i went to go harvest some fresh mushroom today as the rains are rolling in and i had nothing to do. many are not ready, but enough were to make it worth the trip.
to start with reishi mushroom is used by many people as an immune system booster and generall all around body "healer". it is being used as an official treatment of cancer in japan and is also being used and researched in helping cure/heal/prevent things like aids, tumors/cancers and other viral/bacterial diseases.
my grandmother was just diagnosed with Ovarian cancer and it is spread all over her abdomen...very serious. my wifes uncle was also just diagnosed with cancer in his esophagus, weeks-months left of life.
this is why i pick my own.
when you look for reishi they say the BEST part is where the spores are. many commercial dried reishi slices take and wash all this out to make stronger more expensive extracts....i am not interested in either cheap crappy mushroom or high priced extracts.
here is how you tell:
because it is the spores and such that you want you want the pores to be larger. the pores are located on teh under side of the fungus under the white soft stuff. The only REAL way to tell if there is a good amount is by pickign it and cutting it. Experienced herbalists/growers etc can tell without cutting but i cant. so basically you want larger pore area and less woody upper cap area.
most commercial sliced reishi is like Column A. i am not saying its bad, the whole mushroom is good....but there is much better!!! the very very expensive grade you may be able to find in health food stores or better herbal stores is like column b. Column C is the best i have ever seen or picked. the pore area is about 2" long! very huge! here quality like column B sells for about $40-$60 per 800 grams (jin/catty)
here they are growing outdoors naturally.
notice the very large pores on this one.
new ones growing where old ones died
here is one back home i am cutting up. the older (dead) top portion i throw away and the healthy growing one i keep. this one also has very large pore area.
this is what it looked like before cutting
here is todays harvest before final clean and being placed on drying racks. this is a 5 gallon bucket and is full if level.
