Grain Is Not a Mushroom
The starch comes with it. That is the whole problem, and the reason it is cheap.
·4 min read
A great deal of what is sold as mushroom in the UK never grew a mushroom. It is mycelium, the thread-like growth phase that precedes fruiting, cultivated on sterilised grain, then dried and milled with the grain still in it. The mushroom itself, the fruiting body, was never allowed to form.
This is done because it is fast and cheap. Mycelium colonises grain in a couple of weeks in a sealed bag, with no fruiting rooms, no humidity control, no harvest window and no labour. Fruiting takes longer, costs more, and yields less. The finished mycelium-on-grain powder is largely the grain: the starch does not get separated out, because separating it would leave very little behind.
The label usually tells you, if you know the phrasing. "Mycelial biomass", "full spectrum", "myceliated oats" or "myceliated brown rice" all describe the same thing. So does the absence of a stated dried fruiting body weight. A product made from fruiting bodies will generally say so and give you a figure, because that figure is the expensive part and there is no reason to hide it. If a label lists only a total powder weight and no fruiting body weight, that is worth noticing.
Our position is straightforward and we would rather state it plainly than dress it up: we use fruiting body only. It is grown on our own farm in Oswestry, Shropshire, certified organic from substrate onwards, and we take the first flush only. Our chaga is the exception in method but not in principle. It is hand-foraged from wild silver birch in the Scottish Highlands, because chaga refuses cultivation.
Growing here rather than importing is part of the same decision. A controlled supply chain means we can say what the substrate was, when the fruiting body was picked, and how it was dried: three things that are simply unanswerable when the powder arrives in a sack from a broker.
If you want to test what you already own, use our free UK mushroom tincture ratio calculator to check your current bottle; it will show you the dried weight per millilitre a label is actually supporting. More on how we grow at the farm, on what we test for at the science page, and on the distinction itself in fruiting body or mycelium.
Shrooma tinctures are food supplements and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.