Fungi Facts to Blow your Mind

Mushrooms are natures true communicators, we share a lot of our DNA with them, and they offer us many health benefits, which are now being validated by science. We know our Chaga from our Cordyceps, and we’ve heard about some of the amazing health benefits they have to offer us, but there is a whole world of lesser-known fungi facts, here are our favourites:

• Mushrooms absorb whatever they’re grown in, and can actually concentrate it, which means they can condense and strengthen anything they are exposed to. This is why it’s important to buy Organic and check your sourcing.

• Mushrooms are the only plant-based source of Vitamin D.

• Fungi use natural antibiotics to defend themselves from other micro-organisms. The antibiotic penicillin was derived from a species of fungi.

• The largest organism on earth is a fungus. The honey mushroom fungus lives in a forest in Oregon state, USA and measures just under 2.5 miles across.

• Fungi recycle plants after they die and transform them into nutrient-rich soil. They are also capable of breaking down environmental pollutants, protecting the environment by absorbing and digesting dangerous substances like oil, pesticides and industrial waste.

• The spores of mushrooms are made of chitin, the hardest naturally-made substance on Earth.

• There are many species of mushrooms that glow in the dark and people have been using these mushrooms as lights to find their way inside the jungle.

• Portabello mushrooms, button mushrooms and white mushrooms are the same mushrooms at different levels of maturity.

• It’s suspected that we only know about 10 percent of all the mushrooms on earth. Researchers have documented 140,000 fungi to date, and around 1,200 new species are discovered every year.

• Lightning may increase mushroom yield. Japanese farmers have long welcomed storms over their fields based on the belief that lightning strikes provoke plentiful harvests of mushrooms.

• When mushrooms reach maturity they release millions of tons of spores into the atmosphere. Some evidence suggests these spores can act as nuclei in the formation of raindrops in clouds, with mushrooms that require rain for growth shedding massive amounts of spores to promote rainfall.

Find out more about our organic mushrooms supplements here…