For thousands of Years the Reishi has been used to heal and maintain wellness in civilisations and is a real superfood.
Like all superfoods, the Reishi has multiple benefits to our health, but is still very much unknown in the western world.
I'm quite sure that if our system embraced this super mushroom and others too, that we would have far less degenerative
disease in our western population. So what is it about Reishi and other super mushrooms that benefits our bodies so much?
Firstly the Reishi belongs to a unique group of herbs that are called adaptogens. These help to manage stress and fight off fatigue. More specifically, they will improve the health of your adrenal system, which is in charge of managing your body's hormones against stress. So they will "adapt" their function according to your body's needs. Very clever hey???
So the Reishi has been tied to longevity, better immune system function, mental clarity and is a super anti-inflammatory. Bottom line is that it is a super, super mushroom and has been used in ancient Chinese medicine for thousands of years.
So being a mushroom that gives your immune system a super boost, it is no surprise that it has been linked to assisting with treating cancer, auto-immune diseases, heart disease, hypertension, liver disease, digestive problems and the list goes on.
Now to the real cool part of this article - because I know that so many of you already will know about the benefits of the mighty Reishi, which is to grow your own. Now this article is not on how to grow your own reishi's, but to talk about the opportunity I have had to try to grow my own.
I have a colleague/friend who has a mushroom farm about 20 minutes from where I live, near Fremantle in Western Australia. Some of you may remember Fremantle as the place where the 1987 America's Cup was held after Australia II won the sacred cup in 1983 off Newport, Rhode Island. I can remember how exciting it was to go to the heads in the outer harbour to see the yachts coming out to battle on the course.
Anyhow, back to my article! So my friend has a mushroom farm just 5 minutes from the centre of Fremantle and grows Oysters for restaurants. Because I grow my own organic produce, we are able to share our produce which is great! but what is even greater is that my friend is experimenting with some super mushrooms at the moment and has given me a couple of Reishi packs to try out and low and behold, the Reishi's are starting to grow!!
Really exciting, but slow going at the moment because it is winter here and they don't really like the cold too much. Even though they are inside and I can keep the temperature warm with heating, it is very important to keep the packs moist, because if they dry out, then they won't grow.
Anyhow, here is a sample of photos so you can see how they are going. It is always a bit special when you are able to grow things at home and I feel blessed to be able to have this opportunity to grow Reishi's. I'm really grateful indeed. so, to the pics peeps!!
This first one is of a more mature reishi and this one has been growing for about 20 days...
Now this second one is really interesting because I got this pack from the big bin at the mushroom farm where I'm able to get the bags of mushroom compost from the disposed of mushy packs that have completed their yield. When I got home, I noticed it had "Reishi" on it and so I decided to keep it as is and started to water it. Low and behold, it is starting to grow Reishi's and quite a few too, so I'm looking forward to showing you the progress in a couple of weeks or so, when these little super baby mushy's are starting to mature. Here is the current pic:
You can see there are about 7 or 8 Reishi's growing which is very exciting indeed.
So where from here? Well I'll hopefully be able to harvest these soon and cut them into strips, dry them out in my humidifier and then make tea from them. I was watching a video where the guy was saying the white outer part of the Reishi is generally soft enough to cook and eat, so maybe that's an option too, although I'm not sure I'll have a heap of them to use at this point.
Anyhow, everybody, that is all for now. I hope you have enjoyed this post and as I said above, I am feeling very blessed to be able to grow this amazing super mushroom at home here in Perth Western Australia!!! Super excited and I'll keep you all updated on progress.
