A new study from the Culinary Institute of America and University of California-Davis, published in the Journal of Food Science, explored the flavor-enhancing properties of mushrooms and found that blending finely chopped mushrooms with ground meat enhances flavor and nutrition.

The study, Flavor-Enhancing Properties of Mushrooms in Meat-Based Dishes in Which Sodium Has Been Reduced and Meat Has Been Partially Substituted with Mushrooms, conducted by University of California Davis (UC Davis) and the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) was published in the Journal of Food Science.

Please read the full study overview here.

In May 2020, the Shiitake Biltong team from Maastricht took part in the student competition Ecotrophelia. They have continued to develop new food products. Soon they hope to start their own company that will enter the market with potato chips based on mushrooms.

For Ecotrophelia, the group of Maastricht students presented a vegetarian variant of the biltong which is popular in South Africa; a snack consisting of dried strips of meat that resembles beef jerky. The students won the Dutch final with it and were also allowed to present the idea during the European final.

After the team took another critical look at the idea, the students came to the conclusion that shiitake as a raw material was not such a smart choice. Good shiitake is hard to get and must be imported from Asia. That is expensive and not really sustainable.

The team went back to work and now opted for raw materials from a Dutch residual flow. They developed mushrooms based on pieces of sliced ​​mushrooms. The idea has been elaborated in a business plan, contacts have been made with suppliers, buyers and a possible producer. At this time the production process is optimized and the students are about to start their own company.

Source: Foodholland (article is in Dutch)

Adidas has announced it’s launching a line of sneakers made from mushroom-based leather.

As part of a 2021 sustainability initiative from Europe’s largest sportswear manufacturer, the new Stan Smiths will be entirely vegan, and created using mycelium: that is, the vegetative part of fungi that produces mushrooms.

On December 28, the German multinational announced that “adidas seeks to break new ground: Together with partners, adidas is developing a new material, a purely biological leather alternative made from mycelium, and will use it for the very first time in the creation of footwear.”

This isn’t the company’s first foray into vegan footwear. In 2020, Adidas launched plant-based versions of several classic sneakers, which quickly became bestsellers. Now it’s completely renounced the use of fur in all products, and it’s working with partners on other sustainability projects that include recycling cotton and developing a “particularly climate-friendly running shoe” as part of a drive that will see 60% of all Adidas products in 2021 being made with sustainable materials.

Please read the full article here.

Source: Good News Network

You can find lion’s mane, royal trumpets, and blue oysters at NYC’s only mushroom farm.

“There are so many reasons why I love mushrooms,” says Andrew Carter, co-founder and CEO of Smallhold farms in Brooklyn. “At its base level, they grow off of waste streams. It’s not very common to find a product that’s as ecologically sustainable that can also feed so many people,” says Carter. “Mushrooms, I think, are going to feed the world.”

This urban macro farm specializes in creating artificial environments for growing rare and unique mushrooms for local restaurants and grocers. Each environment gets strategic temperature, humidity, and lighting adjustments throughout the day. The team cultivates unique varieties like lion’s mane, pink oysters, and royal trumpets in their macrofarm, while also using mini farms in buildings all across the city.

With their unique growing methods, sustainable packaging, and supply chain to many of New York City’s best restaurants and grocers, Smallhold’s goal is to open people’s minds to using mushrooms in more cooking, while creating sustainable farms in multiple cities nationwide. “We want this to be the center of the plate,” says Carter as he packs a box with different varieties. “We believe by giving people more mushrooms, people will eat more mushrooms, and they might replace that hamburger or steak with a bunch of different mushrooms.”

By Terri Ciccone | Eater.com

In a few words we wish to describe to you what e-nema does, for whom and why.

E-nema is commited to solve one of the fundamental issues in agriculture and development: the use of chemical pesticides.

E-nema GmbH is a successful company and market leader in the production of nematodes and represents the biological alternative to chemical insect control. Therefore e-nema combines cutting-edge technology and biological crop protection, always with the aim of making the world a better place.

In 1997 e-nema was founded in Schwentinental Germany by the three partners Prof. Dr. Ralf-Udo Ehlers, Dr. Arne Peters and Tillmann Frank to make a contribution to the compatibility of plant protection and nature conservation. With the product nemycel®, e-nema offers the biological alternative for controlling Sciarid in mushrooms. nemycel® contains the insect pathogenic nematode Steinernema feltiae. Nematodes are roundworms that are natural enemies of Sciarid fly larvae.
Nemycel is as easily applied as any chemical pesticide, but it is much more effective and environmentally friendly!

An international team works in the company's laboratories, on continually improving processes and products as well as developing new ideas and solutions for plant protection, aquaculture and in biocatalysis, the 'white' biotechnology. For further information or to contact e-nema, please visit their website. please visit their website.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that humble mushrooms, fungi that feed on decaying matter, are such a popular ingredient throughout many of the world’s cuisines. After all, mold and yeast, two basic fungi, are responsible for turning milk into blue cheese, wheat into bread and, of course, grape juice into wine. Mushrooms can have a similar transformative effect on food, lending a deep savory character to all sorts of dishes. This intangible quality is often called “meaty,” but mushrooms have several distinct flavor components that make them a natural partner for wine.

Earthy

Few foods are as earthy as mushrooms, which often taste like the soil in which they grow. If this quality appeals to you, pick a wine that will tease it out, rather than overwhelm it. Red Burgundy from the Côte de Nuits is a great earthy expression of Pinot Noir with mushroom-like undertones.

Peppery

Many mushrooms, especially when raw, have a subtle peppery, throat-tickling quality akin to that of radishes. Tannins can accentuate this sensation in an unpleasant way, so try a rich white wine to smooth it out. As it ages, Rioja Blanco develops nutty, caramelized aromas and an almost creamy texture that match beautifully with mushrooms.

Read the full article here.
Source: Wine Enthusiast, by Nils Bernstein

1. Fungus can cure disease - 1929 Penicillin, an antibiotic was produced from a mold called ‘Penicillium Chrysogenum’ that is also a fungus.
2. Fungi cell walls are made of chitin, not cellulose like plants.
3. Mushrooms are more like people than plants. They have their own immune system that can produce vitamin D when exposed to sunlight.
4. Mushrooms are almost entirely made of water and are excellent sources of B vitamins, selenium, and vitamin K.
5. There are over 70,000 known species of fungus.
6. The largest fungus on the planet is a honey mushroom in the Blue Mountains of Oregon stretching across 2384 acres and is estimated to be between 2400 and 8650 years old!
7. At least 350 species are consumed as food.
8. Mushrooms can be made into boards, fibers, even boats.
9. A fungus has been discovered that breaks down plastic in weeks instead of years.
10. Some mushrooms can breathe; Ganoderma Lucidum commonly known as the lingzi mushroom, respires oxygen in and carbon dioxide out.

Neither plant nor animal, mushrooms have confounded humans since ancient times. Now, they’re a reminder of our tenuous place in an uncertain world.

The mushrooms sit on high, behind glass, above bottles of Armagnac and mezcal in a bar at the Standard hotel in Manhattan’s East Village. They are barely recognizable at first, just eerie silhouettes resembling coral growths in an aquarium, blooming in laboratory-teal light: tightly branched clusters of oyster mushrooms in hot pink, yolk yellow and bruise blue, alongside lion’s mane mushrooms, shaggy white globes with spines like trailing hair.

This isn’t décor, or only incidentally so; the 15-foot-long shelf is a miniature farm, installed by the New York-based start-up Smallhold as part of a larger, sprawling system made up of remote-controlled nodes at restaurants and grocery stores across the city, each producing from 30 to 100 pounds of mushrooms a week. Thousands of data points — on temperature, humidity, airflow — are transmitted daily to the company’s headquarters, to be recalibrated across the network as needed. At the Standard, where the crop goes into plates of chilaquiles and mushroom-infused bourbon cocktails, diners might stop midbite, look up and take note of their meal’s origins a few feet away. It’s a glimpse of the future of agriculture, further collapsing the distance between diner and ingredients, doing away with the cost and waste of packaging and transportation in hopes of alleviating pressure on an overtaxed environment.

Read the full article here.
Source: New York Times By Ligaya Mishan

Researchers from Tohoku University suggest that consuming mushrooms on a regular basis reduces the risk of prostate cancer in men - especially those aged 50 or older.

It’s a love or hate ingredient, but a new study has revealed a link between eating mushrooms and lower risk of prostate cancer. Researchers from Tohoku University suggest that consuming mushrooms on a regular basis reduces the risk of prostate cancer in men - especially those aged 50 or older. Dr Shu Zhang, who led the study, said: "Test-tube studies and studies conducted on living organisms have shown that mushrooms have the potential to prevent prostate cancer. "However, the relationship between mushroom consumption and incident prostate cancer in humans has never been investigated before. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first cohort study indicating the prostate cancer-preventive potential of mushrooms at a population level.”

In the study, the researchers surveyed 36,499 men about their lifestyle choices including food consumption, psychical activity and smoking and drinking habits, and analysed their medical records. The results revealed that overall, 3.3% of the participants developed prostate cancer during a follow-up period. However, participants who ate mushrooms once or twice a week had an 8% lower risk of developing the disease, compared to those who ate mushrooms less than once a week. Meanwhile, men who ate mushrooms more than three times a week had a 17% lower risk.

Source: Shivali Best, Mirror online

This cutting-edge psychedelic tech company with its roots in innovative cannabis treatment modalities has developed a patent-pending nasal spray for microdosing psilocybin --and users love it.

Silo Wellness, an Oregon company with a team with roots in cannabis delivery modalities, has developed a magic mushroom nasal spray for controlled, metered-dosing consumer microdosing. The company predicts that new users will be more drawn to experimenting with psilocybin’s wellness effects with convenient microdosing before they commit to the full-blow psychedelic “trip” sessions.

“I love our product and can’t wait until it’s legal in the United States, so we can share it with crime victims and first responders,” Silo Wellness founder Mike Arnold said. After formulating the product in Jamaica (where mushrooms are legal) with a team led by Missouri pharmacologist Parag Bhatt and company COO and Marine combat veteran Scott Slay, team members first tested the product on themselves before taking volunteers’ testimonials in private microdosing sessions.

The “Origin Story” of Silo Wellness and their Metered-Dosing Solutions

The visionary inventors of Silo Wellness’s first product to be publicly disclosed under their intellectual property have been working on this project since “before it was cool.” “National media didn’t care about psychedelics until Denver passed their decriminalization ballot measure,” Arnold stated. “Before that, everyone thought I was crazy when I told them that we were entering the medicinal psychedelics space in advance of Oregon legalizing in 2020.”

Silo Wellness founder Mike Arnold made headlines when he exited the practice of law to ultimately grow 40,000 marijuana plants in Oregon in 2017. “I had been hobby farming livestock for years. Since I was a kid, I always dreamt of farming fulltime. I just couldn’t pass up the cannabis opportunity when it presented itself. But I never thought I would exit cannabis and pivot full time into psychedelics, but they changed my life. I want to share this medicine with the world by making it affordable and comfortable for all.”

Arnold was a high-profile criminal defense attorney from Oregon before retiring to start his farms. He made national headlines for his part in stopping the armed Malheur Refuge Occupation led by his then-client Ammon Bundy. He was also featured in in two episodes of 48 Hours and successfully defended a marine sniper’s road-rage shooting murder case for which he wrote a well-reviewed book on self-defense in the criminal justice system that was banned in Oregon prisons.

The “Shroom Boom” is the “New Cannabis Green Rush” and the Peer-Reviewed Studies Are Even Stronger than Marijuana

With ROI reducing in cannabis startups in Canada and the United States, Arnold watched investors and hopeful entrepreneurs in his home state of Missouri still blindly running full speed to the new Missouri medical marijuana market, as it was gearing up to pass in 2018. “While everyone else saw the excitement for Missouri cannabis as a good sign for an investment, I saw it as the death nail. When everyone is running in one direction, that’s the last place an entrepreneur or investor wants to be. If you were on time for cannabis, you were already too late.”

That’s why Arnold began working with the inventor of the patent-pending Mystabis hemp and marijuana inhalers, Michael Hartman, to begin the brainstorming for their newest product line of metered-dosing solutions.

“I came a little late to the magic mushroom space as a user,” Arnold continued. “I had no information about the medicinal benefits for PTSD and anxiety until I met a doctor while traveling in the spring of 2018 who blew my mind with the research and offered to take me on a guided meditation with mushrooms right there on the spot. I told him I was terrified to use them. ‘How do you know how much you are ingesting? What if I take too much?’ I asked.”

“He replied, ‘Mike, you know me; I’m a doctor.’ Enough said,” Arnold recalls. “I trusted him and it changed my life. Mushrooms have been life-changing and I want to share this healing opportunity with the world with a purpose-driven company mindful of consumer access to these gifts of nature.”

Click here for the full article