When we think of mushrooms and the southern Mexico point out of Oaxaca, the very first factor which typically arrives to mind is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez and hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. But little by little which is all changing as a outcome of the groundbreaking work of Josefina Jiménez and Johann Mathieu in mycology, by way of their firm, Mico-lógica.
Dependent in the village of Benito Juárez, situated in Oaxaca’s Ixtlán district (far more frequently known as the Sierra Norte, the state’s main ecotourism area), Mico-lógica’s mission is threefold: to teach each Mexicans and guests to the region in the minimal-expense cultivation of a assortment of mushroom species to teach about the medicinal, dietary and environmental (sustainable) worth of mushrooms and to carry out ongoing investigation with regards to optimum climatic areas and the variety of substrata for mushroom lifestyle.
Canada shrooms -born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and in fact to Huautla de Jiménez, in 2005. “Of course, coming all the way to Mexico from France to pursue my desire in mushrooms appears like a lengthy way to journey,” Mathieu described in a recent job interview in Oaxaca. “But there really was not much of an possibility to conduct research and increase a enterprise in Western Europe,” he carries on, “given that reverence for mushrooms experienced been all but totally eradicated by The Church more than the training course of hundreds of years and I realized that Mexico still maintains a respect and appreciation for the medicinal and nutritional value of hongos. Mexico is far from mycophobic.”
Huautla de Jiménez is much more than a five hour drive from the closest metropolitan middle. Appropriately, Mathieu at some point realized that staying in Huautla, even though keeping an historic allure and being in a geographic location conducive to working with mushrooms, would hinder his endeavours to increase a business and cultivate prevalent desire in finding out about fungi. Mathieu became cognizant of the burgeoning status of Oaxaca’s ecotourism communities of the Sierra Norte, and indeed the Feria Regional de Hongos Silvestres (regional wild mushroom competition), held yearly in Cuahimoloyas.
Mathieu achieved Josefina Jiménez at the summertime weekend mushroom occasion. Jiménez had moved to Oaxaca from hometown Mexico Metropolis in 2002. The two shared comparable pursuits Jiménez experienced studied agronomy, and for near to a 10 years had been doing work with sustainable agriculture projects in rural farming communities in the Huasteca Potosina location of San Luis Potosí, the mountains of Guerrero and the coastline of Chiapas. Mathieu and Jiménez turned business, and then life companions in Benito Juárez.
Mathieu and Jiménez are concentrating on a few mushroom species in their arms-on seminars oyster (seta), shitake and reishi. Their one particular-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’re also educating a fair little bit about the medicinal utilizes of mushrooms, so far more time is essential,” suggests Mathieu, “and with oyster mushrooms it is predominantly [but not solely] a course on cultivation.”
While coaching seminars are now only given in Benito Juárez, Mathieu and Jiménez program to expand operations to include equally the central valleys and coastal locations of Oaxaca. The item is to have a community of producers increasing various mushrooms which are optimally suited for cultivation based on the specific microclimate. There are about 70 sub-species of oyster mushrooms, and as a result as a species, the adaptability of the oyster mushroom to diverse climatic regions is exceptional. “The oyster can be developed in a multitude of different substrata, and that’s what we are experimenting with proper now,” he elucidates. The oyster mushroom can prosper when grown on goods which would or else be waste, these kinds of as discard from cultivating beans, sugar cane, agave (such as the fibrous squander created in mezcal distillation), peas, the frequent river reed known as carriso, sawdust, and the checklist goes on. Agricultural waste which may or else be remaining to rot or be burned, each and every with adverse environmental implications, can type substrata for mushroom cultivation. It ought to be noted, even though trite, that mushroom cultivation is a very sustainable, green market. Over the previous many several years Mexico has in truth been at the fore in numerous regions of sustainable business.
Mathieu exemplifies how mushrooms can provide an arguably even increased environmental excellent:
“They can maintain up to thirty thousand occasions their mass, having implications for inhibiting erosion. They have been employed to cleanse up oil spills by way of absorption and as a result are an critical automobile for habitat restoration. Analysis has been carried out with mushrooms in the struggle towards carpenter ant destruction it truly is been proposed that the use of fungi has the prospective to totally revamp the pesticide sector in an environmentally helpful way. There are virtually hundreds of other eco-friendly applications for mushroom use, and in every single situation the mushroom remains an edible by-product. Consider a search at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, 6 Ways Mushrooms Can Help save The Globe.”
Mathieu and Jiménez can often be found selling their goods on weekends in the natural marketplaces in Oaxaca. They’re equally much more than happy to discuss the nutritional price of their goods which range from naturally their new mushrooms, but also as preserves, marinated with either chipotle and nopal or jalapeño and cauliflower. The mushroom’s vitamin B12 are not able to be identified in fruits or vegetables, and appropriately a diet program which consists of fungi is incredibly critical for vegetarians who can’t get B12, most usually contained in meats. Mushrooms can easily be a substitute for meats, with the advantage that they are not loaded with antibiotics and hormones typically found in industrially processed meat items.
Mico-lógica also market teas and extracts produced from various mushroom species, every formulated as either a nutritional complement, or for their medicinal houses. Although neither Mathieu nor Jiménez has the pharmacological background to prescribe mycological remedy for serious conditions, Mathieu’s possess investigation points to the medicinal use of mushrooms dating from pre-history, to the existing. He notes qualities of mushrooms which can support to restore the immune technique, and thus the use of fungi as a enhance in the therapy of most cancers and AIDS, and their utility in managing diabetic issues and managing large cholesterol.
“We need to all be embracing the natural creation of mushrooms,” Mathieu concludes. “It’s so easy, it includes a minimal funds investment, and it supplies substantial benefits, the two for people ingesting hongos for dietary and medicinal motives, and for the producers, even tiny scale. Mico-lógica also sells dried mushrooms. But most of the dried mushrooms offered in Mexico are imported from China, and are not natural. It’s a real shame on many ranges.”