When we consider of mushrooms and the southern Mexico point out of Oaxaca, the first thing which traditionally will come to mind is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez and hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. But slowly and gradually that is all shifting as a end result of the groundbreaking perform of Josefina Jiménez and Johann Mathieu in mycology, by means of their company, Mico-lógica.
Dependent in the village of Benito Juárez, positioned in Oaxaca’s Ixtlán district (more commonly known as the Sierra Norte, the state’s main ecotourism location), Mico-lógica’s mission is threefold: to teach both Mexicans and guests to the place in the reduced-cost cultivation of a assortment of mushroom species to teach about the medicinal, dietary and environmental (sustainable) value of mushrooms and to perform ongoing analysis with regards to optimum climatic locations and the diversity of substrata for mushroom society.
The French-born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and in reality to Huautla de Jiménez, in 2005. “Sure, coming all the way to Mexico from France to go after my fascination in mushrooms appears like a lengthy way to vacation,” Mathieu described in a modern interview in Oaxaca. “But there actually was not considerably of an possibility to perform scientific studies and develop a business in Western Europe,” he proceeds, “since reverence for mushrooms had been all but entirely eradicated by The Church over the training course of centuries and I uncovered that Mexico even now maintains a respect and appreciation for the medicinal and dietary value of hongos. Mexico is far from mycophobic.”
Huautla de Jiménez is far more than a 5 hour drive from the closest metropolitan center. Accordingly, Mathieu ultimately understood that remaining in Huautla, even though holding an historic attract and being in a geographic region conducive to functioning with mushrooms, would hinder his initiatives to increase a enterprise and cultivate widespread fascination in understanding about fungi. Mathieu became cognizant of the burgeoning popularity of Oaxaca’s ecotourism communities of the Sierra Norte, and indeed the Feria Regional de Hongos Silvestres (regional wild mushroom festival), held annually in Cuahimoloyas.
Mathieu satisfied Josefina Jiménez at the summertime weekend mushroom event. Jiménez had moved to Oaxaca from hometown Mexico Metropolis in 2002. The two shared similar passions Jiménez experienced researched agronomy, and for shut to a 10 years had been doing work with sustainable agriculture tasks in rural farming communities in the Huasteca Potosina region of San Luis Potosí, the mountains of Guerrero and the coastline of Chiapas. hero chocolate mushroom and Jiménez became company, and then lifestyle partners 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 training a truthful bit about the medicinal uses of mushrooms, so more time is required,” says Mathieu, “and with oyster mushrooms it’s predominantly [but not completely] a training course on cultivation.”
While training seminars are now only provided in Benito Juárez, Mathieu and Jiménez program to increase functions to contain equally the central valleys and coastal areas of Oaxaca. The item is to have a community of producers growing diverse mushrooms which are optimally suited for cultivation dependent on the particular microclimate. There are about 70 sub-species of oyster mushrooms, and thus as a species, the adaptability of the oyster mushroom to distinct climatic locations is impressive. “The oyster can be developed in a multitude of diverse substrata, and that’s what we are experimenting with appropriate now,” he elucidates. The oyster mushroom can thrive when grown on merchandise which would otherwise be squander, this kind of as discard from cultivating beans, sugar cane, agave (such as the fibrous waste made in mezcal distillation), peas, the common river reed identified as carriso, sawdust, and the list goes on. Agricultural waste which could normally be remaining to rot or be burned, each with adverse environmental implications, can type substrata for mushroom cultivation. It ought to be noted, though trite, that mushroom cultivation is a very sustainable, environmentally friendly market. Above the earlier several a long time Mexico has in truth been at the fore in several places of sustainable market.
Mathieu exemplifies how mushrooms can provide an arguably even higher environmental very good:
“They can maintain up to thirty thousand occasions their mass, possessing implications for inhibiting erosion. They have been used to cleanse up oil spills via absorption and as a result are an essential motor vehicle for habitat restoration. Study has been completed with mushrooms in the fight from carpenter ant destruction it truly is been suggested that the use of fungi has the possible to entirely revamp the pesticide market in an environmentally pleasant way. There are literally hundreds of other eco-friendly apps for mushroom use, and in every case the mushroom stays an edible by-merchandise. Consider a look at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, six Approaches Mushrooms Can Help save The Globe.”
Mathieu and Jiménez can typically be identified promoting their products on weekends in the natural and organic markets in Oaxaca. They are both a lot more than pleased to examine the dietary worth of their items which range from in a natural way their clean mushrooms, but also as preserves, marinated with both chipotle and nopal or jalapeño and cauliflower. The mushroom’s vitamin B12 cannot be found in fruits or greens, and accordingly a diet program which contains fungi is very essential for vegetarians who are not able to get B12, most usually contained in meats. Mushrooms can very easily be a substitute for meats, with the benefit that they are not loaded with antibiotics and hormones usually identified in industrially processed meat goods.
Mico-lógica also sell teas and extracts produced from distinct mushroom species, every formulated as possibly a nutritional health supplement, or for their medicinal qualities. While neither Mathieu nor Jiménez has the pharmacological background to prescribe mycological treatment for serious illnesses, Mathieu’s own research factors to the medicinal use of mushrooms courting from pre-background, to the present. He notes qualities of mushrooms which can support to restore the immune system, and hence the use of fungi as a enhance in the treatment method of most cancers and AIDS, and their utility in controlling diabetes and managing high cholesterol.
“We need to all be embracing the organic and natural creation of mushrooms,” Mathieu concludes. “It really is so effortless, it involves a minimum funds expense, and it provides substantial rewards, each for people ingesting hongos for dietary and medicinal causes, and for the producers, even small scale. Mico-lógica also sells dried mushrooms. Yet most of the dried mushrooms marketed in Mexico are imported from China, and are not organic. It really is a genuine shame on quite a few ranges.”
Mexico and mushrooms have come a lengthy way because the era of Oaxaca’s María Sabina. With the ongoing attempts of Mathieu, Jiménez and Mico-lógica, it need to not be lengthy just before the entire world understands and embraces the magic of mushrooms inside a considerably broader context.