When we consider mushrooms as well as the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca, the first thing which typically enters your mind is María Sabina, Huautla de Jiménez as well as hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. However slowly that’s all transforming as a result of the innovative job 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 district (more generally called the Sierra Norte, the state’s main ecotourism area), Mico-lógica’s mission is threefold: to educate both Mexicans and visitors to the nation in the affordable farming of a range of mushroom types; to inform regarding the medicinal, dietary as well as ecological (lasting) worth of mushrooms; as well as to carry out recurring research concerning optimum weather areas and also the variety of substrata for mushroom culture.
The French-born Mathieu moved to Mexico, and also as a matter of fact to Huautla de Jiménez, in 2005. “Yes, coming right to Mexico from France to seek my passion in mushrooms seems like a lengthy way to travel,” Mathieu discussed in a current interview in Oaxaca. “But there really wasn’t much of a possibility to conduct research studies as well as grow a business in Western Europe,” he continues, “given that reverence for mushrooms had actually been almost entirely gotten rid of by The Church over the course of centuries; and also I found out that Mexico still preserves a regard as well as gratitude for the medical and dietary worth of hongos. Mexico is much from mycophobic.”
Huautla de Jiménez is greater than a 5 hr drive from the closest metropolitan center. Accordingly, Mathieu ultimately recognized that staying in Huautla, while holding a historical allure as well as being in a geographical region for collaborating with mushrooms, would greasy pink certainly hinder his initiatives to grow a business and also grow widespread interest in discovering fungi. Mathieu ended up being observant of the blossoming reputation of Oaxaca’s ecotourism areas of the Sierra Norte, and also indeed the Feria Regional de Hongos Silvestres (regional wild mushroom event), held annually in Cuahimoloyas.
Mathieu met Josefina Jiménez at the summertime weekend break mushroom occasion. Jiménez had actually moved to Oaxaca from home town Mexico City in 2002. The two common similar interests; Jiménez had actually studied agronomy, and for close to a years had been dealing with lasting farming jobs in country farming communities in the Huasteca Potosina area of San Luis Potosí, the mountains of Guerrero and the shore of Chiapas. Mathieu and Jiménez came to be organization, and afterwards life companions in Benito Juárez.
Mathieu and also Jiménez are focusing on three mushroom varieties in their hands-on workshops; oyster (seta), shitake and also reishi. Their one-day workshops are for oyster mushrooms, and also two-day clinics for the last 2 species of fungi. “With reishi, and to a lesser level shitake, we’re additionally showing a reasonable little bit concerning the medicinal uses mushrooms, so more time is required,” claims Mathieu, “and also with oyster mushrooms it’s predominantly [but not exclusively] a program on growing.”
While training workshops are now only given in Benito Juárez, Mathieu as well as Jiménez plan to increase procedures to consist of both the central valleys and also seaside regions of Oaxaca. The item is to have a network of manufacturers expanding different mushrooms which are optimally matched for cultivation based upon the specific microclimate. There have to do with 70 sub-species of oyster mushrooms, as well as thus as a varieties, the flexibility of the oyster mushroom to various weather regions is amazing. “The oyster can be grown in a plethora of various substrata, and that’s what we’re explore today,” he elucidates. The oyster mushroom can flourish when expanded on items which would certainly or else be waste, such as throw out from growing beans, sugar walking cane, agave (consisting of the coarse waste produced in mezcal distillation), peas, the usual river reed known as carriso, sawdust, and the list goes on. Agricultural waste which may otherwise be delegated rot or be burned, each with adverse environmental ramifications, can create substrata for mushroom cultivation. It should be kept in mind, though routine, that mushroom farming is an extremely sustainable, green industry. Over the past numerous years Mexico has actually in fact gone to the fore in many areas of sustainable sector.
” They can hold up to thirty thousand times their mass, having effects for inhibiting disintegration. They have actually been made use of to clean up oil spills through absorption and therefore are an important automobile for environment reconstruction. Research study has actually been made with mushrooms in the battle versus carpenter ant devastation; it’s been recommended that using fungis has the potential to completely overhaul the chemical industry in an eco-friendly means. There are literally hundreds of various other environmentally friendly applications for mushroom usage, and in each case the mushroom stays an edible byproduct. Have a look at the Paul Stamets YouTube lecture, 6 Ways Mushrooms Can Conserve The Globe.”
Mathieu and Jiménez can frequently be located selling their items on weekends in the organic markets in Oaxaca. They’re both greater than happy to go over the nutritional worth of their products which vary from naturally their fresh mushrooms, but additionally as protects, marinaded with either chipotle and also nopal or jalapeño as well as cauliflower. The mushroom’s vitamin B12 can not be discovered in fruits or vegetables, and appropriately a diet regimen which includes fungis is extremely crucial for vegetarians who can not obtain B12, usually consisted of in meats. Mushrooms can quickly be a substitute for meats, with the benefit that they are not packed with prescription antibiotics as well as hormones typically located in industrially refined meat items.