When we think of mushrooms and the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca, the very first factor which typically will come to head is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez and hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. But little by little that’s all changing as a end result of the groundbreaking operate of Josefina Jiménez and Johann Mathieu in mycology, by means of their company, Mico-lógica.
Based in the village of Benito Juárez, located in Oaxaca’s Ixtlán district (far more typically identified as the Sierra Norte, the state’s major ecotourism area), Mico-lógica’s mission is threefold: to prepare equally Mexicans and guests to the country in the lower-price cultivation of a selection of mushroom species to educate about the medicinal, dietary and environmental (sustainable) price of mushrooms and to carry out ongoing study concerning optimum climatic areas and the variety of substrata for mushroom lifestyle.
The French-born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and in simple fact to Huautla de Jiménez, in 2005. “Of course, coming all the way to Mexico from France to go after my interest in mushrooms would seem like a long way to travel,” Mathieu discussed in a recent interview in Oaxaca. “But there truly wasn’t significantly of an possibility to perform scientific studies and expand a organization in Western Europe,” he proceeds, “considering that reverence for mushrooms experienced been all but fully eradicated by The Church in excess of the program of centuries and I uncovered that Mexico even now maintains a respect and appreciation for the medicinal and nutritional price of hongos. Mexico is far from mycophobic.”
Huautla de Jiménez is more than a five hour generate from the closest metropolitan centre. Appropriately, Mathieu ultimately recognized that staying in Huautla, even though holding an historic allure and being in a geographic area conducive to working with mushrooms, would hinder his initiatives to develop a business and cultivate common fascination in understanding about fungi. Mathieu grew to become cognizant of the burgeoning status of Oaxaca’s ecotourism communities of the Sierra Norte, and without a doubt the Feria Regional de Hongos Silvestres (regional wild mushroom competition), held yearly in Cuahimoloyas.
Mathieu achieved Josefina Jiménez at the summertime weekend mushroom event. Jiménez experienced moved to Oaxaca from hometown Mexico Town in 2002. The two shared comparable passions Jiménez had studied agronomy, and for close to a ten years experienced 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 became business, and then life partners in Benito Juárez.
Mathieu and Jiménez are concentrating on 3 mushroom species in their arms-on seminars oyster (seta), shitake and reishi. Their a single-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’re also instructing a reasonable little bit about the medicinal uses of mushrooms, so far more time is essential,” suggests Mathieu, “and with oyster mushrooms it really is predominantly [but not solely] a training course on cultivation.”
While coaching seminars are now only given in Benito Juárez, Mathieu and Jiménez strategy to broaden operations to contain equally the central valleys and coastal locations of Oaxaca. The item is to have a network of producers expanding various mushrooms which are optimally suited for cultivation dependent 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 diverse climatic regions is impressive. “The oyster can be developed in a multitude of diverse substrata, and that is what we are experimenting with appropriate now,” he elucidates. The oyster mushroom can prosper when developed on goods which would normally be squander, this sort of as discard from cultivating beans, sugar cane, agave (like the fibrous squander made in mezcal distillation), peas, the common river reed identified as carriso, sawdust, and the list goes on. Agricultural squander which may possibly or else be remaining to rot or be burned, each and every with adverse environmental implications, can type substrata for mushroom cultivation. It should be noted, however trite, that mushroom cultivation is a highly sustainable, environmentally friendly market. Over the earlier several a long time Mexico has in truth been at the fore in several locations of sustainable sector.
Mathieu exemplifies how mushrooms can provide an arguably even increased environmental very good:
“They can keep up to 30 thousand instances their mass, obtaining implications for inhibiting erosion. They have been used to thoroughly clean up oil spills by means of absorption and hence are an critical motor vehicle for habitat restoration. Study has been done with mushrooms in the battle in opposition to carpenter ant destruction it is been recommended that the use of fungi has the likely to entirely revamp the pesticide market in an environmentally welcoming way. There are literally hundreds of other eco-friendly programs for mushroom use, and in every single scenario the mushroom remains an edible by-merchandise. Take buymyshroomonline.ca at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, six Approaches Mushrooms Can Help save The World.”
Mathieu and Jiménez can typically be found marketing their items on weekends in the natural and organic markets in Oaxaca. They are equally much more than satisfied to talk about the nutritional benefit of their goods which variety from normally their clean mushrooms, but also as preserves, marinated with possibly chipotle and nopal or jalapeño and cauliflower. The mushroom’s vitamin B12 are not able to be identified in fruits or vegetables, and accordingly a diet which consists of fungi is extremely critical for vegetarians who cannot get B12, most usually contained in meats. Mushrooms can very easily be a substitute for meats, with the gain that they are not loaded with antibiotics and hormones usually discovered in industrially processed meat goods.
Mico-lógica also promote teas and extracts produced from different mushroom species, every single formulated as both a dietary supplement, or for their medicinal houses. Whilst neither Mathieu nor Jiménez has the pharmacological background to prescribe mycological remedy for significant ailments, Mathieu’s personal analysis details to the medicinal use of mushrooms dating from pre-background, to the existing. He notes houses of mushrooms which can support to restore the immune technique, and as a result the use of fungi as a complement in the treatment of cancer and AIDS, and their utility in controlling diabetic issues and treating substantial cholesterol.
“We need to all be embracing the organic and natural production of mushrooms,” Mathieu concludes. “It really is so simple, it entails a minimum capital expenditure, and it offers important rewards, both for individuals ingesting hongos for dietary and medicinal causes, and for the producers, even small scale. Mico-lógica also sells dried mushrooms. Nevertheless most of the dried mushrooms marketed in Mexico are imported from China, and are not natural. It is a actual shame on numerous amounts.”