When we think about mushrooms and also the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca, the initial thing which typically enters your mind is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez and hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. Yet gradually that’s all transforming as an outcome of the groundbreaking work of Josefina Jiménez as well as Johann Mathieu in mycology, via their firm, Mico-lógica.
Based in the town of Benito Juárez, situated in Oaxaca’s Ixtlán area (more typically referred to as the Sierra Norte, the state’s main ecotourism area), Mico-lógica’s objective is threefold: to educate both Mexicans and site visitors to the country in the low-priced farming of a selection of mushroom varieties; to educate about the medical, nutritional and ecological (lasting) value of mushrooms; and to perform continuous research study regarding maximum climatic areas and the variety of substrata for mushroom culture.
The French-born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and as a matter of fact to Huautla de Jiménez, in 2005. “Yes, coming right to Mexico from France to pursue my rate of interest in mushrooms seems like a long way to take a trip,” Mathieu explained in a current meeting in Oaxaca. “But there truly wasn’t much of a chance to perform researches as well as grow a company in Western Europe,” he continues, “given that reverence for mushrooms had actually been almost completely eradicated by The Church over the course of centuries; as well as I discovered that Mexico still keeps a regard and also appreciation for the medicinal and nutritional value of hongos. Mexico is far from mycophobic.”
Huautla de Jiménez is greater than a 5 hour drive from the closest urbane center. As necessary, Mathieu ultimately recognized that staying in Huautla, while holding a historical appeal as well as remaining in a geographic region for working with mushrooms, would certainly prevent his initiatives to expand a company and also grow widespread passion in discovering fungis. Mathieu came to be observant of the burgeoning online reputation of Oaxaca’s ecotourism communities of the Sierra Norte, and also indeed the Feria Regional de Hongos Silvestres (regional wild mushroom event), held each year in Cuahimoloyas.
Mathieu satisfied Josefina Jiménez at the summertime weekend break mushroom event. Jiménez had transferred to Oaxaca from hometown Mexico City in 2002. Both shared similar passions; Jiménez had actually examined agronomy, and for near a years had actually been working with lasting farming projects in rural farming neighborhoods in the Huasteca Potosina region of San Luis Potosí, the mountains of Guerrero as well as the coastline of Chiapas. Mathieu as well as Jiménez became service, and afterwards life partners in Benito Juárez.
Mathieu as well as Jiménez are focusing on 3 mushroom medicinal mushroomsс varieties in their hands-on seminars; oyster (seta), shitake as well as reishi. Their one-day workshops are for oyster mushrooms, as well as two-day clinics for the latter 2 varieties of fungus. “With reishi, as well as to a lesser extent shitake, we’re additionally showing a reasonable little bit regarding the medical uses of mushrooms, so more time is called for,” states Mathieu, “as well as with oyster mushrooms it’s primarily [however not specifically] a program on cultivation.”
While training workshops are now only given up Benito Juárez, Mathieu and Jiménez strategy to expand procedures to include both the central valleys and also coastal areas of Oaxaca. The things is to have a network of producers growing different mushrooms which are optimally suited for growing based on the certain microclimate. There have to do with 70 sub-species of oyster mushrooms, and also thus as a species, the adaptability of the oyster mushroom to different climatic regions is remarkable. “The oyster can be grown in a multitude of various substrata, and that’s what we’re experimenting with today,” he clarifies. The oyster mushroom can grow when grown on products which would otherwise be waste, such as throw out from cultivating beans, sugar walking stick, agave (including the coarse waste created in mezcal distillation), peas, the typical river reed referred to as carriso, sawdust, and the checklist goes on. Agricultural waste which might otherwise be delegated rot or be melted, each with negative ecological effects, can develop substrata for mushroom farming. It must be kept in mind, though routine, that mushroom farming is an extremely lasting, eco-friendly sector. Over the past numerous years Mexico has actually in fact been at the fore in many locations of lasting industry.
Mathieu exemplifies how mushrooms can serve an arguably also higher environmental good:
” They can stand up to thirty thousand times their mass, having implications for preventing erosion. They’ve been utilized to clean up oil spills with absorption and also hence are a crucial lorry for environment restoration. Study has been done with mushrooms in the battle against carpenter ant destruction; it’s been recommended that using fungi has the prospective to totally revamp the chemical industry in an environmentally friendly means. There are essentially numerous various other eco-friendly applications for mushroom use, as well as in each instance the mushroom remains an edible byproduct. Take a look at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, 6 Ways Mushrooms Can Conserve The Globe.”
Mathieu as well as Jiménez can commonly be found selling their items on weekends in the natural markets in Oaxaca. They’re both greater than happy to discuss the dietary worth of their products which range from normally their fresh mushrooms, yet likewise as maintains, marinated with either chipotle and also nopal or jalapeño and cauliflower. The mushroom’s vitamin B12 can not be found in fruits or vegetables, and accordingly a diet regimen that includes fungi is exceptionally crucial for vegetarians that can not get B12, most often had in meats. Mushrooms can conveniently be a replacement for meats, with the advantage that they are not packed with anti-biotics as well as hormones usually found in industrially refined meat items.