When we feel of mushrooms and the southern Mexico condition of Oaxaca, the very first point which traditionally will come to brain is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez and hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. But slowly and gradually that is all modifying as a consequence of the groundbreaking function 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 (more commonly acknowledged as the Sierra Norte, the state’s principal ecotourism location), Mico-lógica’s mission is threefold: to train each Mexicans and visitors to the country in the low-expense cultivation of a variety of mushroom species to educate about the medicinal, nutritional and environmental (sustainable) price of mushrooms and to perform ongoing analysis relating to the best possible climatic areas and the range of substrata for mushroom lifestyle.
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 go after my desire in mushrooms appears like a long way to travel,” Mathieu explained in a current interview in Oaxaca. “But there really was not significantly of an prospect to carry out research and develop a business in Western Europe,” he proceeds, “considering that reverence for mushrooms had been all but completely eradicated by The Church more than the training course of generations and I learned that Mexico nonetheless maintains a respect and appreciation for the medicinal and nutritional benefit of hongos. Mexico is far from mycophobic.”
Huautla de Jiménez is far more than a five hour generate from the closest metropolitan middle. Appropriately, Mathieu at some point realized that remaining in Huautla, even though holding an historic allure and currently being in a geographic location conducive to operating with mushrooms, would hinder his initiatives to increase a business and cultivate widespread fascination in studying about fungi. Mathieu turned cognizant of the burgeoning reputation 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 achieved Josefina Jiménez at the summertime weekend mushroom function. Jiménez experienced moved to Oaxaca from hometown Mexico Metropolis in 2002. The two shared comparable interests Jiménez experienced examined agronomy, and for close to a ten years experienced 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 turned company, and then daily life associates 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-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’re also instructing a honest bit about the medicinal employs of mushrooms, so far more time is needed,” states Mathieu, “and with oyster mushrooms it is predominantly [but not completely] a program on cultivation.”
Whilst coaching seminars are now only provided in Benito Juárez, Mathieu and Jiménez prepare to broaden operations to contain equally the central valleys and coastal areas of Oaxaca. The object is to have a community of producers increasing various mushrooms which are optimally suited for cultivation based on the distinct microclimate. There are about 70 sub-species of oyster mushrooms, and therefore as a species, the adaptability of the oyster mushroom to distinct climatic regions is remarkable. “The oyster can be grown in a multitude of diverse substrata, and that’s what we’re experimenting with appropriate now,” he elucidates. The oyster mushroom can prosper when grown on goods which would normally be waste, these kinds of as discard from cultivating beans, sugar cane, agave (which includes the fibrous squander produced in mezcal distillation), peas, the frequent river reed recognized as carriso, sawdust, and the list goes on. Agricultural waste which may possibly or else be left to rot or be burned, every with adverse environmental implications, can type substrata for mushroom cultivation. It need to be mentioned, however trite, that mushroom cultivation is a hugely sustainable, environmentally friendly sector. Above the past several a long time Mexico has in fact been at the fore in a lot of locations of sustainable industry.
Mathieu exemplifies how mushrooms can serve an arguably even higher environmental great:
“They can keep up to thirty thousand instances their mass, obtaining implications for inhibiting erosion. They have been employed to clear up oil spills by means of absorption and therefore are an crucial car for habitat restoration. Investigation has been completed with mushrooms in the struggle from carpenter ant destruction it is been proposed that the use of fungi has the possible to fully revamp the pesticide market in an environmentally helpful way. There are practically hundreds of other eco-welcoming applications for mushroom use, and in each and every case the mushroom stays an edible by-solution. Take a search at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, six Techniques Mushrooms Can Conserve The Entire world.”
Mathieu and Jiménez can often be discovered promoting their items on weekends in the natural and organic marketplaces in Oaxaca. They are the two much more than happy to go over the dietary benefit of their items which selection from naturally their clean mushrooms, but also as preserves, marinated with possibly 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 plan which contains fungi is extremely 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 identified in industrially processed meat products.
Mico-lógica also sell teas and extracts made from diverse mushroom species, every formulated as either a nutritional complement, or for their medicinal properties. Even though neither Mathieu nor Jiménez has the pharmacological background to prescribe mycological remedy for critical illnesses, Mathieu’s own investigation points to the medicinal use of mushrooms courting from pre-history, to the present. He notes houses of mushrooms which can support to restore the immune system, and therefore the use of fungi as a complement in the remedy of cancer and AIDS, and their utility in controlling diabetic issues and treating large cholesterol.
“We should all be embracing the organic creation of mushrooms,” Mathieu concludes. “It truly is so easy, it entails a nominal cash investment, and it offers important benefits, each for individuals ingesting hongos for nutritional and medicinal reasons, and for the producers, even tiny scale. Mico-lógica also sells dried mushrooms. But most of the dried mushrooms marketed in Mexico are imported from China, and are not natural. psilocybe is a genuine disgrace on several levels.”
Mexico and mushrooms have arrive a lengthy way since the era of Oaxaca’s María Sabina. With the ongoing initiatives of Mathieu, Jiménez and Mico-lógica, it must not be extended ahead of the globe understands and embraces the magic of mushrooms inside a a lot broader context.