When we feel of mushrooms and the southern Mexico condition of Oaxaca, the first issue which usually will come to brain is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez and hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. But gradually which is all altering as a consequence of the groundbreaking work of Josefina Jiménez and Johann Mathieu in mycology, by way of their company, Mico-lógica.
Based in the village of Benito Juárez, found in Oaxaca’s Ixtlán district (more frequently identified as the Sierra Norte, the state’s primary ecotourism area), Mico-lógica’s mission is threefold: to train the two Mexicans and website visitors to the region in the minimal-value cultivation of a variety of mushroom species to teach about the medicinal, nutritional and environmental (sustainable) benefit of mushrooms and to conduct ongoing analysis concerning the best possible climatic areas and the variety of substrata for mushroom society.
The French-born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and in simple fact to Huautla de Jiménez, in 2005. “Yes, coming all the way to Mexico from France to pursue my curiosity in mushrooms looks like a extended way to vacation,” Mathieu discussed in a latest interview in Oaxaca. “But there really wasn’t considerably of an opportunity to conduct reports and increase a business in Western Europe,” he carries on, “since reverence for mushrooms had been all but completely eradicated by The Church more than the training course of centuries and I realized that Mexico even now maintains a regard and appreciation for the medicinal and nutritional price of hongos. Mexico is significantly from mycophobic.”
Huautla de Jiménez is much more than a five hour drive from the closest metropolitan middle. Accordingly, Mathieu eventually understood that remaining in Huautla, while holding an historic allure and currently being in a geographic region conducive to doing work with mushrooms, would hinder his initiatives to develop a organization and cultivate widespread desire in learning about fungi. One up mushroom bar became 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 had moved to Oaxaca from hometown Mexico Town in 2002. The two shared similar passions Jiménez had researched agronomy, and for close to a decade had been operating 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 grew to become company, and then life companions in Benito Juárez.
Mathieu and Jiménez are concentrating on three mushroom species in their fingers-on seminars oyster (seta), shitake and reishi. Their a single-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 teaching a reasonable little bit about the medicinal uses of mushrooms, so a lot more time is essential,” claims Mathieu, “and with oyster mushrooms it is predominantly [but not solely] a training course on cultivation.”
Whilst education seminars are now only presented in Benito Juárez, Mathieu and Jiménez prepare to expand operations to incorporate both the central valleys and coastal locations of Oaxaca. The item is to have a network of producers expanding different mushrooms which are optimally suited for cultivation based on the distinct microclimate. There are about 70 sub-species of oyster mushrooms, and thus as a species, the adaptability of the oyster mushroom to diverse climatic areas is remarkable. “The oyster can be grown 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 merchandise which would otherwise be waste, this kind of as discard from cultivating beans, sugar cane, agave (like the fibrous squander created in mezcal distillation), peas, the widespread river reed recognized as carriso, sawdust, and the listing goes on. Agricultural squander which might normally be left to rot or be burned, each with adverse environmental implications, can form substrata for mushroom cultivation. It should be mentioned, though trite, that mushroom cultivation is a very sustainable, environmentally friendly sector. Above the previous several years Mexico has in truth been at the fore in many places of sustainable business.
Mathieu exemplifies how mushrooms can provide an arguably even higher environmental great:
“They can hold up to 30 thousand moments their mass, having implications for inhibiting erosion. They have been employed to clean up oil spills by means of absorption and thus are an important car for habitat restoration. Research has been done with mushrooms in the fight towards carpenter ant destruction it really is been advised that the use of fungi has the likely to entirely revamp the pesticide sector in an environmentally pleasant way. There are literally hundreds of other eco-friendly purposes for mushroom use, and in each and every case the mushroom remains an edible by-item. Just take a appear at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, six Techniques Mushrooms Can Save The Planet.”
Mathieu and Jiménez can frequently be identified promoting their goods on weekends in the natural and organic marketplaces in Oaxaca. They are both more than happy to examine the nutritional value of their products which selection from in a natural way their new mushrooms, but also as preserves, marinated with possibly chipotle and nopal or jalapeño and cauliflower. The mushroom’s vitamin B12 can not be located in fruits or greens, and appropriately a diet plan which consists of fungi is very important for vegetarians who can’t get B12, most typically contained in meats. Mushrooms can easily be a substitute for meats, with the benefit that they are not loaded with antibiotics and hormones typically found in industrially processed meat goods.
Mico-lógica also offer teas and extracts created from various mushroom species, every single formulated as both a nutritional health supplement, or for their medicinal qualities. Although neither Mathieu nor Jiménez has the pharmacological history to prescribe mycological treatment for significant illnesses, Mathieu’s very own analysis factors to the medicinal use of mushrooms dating from pre-history, to the present. He notes homes of mushrooms which can help to restore the immune system, and therefore the use of fungi as a enhance in the remedy of cancer and AIDS, and their utility in controlling diabetes and managing high cholesterol.
“We ought to all be embracing the natural production of mushrooms,” Mathieu concludes. “It really is so straightforward, it includes a minimum cash expenditure, and it supplies significant rewards, equally for people ingesting hongos for nutritional and medicinal factors, and for the producers, even modest scale. Mico-lógica also sells dried mushrooms. Nevertheless most of the dried mushrooms bought in Mexico are imported from China, and are not organic. It’s a true disgrace on many levels.”
Mexico and mushrooms have occur a extended way considering that the era of Oaxaca’s María Sabina. With the continued attempts of Mathieu, Jiménez and Mico-lógica, it should not be lengthy ahead of the world understands and embraces the magic of mushrooms inside of a considerably broader context.
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