When we feel of mushrooms and the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca, the initial point which typically arrives to brain is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez and hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. But slowly and gradually which is all altering as a end result of the groundbreaking perform of Josefina Jiménez and Johann Mathieu in mycology, by way of their firm, Mico-lógica.
Primarily based in the village of Benito Juárez, found in Oaxaca’s Ixtlán district (far more frequently identified as the Sierra Norte, the state’s principal ecotourism region), Mico-lógica’s mission is threefold: to train both Mexicans and visitors to the place in the low-price cultivation of a selection of mushroom species to educate about the medicinal, nutritional and environmental (sustainable) benefit of mushrooms and to conduct ongoing investigation regarding the best possible climatic areas and the diversity of substrata for mushroom tradition.
The French-born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and in reality to Huautla de Jiménez, in 2005. “Sure, coming all the way to Mexico from France to go after my fascination in mushrooms seems like a prolonged way to journey,” Mathieu described in a modern interview in Oaxaca. “But there really wasn’t significantly of an chance to perform reports and grow a organization in Western Europe,” he carries on, “given that reverence for mushrooms had been all but fully eradicated by The Church over the training course of hundreds of years and I realized that Mexico even now maintains a regard and appreciation for the medicinal and dietary value of hongos. Mexico is much from mycophobic.”
Huautla de Jiménez is far more than a 5 hour travel from the closest metropolitan center. Appropriately, Mathieu at some point realized that being in Huautla, whilst keeping an historic allure and becoming in a geographic location conducive to functioning with mushrooms, would hinder his efforts to develop a company and cultivate prevalent interest in finding out about fungi. Mathieu turned cognizant of the burgeoning status of Oaxaca’s ecotourism communities of the Sierra Norte, and in fact the Feria Regional de Hongos Silvestres (regional wild mushroom competition), held each year in Cuahimoloyas.
Mathieu achieved Josefina Jiménez at the summertime weekend mushroom function. Jiménez had moved to Oaxaca from hometown Mexico Metropolis in 2002. The two shared equivalent pursuits Jiménez experienced researched agronomy, and for shut to a decade had been operating with sustainable agriculture initiatives in rural farming communities in the Huasteca Potosina region of San Luis Potosí, the mountains of Guerrero and the coastline of Chiapas. Mathieu and Jiménez turned enterprise, and then lifestyle partners in Benito Juárez.
Mathieu and Jiménez are concentrating on a few mushroom species in their fingers-on seminars oyster (seta), shitake and reishi. Their 1-working day workshops are for oyster mushrooms, and two-day clinics for the latter two species of fungus. “With reishi, and to a lesser extent shitake, we are also training a reasonable bit about the medicinal employs of mushrooms, so much more time is required,” says Mathieu, “and with oyster mushrooms it truly is predominantly [but not exclusively] a system on cultivation.”
Although training seminars are now only provided in Benito Juárez, Mathieu and Jiménez strategy to expand functions to incorporate the two the central valleys and coastal areas of Oaxaca. The object is to have a network of producers developing distinct mushrooms which are optimally suited for cultivation primarily 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 various climatic locations is impressive. “The oyster can be developed in a multitude of various substrata, and which is what we are experimenting with correct now,” he elucidates. The oyster mushroom can prosper when developed on goods which would in any other case be waste, this kind of as discard from cultivating beans, sugar cane, agave (like the fibrous squander developed in mezcal distillation), peas, the typical river reed identified as carriso, sawdust, and the list goes on. Agricultural squander which may normally be left to rot or be burned, each and every with adverse environmental implications, can sort substrata for mushroom cultivation. It must be mentioned, although trite, that mushroom cultivation is a hugely sustainable, inexperienced sector. Above mushroom growing kit has in reality been at the fore in numerous regions of sustainable industry.
Mathieu exemplifies how mushrooms can serve an arguably even higher environmental very good:
“They can keep up to thirty thousand occasions their mass, possessing implications for inhibiting erosion. They have been used to clear up oil spills via absorption and hence are an crucial motor vehicle for habitat restoration. Research has been accomplished with mushrooms in the struggle against carpenter ant destruction it really is been recommended that the use of fungi has the possible to entirely revamp the pesticide industry in an environmentally friendly way. There are practically hundreds of other eco-welcoming apps for mushroom use, and in each circumstance the mushroom remains an edible by-product. Just take a seem at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, six Techniques Mushrooms Can Save The Globe.”
Mathieu and Jiménez can frequently be found selling their products on weekends in the organic markets in Oaxaca. They’re equally far more than content to talk about the dietary value of their products which variety from in a natural way their clean mushrooms, but also as preserves, marinated with both chipotle and nopal or jalapeño and cauliflower. The mushroom’s vitamin B12 can not be located in fruits or vegetables, and appropriately a diet program which involves fungi is really essential for vegetarians who cannot get B12, most often contained in meats. Mushrooms can easily be a substitute for meats, with the advantage that they are not loaded with antibiotics and hormones frequently identified in industrially processed meat goods.
Mico-lógica also promote teas and extracts manufactured from different mushroom species, each formulated as possibly a dietary dietary supplement, or for their medicinal qualities. Whilst neither Mathieu nor Jiménez has the pharmacological qualifications to prescribe mycological treatment for critical conditions, Mathieu’s own analysis details to the medicinal use of mushrooms relationship from pre-background, to the current. He notes houses of mushrooms which can help to restore the immune system, and therefore the use of fungi as a complement in the treatment of most cancers and AIDS, and their utility in controlling diabetes and treating higher cholesterol.
“We ought to all be embracing the natural and organic production of mushrooms,” Mathieu concludes. “It’s so effortless, it involves a minimal cash expenditure, and it offers substantial benefits, both for people ingesting hongos for dietary and medicinal motives, and for the producers, even modest scale. Mico-lógica also sells dried mushrooms. But most of the dried mushrooms sold in Mexico are imported from China, and are not organic and natural. It is a true disgrace on several stages.”
