Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

When we feel of mushrooms and the southern Mexico point out of Oaxaca, the first point which historically arrives to thoughts is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez and hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. But slowly that is all shifting as a consequence of the groundbreaking operate of Josefina Jiménez and Johann Mathieu in mycology, by way of their business, Mico-lógica.

Dependent in the village of Benito Juárez, positioned in Oaxaca’s Ixtlán district (more commonly recognized as the Sierra Norte, the state’s main ecotourism location), Mico-lógica’s mission is threefold: to prepare the two Mexicans and guests to the place in the low-price cultivation of a selection of mushroom species to teach about the medicinal, nutritional and environmental (sustainable) worth of mushrooms and to carry out ongoing research concerning the best possible climatic regions and the diversity of substrata for mushroom culture.

The French-born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and in fact to Huautla de Jiménez, in 2005. “Yes, coming all the way to Mexico from France to pursue my desire in mushrooms seems like a extended way to travel,” Mathieu discussed in a recent interview in Oaxaca. “But there truly was magic mushrooms of an possibility to perform scientific studies and expand a company in Western Europe,” he proceeds, “given that reverence for mushrooms had been all but entirely eradicated by The Church more than the system of hundreds of years and I discovered that Mexico still maintains a respect and appreciation for the medicinal and dietary price of hongos. Mexico is much from mycophobic.”

Huautla de Jiménez is a lot more than a 5 hour drive from the closest metropolitan center. Accordingly, Mathieu ultimately recognized that being in Huautla, even though keeping an historic allure and becoming in a geographic area conducive to doing work with mushrooms, would hinder his endeavours to develop a company and cultivate common desire in finding out 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 pageant), held each year in Cuahimoloyas.

Mathieu fulfilled Josefina Jiménez at the summertime weekend mushroom function. Jiménez experienced moved to Oaxaca from hometown Mexico Metropolis in 2002. The two shared related interests Jiménez experienced studied agronomy, and for close to a decade experienced been doing work with sustainable agriculture initiatives in rural farming communities in the Huasteca Potosina region of San Luis Potosí, the mountains of Guerrero and the coast of Chiapas. Mathieu and Jiménez grew to become company, and then existence 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-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’re also instructing a reasonable little bit about the medicinal employs of mushrooms, so more time is needed,” suggests Mathieu, “and with oyster mushrooms it’s predominantly [but not solely] a training course on cultivation.”

Even though coaching seminars are now only given in Benito Juárez, Mathieu and Jiménez program to increase functions to consist of each the central valleys and coastal areas of Oaxaca. The object is to have a community of producers growing various mushrooms which are optimally suited for cultivation based on the certain microclimate. There are about 70 sub-species of oyster mushrooms, and thus as a species, the adaptability of the oyster mushroom to different climatic regions is exceptional. “The oyster can be developed in a multitude of various substrata, and which is what we are experimenting with correct now,” he elucidates. The oyster mushroom can prosper when grown on goods which would in any other case be squander, these kinds of as discard from cultivating beans, sugar cane, agave (such as the fibrous squander developed in mezcal distillation), peas, the frequent river reed known as carriso, sawdust, and the list goes on. Agricultural squander which could normally be still left to rot or be burned, every with adverse environmental implications, can type substrata for mushroom cultivation. It should be observed, though trite, that mushroom cultivation is a highly sustainable, eco-friendly market. Above the earlier a number of several years Mexico has in simple fact been at the fore in many locations of sustainable industry.

Mathieu exemplifies how mushrooms can provide an arguably even higher environmental good:

“They can keep up to 30 thousand occasions their mass, having implications for inhibiting erosion. They’ve been used to thoroughly clean up oil spills by way of absorption and as a result are an critical vehicle for habitat restoration. Research has been accomplished with mushrooms in the battle from carpenter ant destruction it is been suggested that the use of fungi has the potential to fully revamp the pesticide industry in an environmentally helpful way. There are actually hundreds of other eco-pleasant apps for mushroom use, and in each situation the mushroom stays an edible by-product. Consider a look at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, six Methods Mushrooms Can Save The World.”

Mathieu and Jiménez can typically be located marketing their items on weekends in the organic markets in Oaxaca. They’re equally more than satisfied to discuss the dietary worth of their merchandise which variety from naturally their new mushrooms, but also as preserves, marinated with possibly chipotle and nopal or jalapeño and cauliflower. The mushroom’s vitamin B12 can not be discovered in fruits or vegetables, and appropriately a diet which contains fungi is very important for vegetarians who can not get B12, most usually contained in meats. Mushrooms can simply be a substitute for meats, with the benefit that they are not loaded with antibiotics and hormones often discovered in industrially processed meat goods.

Mico-lógica also sell teas and extracts produced from distinct mushroom species, each and every formulated as both a nutritional health supplement, or for their medicinal houses. While neither Mathieu nor Jiménez has the pharmacological qualifications to prescribe mycological treatment method for critical illnesses, Mathieu’s personal investigation points to the medicinal use of mushrooms dating from pre-heritage, to the current. He notes qualities of mushrooms which can assist to restore the immune program, and thus the use of fungi as a enhance in the remedy of cancer and AIDS, and their utility in managing diabetes and treating substantial cholesterol.

“We ought to all be embracing the organic generation of mushrooms,” Mathieu concludes. “It is so easy, it entails a minimal cash expenditure, and it gives substantial benefits, equally for people ingesting hongos for nutritional and medicinal motives, and for the producers, even modest scale. Mico-lógica also sells dried mushrooms. But most of the dried mushrooms offered in Mexico are imported from China, and are not organic. It really is a true disgrace on quite a few ranges.”

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