When we believe of mushrooms and the southern Mexico point out of Oaxaca, the 1st point which usually arrives to mind is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez and hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. But gradually that is all altering as a consequence of the groundbreaking work of Josefina Jiménez and Johann Mathieu in mycology, through their business, Mico-lógica.
Dependent in the village of Benito Juárez, found in Oaxaca’s Ixtlán district (far more commonly acknowledged as the Sierra Norte, the state’s major ecotourism location), Mico-lógica’s mission is threefold: to teach each Mexicans and site visitors to the nation in the lower-value cultivation of a variety of mushroom species to teach about the medicinal, nutritional and environmental (sustainable) worth of mushrooms and to carry out ongoing investigation with regards to ideal climatic regions and the range of substrata for mushroom tradition.
The French-born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and in simple fact to Huautla de Jiménez, in 2005. “Sure, coming all the way to Mexico from France to pursue my desire in mushrooms looks like a lengthy way to vacation,” Mathieu explained in a modern interview in Oaxaca. “But there genuinely wasn’t significantly of an opportunity to perform research and expand a company in Western Europe,” he continues, “given that reverence for mushrooms had been all but completely eradicated by The Church more than the system of generations and I uncovered that Mexico nevertheless maintains a respect and appreciation for the medicinal and nutritional price of hongos. Mexico is significantly from mycophobic.”
Huautla de Jiménez is far more than a five hour generate from the closest metropolitan center. Accordingly, Mathieu eventually realized that keeping in Huautla, while keeping an historic attract and being in a geographic location conducive to working with mushrooms, would hinder his attempts to expand a business and cultivate common desire in studying about fungi. Mathieu grew to become cognizant of the burgeoning track record of Oaxaca’s ecotourism communities of the Sierra Norte, and without a doubt the Feria Regional de Hongos Silvestres (regional wild mushroom festival), held yearly in Cuahimoloyas.
Mathieu satisfied Josefina Jiménez at the summertime weekend mushroom function. Jiménez experienced moved to Oaxaca from hometown Mexico City in 2002. The two shared related pursuits Jiménez had analyzed agronomy, and for near to a 10 years had been doing work with sustainable agriculture initiatives in rural farming communities in the Huasteca Potosina location of San Luis Potosí, the mountains of Guerrero and the coast of Chiapas. Mathieu and Jiménez grew to become enterprise, and then lifestyle partners in Benito Juárez.
Mathieu and Jiménez are concentrating on three mushroom species in their fingers-on seminars oyster (seta), shitake and reishi. Their 1-working 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 are also training a honest little bit about the medicinal makes use of of mushrooms, so a lot more time is needed,” claims Mathieu, “and with oyster mushrooms it really is predominantly [but not completely] a program on cultivation.”
While one up mushroom bar are now only provided in Benito Juárez, Mathieu and Jiménez prepare to grow operations to consist of the two the central valleys and coastal regions of Oaxaca. The item is to have a community of producers expanding diverse mushrooms which are optimally suited for cultivation based on the specific microclimate. There are about 70 sub-species of oyster mushrooms, and therefore as a species, the adaptability of the oyster mushroom to distinct climatic areas is remarkable. “The oyster can be grown in a multitude of distinct substrata, and that is what we’re experimenting with right now,” he elucidates. The oyster mushroom can prosper when developed on products which would in any other case be squander, these kinds of as discard from cultivating beans, sugar cane, agave (such as the fibrous squander made in mezcal distillation), peas, the common river reed acknowledged as carriso, sawdust, and the checklist goes on. Agricultural waste which could in any other case be still left to rot or be burned, each with adverse environmental implications, can sort substrata for mushroom cultivation. It must be observed, although trite, that mushroom cultivation is a extremely sustainable, inexperienced industry. Over the earlier many years Mexico has in simple fact been at the fore in a lot of areas of sustainable business.
Mathieu exemplifies how mushrooms can provide an arguably even greater environmental excellent:
“They can maintain up to 30 thousand times their mass, possessing implications for inhibiting erosion. They have been employed to clean up oil spills through absorption and as a result are an crucial car for habitat restoration. Investigation has been completed with mushrooms in the fight towards carpenter ant destruction it truly is been proposed that the use of fungi has the likely to entirely revamp the pesticide market in an environmentally friendly way. There are actually hundreds of other eco-helpful purposes for mushroom use, and in every single situation the mushroom stays an edible by-solution. Consider a appear at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, 6 Ways Mushrooms Can Preserve The World.”
Mathieu and Jiménez can typically be found offering their products on weekends in the natural and organic marketplaces in Oaxaca. They’re equally far more than satisfied to go over the nutritional value of their merchandise which variety from in a natural way their new mushrooms, but also as preserves, marinated with both chipotle and nopal or jalapeño and cauliflower. The mushroom’s vitamin B12 are not able to be found in fruits or veggies, and accordingly a diet regime which consists of fungi is really crucial for vegetarians who are not able to get B12, most usually contained in meats. Mushrooms can very easily be a substitute for meats, with the benefit that they are not loaded with antibiotics and hormones frequently found in industrially processed meat products.
Mico-lógica also sell teas and extracts manufactured from various mushroom species, every single formulated as either a nutritional supplement, or for their medicinal properties. Whilst neither Mathieu nor Jiménez has the pharmacological history to prescribe mycological therapy for critical illnesses, Mathieu’s personal analysis points to the medicinal use of mushrooms dating from pre-background, to the current. He notes properties of mushrooms which can support to restore the immune program, and hence the use of fungi as a complement in the treatment of most cancers and AIDS, and their utility in managing diabetes and treating higher cholesterol.
“We need to all be embracing the natural and organic generation of mushrooms,” Mathieu concludes. “It truly is so simple, it entails a minimum money investment, and it offers substantial rewards, both for these ingesting hongos for dietary and medicinal reasons, and for the producers, even small scale. Mico-lógica also sells dried mushrooms. Nevertheless most of the dried mushrooms sold in Mexico are imported from China, and are not organic and natural. It really is a genuine disgrace on several ranges.”
Mexico and mushrooms have appear a long way considering that the period of Oaxaca’s María Sabina. With the continued endeavours of Mathieu, Jiménez and Mico-lógica, it must not be long before the entire world understands and embraces the magic of mushrooms in a significantly broader context.