Healing with herbs is becoming more popular as an adjunct therapy, especially in cancer treatment. But what about healing with mushrooms? Herbs are considered plant material. Where do the fungi fit in? From a botanical standpoint, herbs are herbaceous plants. Leaves, roots, and flowers of herbs may be used in herbal medicine. The plant kingdom is Ukmagicmushrooms comprised of plants. The fungi kingdom is comprised of mushrooms. Science is taking a closer look at the value of medicinal mushrooms in treating serious medical conditions including autoimmune disease, nerve disorders and cancer. This article uncovers some of the mystery surrounding mushrooms and takes a brief look at their use in natural medicine.
There are many myths surrounding the Kingdom Fungi. You may be thinking, “Well, some mushrooms are poisonous. ” And yes, this is true. Some plants are also poisonous. Mushrooms get a bad reputation because often cases of mushroom poisoning attract a lot of attention. Most mushrooms are not poisonous. You may be thinking, “Will I see visions or hallucinate? ” Many cultures around the world use hallucinogenic mushrooms for healing. But medicinal mushrooms are being researched in laboratories around the world and practicing physicians, cancer doctors, and alternative medicine practitioners are taking mushrooms seriously and prescribing them for serious medical conditions.
Which mushrooms are medicinal? When searching for mushrooms for healing cancer, look first to the polypores, or shelf fungi. These mushrooms are the oldest from an evolutionary standpoint. Some mycologists (those who study fungi) believe that all mushrooms have evolved from polypores. Polypores are hard, not soft like gilled fungi. For any mushroom to be digestible it must first be cooked, heated, or tenderized. This is especially true in the case of polypore mushrooms. They must be heated first in order to be bio available. Historically polypore mushrooms have been heated and steeped in hot water, strained, and the resulting drink served as a mushroom tea.
Historically, polypore mushrooms were quite valuable to native peoples all around the world. Some hard, shelf mushrooms were used as tinder or spunk to start fires and carried over long distances. These same species were also chopped up and steeped in water for tea. Shamans in cultures on every continent treated serious medical ailments with polypore mushrooms.
Which mushrooms for cancer treatment are polypore mushrooms? The most famous and widely used polypore mushroom is the Reishi mushroom. It is used extensively in Traditional Chinese Medicine, by mainstream Japanese physicians, and throughout Korea, Vietnam and Eastern cultures. Also known as the Ling Chi, this medicinal mushroom is available in supplement form over the internet and directly from alternative medical practitioners.
Another powerful medicinal polypore mushroom is Grifola frondosa, also known as Maitake. Maitake is a soft fleshed polypore with nutritional and medicinal value. It is attracting a lot of attention from pharmaceutical and neutraceutcal companies because initial studies show it is quite effective as an anti-tumor medicine, especially in cases of liver and breast cancer. Look for Maitake supplements that address the D-fraction and beta glucans. Maitake supplements are widely available over the internet and from natural pharmacies.
If you are interested in growing mushrooms or are thinking about running a mushroom farm, there are certain methodologies that you would need to adapt if you wish to be able to successfully grow mushrooms on your farm. Unlike simple plantations, mushrooms require a lot of care and effort in order to be able to grow properly. Moreover, the difficult thing about growing mushrooms is that they cannot be grown in the natural environment, meaning you will require an artificially constructed, properly set up environment that is designed exclusively for mushroom growing. One of the best ways by which you can do that is by creating a mushroom tunnel.
As the name suggests, a mushroom tunnel is simply a tunnel that is set up in such a manner that it allows mushrooms to grow. Generally, mushroom tunnels do not range much in length, and require a proper construction in order to be set up properly. However, because mushrooms naturally grow in dark environments that are shielded from nature mostly, a mushroom tunnel will be a great thing for you to set up. However, one thing that you should know here is that mushroom tunnels are quite expensive and should only be purchased by those people who are avid mushroom farmers and know the ways and techniques by which mushroom farms are grown.
In order to set up a mushroom tunnel, you will require a great deal of space, so it is important that you have a vast expanse of land at your disposal if you think about establishing a mushroom tunnel. Proper construction will have to be carried out if you wish to create one of these tunnels, and the whole setup requires time to get created. However, once it is done, you can easily plant in the mushrooms in your tunnel.
In the professional mushroom growing business, there are many different types of ways by which mushrooms are grown, and some of the best ones are grown within the tunnels. This is because tunnels replicate the original environment that is required by mushrooms to grow, which is the reason why some of the rarest mushrooms are grown within tunnels. You can read more about them on the internet, and if you are thinking about starting a mushroom growing business, it will also help you greatly in understanding the variety of different environments in which mushrooms grow and how you must treat them to get the best crops.