We're in the news!
A fantastic article by Brittany Ryan for Sustainable Taranaki can be viewed here.
Our mushrooms occur naturally in the wild but most New Zealanders wouldn't know how to recognise them so they aren't a commmon feature of our diet. European and Asian cultures have included wild mushrooms in their diet for centuries as they knew the health benefits of consuming regular amounts of wild mushrooms. See below for more on the health benefits of wild mushrooms.
We grow our mushrooms on woodchips from the pruning of urban trees. The raw materials we use are normally treated as organic waste and either used as mulch or converted into compost. We take this raw material and add only water to prepare it for innoculation, no chemicals or sterilising agents are used and via natural processes, the wood biomass is converted into food.
We don't use any pesticides or any other chemicals in our growing process. We do employ several natural methods of pest control such as preying manti but since we grow in a relatively natural environment, we never have too much trouble with insect pests anyway.
Once our mushrooms have used up all their woodchip biomass, the left-over substance is essentialy composted soil, which can then be used to grow vegetables in. We are working on colaborating with local urban farms to create a dynamic food system in which mushrooms play an integral part.
'Wild' mushrooms like oyster mushrooms stimulate your immune system to make antibodies. This is in reaction to very large beta-glucan molecules that are present in wild mushrooms. These massive molecules kick-start our metabolism and trick it into producing more antibodies.
Dried mushrooms, when exposed to the sun, make huge amounts of Vitamin D. Button mushrooms will generally have less Vitamin D than wild mushrooms as they are grown in the dark.Our mushrooms are grown in humid shadehouses but receive enough sunlight energy to stimulate the production of Vitamin D
Your microbiome is the bacteria in your gut. In the wild, mushrooms control the bacteria they grow with. Since mushrooms are more similar to us than plants, they're microbiome is also more similar to ours so eating them promotes a healthy microbiome.
Mushrooms and mycelium products are an excellent source of protein for non-meat eaters. Dried mushrooms are about 90 percent protein. Mushrooms are vegan, paleo and gluten-free. The energy it takes to grow 1kg of mushroom protein is far less than for 1kg of animal protein.