respect and appreciation for the medicinal and dietary value of hongos. Mexico is considerably from mycophobic.”

Huautla de Jiménez is much more than a five hour travel from the closest metropolitan centre. Accordingly, Mathieu sooner or later understood that keeping in Huautla, whilst holding an historic attract and being in a geographic area conducive to doing work with mushrooms, would hinder his endeavours to increase a company and cultivate popular curiosity in learning about fungi. hero chocolate mushroom grew to become cognizant of the burgeoning reputation of Oaxaca’s ecotourism communities of the Sierra Norte, and indeed the Feria Regional de Hongos Silvestres (regional wild mushroom festival), held each year in Cuahimoloyas.

Mathieu satisfied Josefina Jiménez at the summertime weekend mushroom occasion. Jiménez experienced moved to Oaxaca from hometown Mexico Metropolis in 2002. The two shared related pursuits Jiménez experienced studied agronomy, and for shut to a 10 years had been doing work with sustainable agriculture tasks in rural farming communities in the Huasteca Potosina location of San Luis Potosí, the mountains of Guerrero and the coastline of Chiapas. Mathieu and Jiménez turned enterprise, and then life companions in Benito Juárez.

Mathieu and Jiménez are concentrating on 3 mushroom species in their arms-on seminars oyster (seta), shitake and reishi. Their one particular-working day workshops are for oyster mushrooms, and two-day clinics for the latter two species of fungus. “With reishi, and to a lesser extent shitake, we are also educating a truthful little bit about the medicinal employs of mushrooms, so much more time is essential,” says Mathieu, “and with oyster mushrooms it truly is predominantly [but not exclusively] a course on cultivation.”

Even though coaching seminars are now only given in Benito Juárez, Mathieu and Jiménez plan to increase functions to consist of each the central valleys and coastal regions of Oaxaca. The item is to have a network of producers developing distinct mushrooms which are optimally suited for cultivation based mostly on the particular microclimate. There are about 70 sub-species of oyster mushrooms, and therefore as a species, the adaptability of the oyster mushroom to diverse climatic areas is remarkable. “The oyster can be developed in a multitude of various substrata, and which is what we’re experimenting with appropriate now,” he elucidates. The oyster mushroom can prosper when grown on items which would in any other case be waste, this sort of as discard from cultivating beans, sugar cane, agave (including the fibrous squander developed in mezcal distillation), peas, the frequent river reed recognized as carriso, sawdust, and the list goes on. Agricultural squander which may possibly otherwise be left to rot or be burned, every with adverse environmental implications, can type substrata for mushroom cultivation. It need to be noted, although trite, that mushroom cultivation is a very sustainable, inexperienced sector. More than the past a number of a long time Mexico has in truth been at the fore in a lot of places of sustainable sector.

Mathieu exemplifies how mushrooms can provide an arguably even greater environmental excellent:

“They can keep up to 30 thousand moments their mass, obtaining implications for inhibiting erosion. They’ve been utilised to clean up oil spills by means of absorption and thus are an crucial vehicle for habitat restoration. Research has been completed with mushrooms in the battle in opposition to carpenter ant destruction it’s been recommended that the use of fungi has the potential to fully revamp the pesticide sector in an environmentally welcoming way. There are practically hundreds of other eco-pleasant applications for mushroom use, and in each situation the mushroom stays an edible by-solution. Just take a search at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, 6 Techniques Mushrooms Can Conserve The World.”

Mathieu and Jiménez can typically be found offering their products on weekends in the organic and natural marketplaces in Oaxaca. They’re each more than satisfied to discuss the nutritional price of their items which variety from by natural means their fresh mushrooms, but also as preserves, marinated with both chipotle and nopal or jalapeño and cauliflower. The mushroom’s vitamin B12 can’t be discovered in fruits or vegetables, and appropriately a diet plan which contains fungi is extremely crucial for vegetarians who are not able to get B12, most typically contained in meats. Mushrooms can effortlessly be a substitute for meats, with the gain that they are not loaded with antibiotics and hormones frequently located in industrially processed meat items.

Mico-lógica also offer teas and extracts manufactured from various mushroom species, every formulated as either a dietary health supplement, or for their medicinal homes. While neither Mathieu nor Jiménez has the pharmacological track record to prescribe mycological remedy for severe illnesses, Mathieu’s own study factors to the medicinal use of mushrooms relationship from pre-history, to the present. He notes houses of mushrooms which can help to restore the immune system, and hence the use of fungi as a complement in the therapy of cancer and AIDS, and their utility in managing diabetes and managing higher cholesterol.

“We should all be embracing the natural creation of mushrooms,” Mathieu concludes. “It really is so straightforward, it entails a nominal cash investment, and it provides substantial rewards, both for these ingesting hongos for dietary and medicinal causes, and for the producers, even modest scale. Mico-lógica also sells dried mushrooms. Yet most of the dried mushrooms sold in Mexico are imported from China, and are not organic. It really is a actual shame on numerous amounts.”

Mexico and mushrooms have occur a lengthy way because the period of Oaxaca’s María Sabina. With the continued efforts of Mathieu, Jiménez and Mico-lógica, it should not be prolonged just before the entire world understands and embraces the magic of mushrooms in a considerably broader context.