When we imagine of mushrooms and often the southern Mexico state involving Oaxaca, the initial thing which customarily comes to mind is María Sabina, Huautla sobre Jiménez and hallucinogenic "magic" mushrooms. But slowly gowns all changing as a new result of this revolutionary work of Josefina Jiménez and Johann Mathieu within mycology, through his or her business, Mico-lógica.
Based in the commune of Benito Juárez, located in Oaxaca's Ixtlán section (more commonly identified as the Sierra Norte, the state's key ecotourism region), Mico-lógica's mission is threefold: to train equally Mexicans and visitors to be able to the region in the cheap cultivation of the assortment associated with mushroom variety; to instruct about the medicamentoso, nutritional and environmental (sustainable) value of mushrooms; and to carry out ongoing research regarding most effective damage districts and the particular diversity connected with substrata with regard to mushroom traditions.
The French-born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and even in fact to be able to Huautla de Jiménez, around 2006. "Yes, coming to South america from Portugal for you to do my interest in mushrooms seems like a very long way to travel, inch Mathieu revealed in some sort of new interview in Oaxaca. "But there really has not been much of an opportunity to be able to conduct studies plus raise a business inside North west The eu, " this individual goes on, "since reverence to get mushrooms experienced been basically completely eradicated by The House of worship over the course regarding centuries; and I learned that Mexico still sustains the respect and thanks for the medicinal and nutritional cost associated with hongos. Mexico is usually not even close mycophobic. "
Huautla sobre Jiménez is even more than a 5 hours drive from the nearest metropolitan center. Accordingly, Mathieu at some point realized that remaining in Huautla, while holding a good ancient allure and even being in a new geographic region conducive in order to operating with mushrooms, would hinder his efforts to expand a business and enhance wide-spread interest in understanding about fungi. Mathieu grew to be aware of the robust status of Oaxaca's ecotourism communities of the Serranía Aspiracion, and indeed often the Feria Territorial de Hongos Silvestres (regional wild mushroom festival), organised annually within Cuahimoloyas.
Mathieu met Josefina Jiménez with the summertime weekend break mushroom celebration. Jiménez possessed moved to Oaxaca by hometown Mexico Metropolis in 2002.
mushroom grow bags distributed similar interests; Jiménez had studied agronomy, and intended for near to a ten years possessed been handling sustainable farming projects within rural gardening communities from the Huasteca Potosina location associated with San Luis Potosí, the mountains of Alborotador and the sea-coast associated with Chiapas. Mathieu and even Jiménez became business, and then life partners in Benito Juárez.
Mathieu and Jiménez can be concentrating on three mushroom species in their hands-on workshops; oyster (seta), shitake and even reishi. Their one-day training courses are for oyster mushrooms, and two-day clinics to the latter two species of candida. "With reishi, and to a smaller degree shitake, we're furthermore educating a fair bit concerning the medicinal uses associated with mushrooms, so more time period is needed, " says Mathieu, "and with oyster mushrooms they have predominantly [but not exclusively] a course on cultivation. inches
When training seminars will be now merely given inside Benito Juárez, Mathieu plus Jiménez plan to increase operations to include equally the particular central valleys and even coastal regions of Oaxaca. The object would be to have got a network of companies growing different mushrooms that happen to be optimally suited for farming using the particular microclimate. Right now there are about 70 sub-species of oyster mushrooms, plus thus as a kinds, the adaptability of often the oyster mushroom to diverse climatic regions is impressive. "The oyster can become grown within a lot connected with different substrata, and that's just what we're experimentation with proper now, " he elucidates. The oyster mushroom can easily thrive when grown with products which would often turn out to be waste, such as discard through cultivating pinto beans, sugar walking cane, agave (including the fibrous waste created in mezcal distillation), peas, the common river reed known as carriso, sawdust, plus the list goes along. Agricultural waste material which may otherwise be remaining to be able to rot or turn out to be burnt, each with undesirable ecological implications, can form substrata for mushroom cultivation. It has to be taken into account, though trite, that mushroom cultivation is a remarkably eco friendly, green industry. Around the past a few years South america has in fact also been from the fore around numerous areas of eco friendly industry.
Mathieu exemplifies precisely how mushrooms can serve a great perhaps even greater environmental good:
"They can hold up to thirty 1000 times their mass, getting significance for inhibiting chafing. They've been used to clean up essential oil spills through absorption and so are usually an important vehicle regarding habitat restoration. Research features recently been done with mushrooms in the struggle against carpenter ant devastation; they have been suggested that the particular use of fungi has this potential to absolutely revamp the pesticide business in an environmentally friendly technique. You will discover actually hundreds of other earth-friendly applications intended for mushroom use, and around each case often the mushroom remains an ready-to-eat by-product. Take a new consider the Robert Stamets YouTube address, 6 Ways Mushrooms Can help The World. "
Mathieu in addition to Jiménez can frequently be found selling their products about breaks in the natural markets within Oaxaca. These people both more than ready to talk about the vitamins and minerals of their very own products which range from the natural way their fresh mushrooms, but as preserves, marinated using either chipotle in addition to nopal as well as jalapeño in addition to cauliflower. The mushroom's nutritional B12 can not be found in fruits or fruit and vegetables, and correctly a diet which usually includes fungi is highly important for vegetarians who also are not able to get B12, virtually all typically contained in meats. Mushrooms are always some sort of substitute for meats, together with the advantage that they are not necessarily packed with antibiotics and hormones generally found in industrially processed various meats products.
Mico-lógica also promote teas and even extracts made from different mushroom species, every formulated like either a supplement, or maybe for their medicamentoso properties. While neither Mathieu nor Jiménez has the medicinal record to recommend mycological remedy for significant illnesses, Mathieu's own research factors to typically the therapeutic use of mushrooms going out with via pre-history, to the current. He notes qualities connected with mushrooms which can aid to restore the immune system, thereby the make use of of disease as the complement in the treatment of malignancy and HELPS, and their utility throughout controlling diabetic and managing high lipid disorders.
"We really should be embracing the organic and natural production of mushrooms, inches Mathieu concludes. "It's so easy, it involves a small capital investment, and the idea provides significant rewards, equally for anyone ingesting hongos with regard to nutritional and healing motives, and for the producers, even small-scale. Mico-lógica also provides dried out mushrooms. Yet just about all of the dried up mushrooms sold in Mexico can be imported from China, plus are definitely not organic. Really some sort of actual shame upon numerous amounts. "