When we feel of mushrooms and the southern Mexico condition of Oaxaca, the first thing which typically will come to head is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez and hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. But slowly which is all altering as a consequence of the groundbreaking work of Josefina Jiménez and Johann Mathieu in mycology, via their company, Mico-lógica.
Based in the village of Benito Juárez, situated in Oaxaca’s Ixtlán district (much more frequently acknowledged as the Sierra Norte, the state’s principal ecotourism region), Mico-lógica’s mission is threefold: to teach the two Mexicans and website visitors to the country in the low-price cultivation of a assortment of mushroom species to educate about the medicinal, nutritional and environmental (sustainable) benefit of mushrooms and to carry out ongoing study concerning ideal climatic areas and the diversity of substrata for mushroom lifestyle.
The French-born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and in fact to Huautla de Jiménez, in 2005. “Yes, coming all the way to Mexico from France to pursue my interest in mushrooms looks like a lengthy way to journey,” Mathieu explained in a current job interview in Oaxaca. “But there actually was not a lot of an possibility to perform reports and develop a business in Western Europe,” he continues, “given that reverence for mushrooms had been all but completely eradicated by The Church over the training course of hundreds of years and I uncovered that Mexico nevertheless maintains a regard and appreciation for the medicinal and nutritional worth of hongos. Mexico is far from mycophobic.”
Huautla de Jiménez is far more than a 5 hour push from the closest metropolitan center. Appropriately, Mathieu ultimately recognized that remaining in Huautla, while keeping an historic allure and currently being in a geographic location conducive to functioning with mushrooms, would hinder his efforts to increase a enterprise and cultivate popular curiosity in understanding about fungi. Mathieu became cognizant of the burgeoning track record of Oaxaca’s ecotourism communities of the Sierra Norte, and in fact the Feria Regional de Hongos Silvestres (regional wild mushroom festival), held every year in Cuahimoloyas.
Mathieu achieved Josefina Jiménez at the summertime weekend mushroom event. Jiménez had moved to Oaxaca from hometown Mexico City in 2002. The two shared related pursuits Jiménez had analyzed agronomy, and for near to a ten years had been doing work with sustainable agriculture assignments 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 became business, and then life 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 one-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 teaching a honest little bit about the medicinal uses of mushrooms, so a lot more time is essential,” states Mathieu, “and with oyster mushrooms it’s predominantly [but not exclusively] a training course on cultivation.”
Although instruction seminars are now only provided in Benito Juárez, Mathieu and Jiménez prepare to grow functions to incorporate the two the central valleys and coastal areas of Oaxaca. The object is to have a community of producers expanding various mushrooms which are optimally suited for cultivation dependent 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 different climatic areas is exceptional. “The oyster can be developed in a multitude of various substrata, and that’s what we’re experimenting with proper now,” he elucidates. The oyster mushroom can prosper when grown on merchandise which would normally be waste, such as discard from cultivating beans, sugar cane, agave (such as the fibrous waste developed in mezcal distillation), peas, the typical river reed recognized as carriso, sawdust, and the record goes on. Agricultural squander which may or else be left to rot or be burned, each with adverse environmental implications, can sort substrata for mushroom cultivation. It should be observed, though trite, that mushroom cultivation is a extremely sustainable, inexperienced market. More than the past many many years Mexico has in reality been at the fore in a lot of regions of sustainable sector.
Mathieu exemplifies how mushrooms can provide an arguably even increased environmental very good:
“They can hold up to thirty thousand moments their mass, getting implications for inhibiting erosion. They’ve been used to clean up oil spills through absorption and as a result are an critical car for habitat restoration. Research has been done with mushrooms in the battle towards carpenter ant destruction it is been suggested that the use of fungi has the likely to completely revamp the pesticide sector in an environmentally pleasant way. There are practically hundreds of other eco-pleasant applications for mushroom use, and in every scenario the mushroom continues to be an edible by-item. Consider a search at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, 6 Approaches Mushrooms Can Help save The Globe.”
Mathieu and Jiménez can frequently be identified promoting their items on weekends in the natural and organic markets in Oaxaca. They’re the two far more than satisfied to discuss the nutritional benefit of their items which selection from normally their new 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 veggies, and accordingly a diet program which contains fungi is really crucial for vegetarians who cannot get B12, most frequently contained in meats. Mushrooms can effortlessly be a substitute for meats, with the edge that they are not loaded with antibiotics and hormones frequently found in industrially processed meat products.
mushroom growing kit -lógica also promote teas and extracts created from distinct mushroom species, each formulated as possibly a nutritional complement, or for their medicinal properties. Whilst neither Mathieu nor Jiménez has the pharmacological qualifications to prescribe mycological remedy for severe ailments, Mathieu’s very own investigation details to the medicinal use of mushrooms relationship from pre-historical past, to the present. He notes qualities of mushrooms which can aid to restore the immune method, and thus the use of fungi as a complement in the treatment of most cancers and AIDS, and their utility in managing diabetic issues and treating high cholesterol.
“We should all be embracing the organic production of mushrooms,” Mathieu concludes. “It is so straightforward, it entails a nominal money expense, and it provides important rewards, equally for those ingesting hongos for dietary and medicinal causes, and for the producers, even tiny scale. Mico-lógica also sells dried mushrooms. Yet most of the dried mushrooms bought in Mexico are imported from China, and are not natural and organic. It really is a genuine shame on quite a few ranges.”