Mushrooms seem to be everywhere these days! The most common button mushrooms have always been abundant, but to procure specialty mushrooms, you used to have to go to the Asian markets. Now, you can find a pretty wide assortment in supermarkets, grocery stores and farmer’s markets. The demand is great, so suppliers are happy to increase varieties and quantities.
The New York Times named the mushroom “the ingredient of the year” in 2022. If mushrooms started to take off a few years ago, a number of factors have kept them in the spotlight. The growing interest in foraging and wild foods, in which mushrooms feature prominently and the 2020’s lockdowns played a key role in prompting people to experiment with new ingredients in their home cooking. And, the growth in medical psilocybin research increased public interest in mushrooms.1
At the same time mushrooms have taken center stage, so has public interest in bolstering immunity—again, coinciding with the 2020’s lockdowns. Mushrooms have been consumed regularly in Asian cuisines for thousands of years and not just for their umami flavors but for their medicinal value. The ancients somehow knew what contemporary researchers have confirmed—certain mushrooms (designated medicinal) have been shown to help keep the immune system in balance. When there’s something to fight, the immune system is stimulated to act, known as “upregulation”; however, keeping it in balance requires it to “downregulate” when it becomes overactive.2
Cordyceps mycelium has long been recognized as an important medicinal mushroom in China. Its pharmaceutical properties were recorded in the book “Ben-Cao-Bei-Yao,” edited by Wang Ang in 1694. It is one of the mushrooms that researchers are devoting time to— Cordyceps shows promise in the areas of boosting exercise performance by helping to improve the way the body uses oxygen, supporting blood sugar levels within a healthy range, and helping fight physical irritations. It even shows promise in promoting heart health.3
Agaricus blazei is another medicinal mushroom that is receiving a lot of attention from researchers. Originally from Brazil and highly prized for its multiple benefits, including supporting the immune system and working as an antioxidant,4 the mushroom has been studied as a novel functional food in Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan.
Interested in adding mushrooms to your diet? There are lots of cookbooks that include mushrooms and if you’d like a supplement, Nikken has been offering Kenzen Immunity long before fungi became a hot topic!
2 https://www.the-well.com/editorial/how-mushrooms-boost-immunity
3 https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/cordyceps-benefits
4 https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-1165/agaricus-mushroom
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