Do you love mushroom art, food, photos and factoids but are still wondering whether you should try to actually grow mushrooms?
We understand.
Even though we’re a team of mycophiles and fungi fanatics now capable of giving you 10 million reasons why you should grow mushrooms, all of us here at the Fungi Academy were in your shoes at one point.
So, if you’re still on the fence about it all, we think you’ll appreciate our top ten reasons why you should grow mushrooms. Mush love!
Yet it’s no wonder so many people say they don’t like the taste of mushrooms. The mushroom most commonly found in grocery stores, the button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus), is one of the least flavorful out there!
If the shelves of your local supermarket were instead stocked full of oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus sp.), Shiitake (Lentinula edodes), Enoki (Flammulina velutipes), Lion’s mane (Hericium erinaceus), Porcini (Boletus edulis), or Wine cap mushrooms (Stropharia rugosoannulata), we know most people would be singing a much different tune.
Mushrooms are high in Vitamin B1, B2, B3, B5, and B9 (thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, and folic acid), Vitamin C, and are one of the only non-animal derived sources of cyanocobalamin, a precursor to Vitamin B12. They also contain high amounts of many different minerals, and the minerals in mushrooms are often found in ionic form, meaning they are easily bioavailable for your body.
They also contain selenium, which works with Vitamin E to combat free radicals by producing antioxidants, which basically means that eating mushrooms can reduce the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and minimize the effects of HIV, rheumatoid arthritis, pancreatitis, and asthma!
If you remember only one thing from this reason why you should grow your own mushrooms, remember that mushrooms are are low in fat (0.6 to 3.1% by weight when fresh, 70% of that unsaturated fat), high in protein (~ 4% by weight when fresh, 19 to 35% protein when dried), and contain all nine “essential” amino acids. Now that’s what we call a superfood!
Simply put, medicinal mushrooms like Reishi (Ganoderma sp.) Lion’s Mane, Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor), Shiitake, Cordyceps (Cordyceps militaris), Maitake (Grifola frondosa) and innumerable others enhance
the body’s ability to defend against many forms of disease such as
autoimmune disorder, viruses, and various types of cancer.
By stimulating the creation of the cells that comprise our immune
system. But what’s particularly amazing about this quality is that they strengthen our bodies’ natural defenses without overstimulating our immune system (hello allergies), helping to restore and/or maintain the delicate balance our body and its immune system needs to function properly.
And that’s just one of their health benefits. Medicinal mushrooms like the ones mentioned above also help with:
We could go on and on. We figure you get the point, though.
Growing your own medicinal mushrooms leads to a medicine cabinet of natural,
homeopathic, preventative medicine that enriches you and your family’s
life today and protects their health for tomorrow. Need we say more?
(Don’t worry, we will anyways).
In a world where 1.5 billion people suffer from central nervous system diseases, 320 million deal with depression, and 100 million struggle with treatment-resistant depression, the significance of these findings is hard to overstate.
But for about $100 more, you could create your very own urban mushroom farm capable of producing hundreds of pounds of fresh gourmet and medicinal mushrooms.
In the field of mycology, the greatest barrier to entry isn’t the cost. It’s the time it takes to learn and master the skills of successful mushroom cultivation. There are a number of online forums (e.g. Shroomery, Mycotopia) out there with reams of information on how to perform the most basic to the most advanced mycological techniques.
We suggest taking a look at our comprehensive online Sacred Mycology course, where you’ll learn all the skills needed to grow mushrooms of all kinds, from oysters to Reishi to our favorite, Psilocybe Cubensis.
Have a garage, shed, basement, or spare bedroom? Then you could grow your own mushrooms on a massive scale in your own urban farming setup.
A 10 foot by 10 foot fruiting room can produce more than one hundred pounds of mushrooms per week. In a study by Sure Harvest, a leading sustainability analysis and research firm, if you were to grow mushrooms on a one-acre plot, you could expect to produce up to 1 million pounds of mushrooms per year!
That’s a lot of fresh, local, sustainably produced superfood for your community.
It’s been estimated that the overall mushroom industry could reach half a trillion dollars in the next decade, disrupting and emerging into massive industries like neurogenics, neuroceuticals, mental health therapy, meat replacement, and cognitive enhancement.
Growing mushrooms could be your gateway to financial security and independence.
For most people, an interest in mycology and growing mushrooms is more of a hobby and passion project than it is a business idea.
Why?
Because growing your own mushrooms is a fun, engaging, entertaining, and enlightening journey all by itself. From a single spore, you can create a bounty of beautiful food grown for you, by you, with love. Every day, you get to care for your mushroom babies, watch them as they grow, and cultivate a relationship with the fifth queendom of earthly life.
Building off of our last point, learning to grow mushrooms also provides you with innumerable, invaluable life lessons. As with almost any farming activity, growing mushrooms from your home is a practice in patience and persistence.
Obstacles like contamination will always occur. Growth will sometimes be slow. But with time and continued practice, you will be successful.
Doing lab work, where every move must be smooth, quick, efficient, calm, and planned, is a meditation in mindfulness. Beginning processes that take months of time and multiple steps offers lessons in foresight, organization, time management, and planning.
And then, of course, there are the universal lessons that sacred mushrooms offer.
Sam is a writer, award-winning journalist and professional mycologist from the United States who arrived at the Fungi Academy one midsummer’s day in 2019 and left six weeks later with lifelong friends and a passion for mushroom cultivation.
In the past year three years, he’s built a laboratory and fruiting room in his home, cultivated and foraged over 20 species of gourmet and medicinal mushrooms, started a medicinal mushroom tincture business and returned to the Fungi Academy to teach his techniques to students.
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