Our Mushrooms
There are a lot of different mushroom products on the market. How do i know which one is best?
When we started Stay Wyld Organics, we had many choices on what type of mushrooms we were going to produce and how we were going to prepare them. We researched mushrooms grown in China, North America, and other parts of the world. At the most basic level, mushrooms consist of two main parts, mycelium and fruiting body. Mycelium is essentially the root system (or immune system) with the fruiting body being the flower.
There are many different mushroom products on the market these days. Some of them contain mycelium, some contain fruiting bodies, some contain both mycelium and fruiting bodies and some contain just brown rice flour. We quickly found out that most mycelium-based "full spectrum" powders are nothing more than grain spawn. Grain Spawn is colonized grain. In other words, the mycelium has colonized in the grain and many North American producers simply take that product and dehydrate and mill (micronize) it into their "mushroom" powder. Sometimes there can be little fruiting bodies in the grain spawn bag but for the most part they contain mycelium. and grain. Most mushroom supplements that are grown in North America are selling grain spawn (mycelium on grain). Most true fruiting body products come from China along with brown rice flour powders. It's hard to know what you are getting sometimes. There are arguments that mycelium has more health benefits than fruiting bodies and vice versa. There is strong evidence that there are different health benefits found in both the mycelium and the fruiting bodies which is why we created our unique Whole Mushroom Powder. Our Whole Mushroom Powder contains mycelium and supplemented fruiting bodies. We have several rooms for fruiting and one room for mycelium production.
We chose to grow our own mushrooms
When starting Stay Wyld, we decided that we didn't want to buy "mushroom" powders from China or the US like 95% of the "mushroom" companies on the market do. For countless reasons, we chose to grow our own certified organic mushrooms right here in Canada. This allows us to control the environmental conditions and produce toxin-free mushrooms. This way we can guarantee high-quality mushrooms that have passed the most strict organic standards in the world.
Did you know that mushrooms easily absorb toxins from their surrounding environment? Mushrooms grown in areas that have poor water/air quality due to pollution are often loaded with highly concentrated amounts of heavy metals, pesticides, and other toxins. Mushrooms do not release those toxins, they just absorb them, and can be found in the end product. This is why it is extremely important to know where your mushrooms are grown.
Life cycle of our mushrooms
Check out the life cycle of our mushrooms. You will see mycelium, mycelium-fermented substrate and large fruiting bodies. We strongly believe in the medicinal value of high fruiting body content whole mushrooms which include both potent fruiting bodies and mycelium.
Where we grow our mushrooms
We take great pride in the environmental conditions where our mushrooms are grown. We grow our mushrooms at our state-of-the-art facility in Pemberton, British Columbia, and wild-harvest our Chaga using sustainable and ethical harvesting practices in Northern and Eastern Canada far away from civilization or contaminants. Our mushroom powders are organic certified right here in Canada with some of the strictest requirements for organic certification in the world.
Check out our Whole Mushroom Powders
We wanted to provide you with the highest quality products that include all of the medicinal components of the mushroom life cycle including a high concentration of fruiting bodies and mycelium.
One key difference that separates our mushroom products is the fact that we have such a high percentage of fruiting bodies blended with mycelium.
While there is an inherent cost to using fruiting bodies, we feel this is a critical part to offering you the most comprehensive and potent product possible.
The benefits of Whole Mushrooms
The growth cycle starts with sterilizing our organic Canadian grown oats and inoculating the oats with the culture. The mushroom mycelium feeds on the oats, increasing the mass of mycelium while reducing the volume of the oat itself. During this several week growth process, the substrate (oats) becomes fermented with mycelium.
We have developed a proprietary process to remove some of the mycelium from the substrate to use in a potent blend of mycelium and high fruiting body content. This is contrary to mycelium or Full Spectrum products in which the mushrooms never get to fruit and subsequently contain nothing more than mycelium and fermented substrate.
Our whole mushroom powders contain a high percentage of fruiting bodies combined with some mycelium in order to capture all of the medicinal components of the mushrooms. While there are measurable levels of beta-glucans in our fruiting bodies and in our powders, newly published peer-reviewed research in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine validates that:
- mushroom mycelium is "very potent in terms of triggering immune cell function."
- fermented substrate, even when separated from pure mycelium, is highly active in supporting natural immune function.
- pure mycelium and fermented substrate each offer unique yet complementary health benefits.
- the immune-enhancing benefits of mushrooms are generated from a very wide range of constituents, not just beta-glucans. (2)
Fruiting Body Benefits
Mushroom fruiting bodies contain Polysaccharides including Beta-Glucans. Mushroom β-glucans provide a unique opportunity for the discovery of novel therapeutic agents and have attracted a great deal of attention due to many health benefits such as immunomodulatory, anti-cancerous, cardioprotective, hepatoprotective, antioxidative and antimicrobial activities. Mushroom β-glucans have the potential to enhance innate and cell mediated immune response. They exhibit varying degrees of antitumor activities in humans due to the difference in their structure, water solubility, size and molecular mass. These differences in turn contribute to their medicinal properties. (1)
Stay Wyld Organics Proprietary Heat Steaming Process
Another very important step that we take in preparing our mushroom products is our heat steaming process. Our mushrooms are steam treated to increase bioavailability. The immune supporting polysaccharides (Beta-Glucans) in our medicinal mushrooms are found inside of the cellular walls. However, the cell walls of the mushrooms and mushroom mycelium are made from an indigestible fiber called "chitin”. Introducing heat is the only clinically supported method for breaking these polysaccharides out of the indigestible cell walls. Our whole mushrooms are then micronized into a fine powder. The end result is a ready-to-use bioavailable mushroom powder.
Our Commitment to You
We are committed to providing you with the highest quality mushroom products on the market. We performed thorough research and product development to bring you the same mushrooms we take every day. If you have any questions about our product or process send an email to info@staywyldorganics.com and we’ll get you taken care of.
References and Resources
- Fungi Perfecti, LLC (Dec, 06 2019). https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/immune-benefits-of-mushroom-mycelium--fermented-substrate-validated-by-peer-reviewed-science-300970408.html
- Novak M, Vetvicka V (2008). Beta-glucans, history, and the present: immunomodulatory aspects and mechanisms of action. J Immunotoxicol. 2008 Jan;5(1):47-57. doi: 10.1080/15476910802019045.