When we think of mushrooms and the southern Mexico condition of Oaxaca, the initial factor which traditionally arrives to brain is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez and hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. But little by little that is all modifying as a consequence of the groundbreaking operate of Josefina Jiménez and Johann Mathieu in mycology, by means of their company, Mico-lógica.
Primarily based in the village of Benito Juárez, positioned in Oaxaca’s Ixtlán district (a lot more commonly known as the Sierra Norte, the state’s primary ecotourism region), Mico-lógica’s mission is threefold: to practice equally Mexicans and site visitors to the nation in the reduced-value cultivation of a range of mushroom species to teach about the medicinal, nutritional and environmental (sustainable) value of mushrooms and to perform ongoing analysis relating to the best possible climatic locations and the diversity of substrata for mushroom society.
The French-born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and in truth to Huautla de Jiménez, in 2005. “Indeed, coming all the way to Mexico from France to go after my fascination in mushrooms appears like a lengthy way to vacation,” Mathieu explained in a latest interview in Oaxaca. “But there truly was not considerably of an possibility to conduct reports and expand a company in Western Europe,” he continues, “because reverence for mushrooms had been all but totally eradicated by The Church more than the program of hundreds of years and I learned that Mexico nonetheless maintains a regard and appreciation for the medicinal and dietary value of hongos. Mexico is significantly from mycophobic.”
Huautla de Jiménez is more than a 5 hour drive from the closest metropolitan heart. Appropriately, Mathieu eventually realized that staying in Huautla, although holding an historic attract and getting in a geographic area conducive to operating with mushrooms, would hinder his efforts to expand a enterprise and cultivate popular interest in understanding about fungi. Mathieu grew to become cognizant of the burgeoning track record of Oaxaca’s ecotourism communities of the Sierra Norte, and indeed the Feria Regional de Hongos Silvestres (regional wild mushroom pageant), held each year in Cuahimoloyas.
Mathieu met Josefina Jiménez at the summertime weekend mushroom occasion. Jiménez experienced moved to Oaxaca from hometown Mexico City in 2002. The two shared similar passions Jiménez experienced researched agronomy, and for near to a ten years experienced been doing work 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 grew to become enterprise, and then lifestyle associates in Benito Juárez.
Mathieu and Jiménez are concentrating on 3 mushroom species in their arms-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 teaching a truthful little bit about the medicinal utilizes of mushrooms, so more time is essential,” says Mathieu, “and with oyster mushrooms it’s predominantly [but not solely] a program on cultivation.”
While training seminars are now only offered in Benito Juárez, Mathieu and Jiménez prepare to broaden operations to consist of equally 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 dependent on the particular microclimate. There are about 70 sub-species of oyster mushrooms, and therefore as a species, the adaptability of the oyster mushroom to different climatic regions 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 developed on items which would otherwise be waste, this sort of as discard from cultivating beans, sugar cane, agave (which includes the fibrous waste made in mezcal distillation), peas, the typical river reed identified as carriso, sawdust, and the checklist goes on. Agricultural squander which may or else be remaining to rot or be burned, each with adverse environmental implications, can kind substrata for mushroom cultivation. It must be noted, though trite, that mushroom cultivation is a extremely sustainable, environmentally friendly sector. More than the previous numerous many years Mexico has in simple fact been at the fore in many areas of sustainable industry.
Mathieu exemplifies how mushrooms can serve an arguably even better environmental very good:
“They can maintain up to thirty thousand occasions their mass, possessing implications for inhibiting erosion. They have been utilised to clean up oil spills via absorption and therefore are an crucial motor vehicle for habitat restoration. Study has been done with mushrooms in the fight towards carpenter ant destruction it really is been suggested that the use of fungi has the possible to totally revamp the pesticide industry in an environmentally welcoming way. There are virtually hundreds of other eco-welcoming purposes for mushroom use, and in every single case the mushroom remains an edible by-merchandise. Just take a look at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, 6 Techniques Mushrooms Can Help save The Globe.”
Mathieu and Jiménez can often be identified promoting their items on weekends in the organic and natural markets in Oaxaca. They are the two a lot more than pleased to examine the dietary value of their products which variety from by natural means their fresh mushrooms, but also as preserves, marinated with possibly chipotle and nopal or jalapeño and cauliflower. The mushroom’s vitamin B12 can’t be located in fruits or vegetables, and accordingly a diet plan which consists of fungi is incredibly important for vegetarians who can not get B12, most often contained in meats. Mushrooms can easily be a substitute for meats, with the edge that they are not loaded with antibiotics and hormones frequently located in industrially processed meat goods.
Mico-lógica also market teas and extracts manufactured from different mushroom species, every formulated as both a nutritional supplement, or for their medicinal qualities. Although neither Mathieu nor Jiménez has the pharmacological history to prescribe mycological treatment method for significant conditions, Mathieu’s personal analysis factors to the medicinal use of mushrooms dating from pre-heritage, to the current. He notes properties of mushrooms which can support to restore the immune technique, and therefore the use of fungi as a enhance in the therapy of most cancers and AIDS, and their utility in controlling diabetes and dealing with high cholesterol.
“We must all be embracing the natural and organic creation of mushrooms,” Mathieu concludes. “It’s so easy, it involves a minimal money expenditure, and it provides considerable rewards, the two for these ingesting hongos for dietary and medicinal factors, and for the producers, even tiny scale. mushroom chocolate bar -lógica also sells dried mushrooms. Yet most of the dried mushrooms offered in Mexico are imported from China, and are not natural and organic. It really is a true disgrace on many levels.”
Mexico and mushrooms have occur a long way because the era of Oaxaca’s María Sabina. With the ongoing endeavours of Mathieu, Jiménez and Mico-lógica, it need to not be long prior to the world understands and embraces the magic of mushrooms inside of a a lot broader context.