Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Magic Mushrooms

No, not those kind of magic mushrooms, silly! I'm talking about the magical medicinal qualities of gourmet 'shrooms.

There's a local mushroom farm down in Potts Camp, Mississippi called Dickey Farms, and they grow all sorts of good-for-you mushrooms, like shiitake, osyter, lion's mane, and pioppino. They don't grow button or portabella mushrooms (because you can find those anywhere!). They asked me to pick up some of their mushrooms at the Cooper Young Farmer's Market (where they sell each Saturday), but I got there super-late last weekend, and they were all sold out of fresh mushrooms.

But they did have their Sun-Dried Mushroom Powder and Medicinal Mushroom Tea.


Mushrooms are an excellent source of vitamin D. Since I'm still getting over the world's slowest-healing foot stress fracture (it's been 10 weeks and it still hurts!), my doctor has told me to take extra vitamin D. I've been taking a vegan D2 supplement, but it can't hurt to get a little natural vegan D from my food, right? (FYI: vitamin D3 is not vegan. It's sourced from animals).

The Medicinal Mushroom Tea is basically a bag of sun-dried mushroom bits (the sun-drying adds even more vitamin D). You boil water, add a tablespoon or so of the dried mushrooms, and let it simmer for 45 minutes. Then you strain the mushrooms off and drink it, straight up, no sugar. It tastes just like drinking mushrooms, which admittedly sounds a little weird at first. But I'm a savory tea drinker (I even put shoyu in my umeboshi plum tea), so I loved this!


Medicinal Mushroom Tea is said to help fight cancer, viruses, inflammation, and bad bacteria, while reducing cholesterol, tumors, respiratory issues, and a host of other things.

The Sun-Dried Mushroom Powder is my favorite though. I've been sprinkling it on EVERYTHING for extra vitamin D. Here I've sprinkled it over some of my leftover Thai Noodle Salad from yesterday.


I also sprinkled it over toast with Earth Balance this morning. It's made from shiitake, oyster, lion's mane, and pioppino mushrooms. If you're looking for fresh versions of any of those mushrooms and you're in the Memphis area, stop by the CY Farmer's Market and check out Dickey Farms! And just FYI: They may stop making the tea and powder products soon to turn more attention on fresh mushrooms, so scoop these up at the market soon!

2 comments:

Dana Vickerson said...

that looks awesome! i hope you heal soon :)

also, your bianca mug is too cute

Zach said...

Hey, just a heads up, but there are vegan forms of D3. Certain strains (is that the right term for this?) of lichens have been shown to have D3 and I've also heard some mushrooms can as well. There's certain brands that use these for vegan D3. I'm currently using a vitamin from the brand Vitashine which makes vegan D3 but I've seen others as well. I know the science still isn't totally clear on whether D2 is any worse than D3, but personally speaking I've had my blood tests show that my body does much better with D3. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Love the blog!