Mushrooms are unique, stationary like a plant, yet built from chitin, the same material contained in the shell of a lobster. Understanding the properties of chitin is critical to understanding how to choose an effective, high-quality medicinal mushroom product.
Chitin is indigestible by humans.Yet chitin, which makes up the cell walls of mushrooms and mushroom mycelium, contains the potent immune stimulating compounds common to all medicinal mushrooms, the polysaccharides. Practitioners of Traditional East Asian Medicine and modern clinical researchers both use the same preparation technique to overcome this barrier, hot water.
Only a heated liquid solution can break down the indigestible chitin and release the active compounds into a concentrated, bio-available form. When used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for chronic conditions or immune health medicinal mushrooms are always prepared with heat and water, as a tea or a decoction. Medicinal mushrooms are never used in the un-extracted form (as mycelium bio-mass powder or dried mushroom powder), and rarely prepared as a tincture (soaked in alcohol and water in the absence of heat).
