Full Spectrum™ Mycelium Products Update; Mycelium? Fruitbodies? Extracts?

Full Spectrum™ Mycelium Products

Full Spectrum™ Mycelium Products are quite simply the best product of their kind available in the world today. Our products have at least as much of the target compounds as are found in nature. In nearly all cases, we are able to exceed the concentration of any target compound of interest over what is found in the naturally grown product.

The life-force of the growth stage, the mycelium, is there in all its glory. The same holds true of the fruitbody-specific compounds. Present and accounted for*. There is a complete profile of the extra-cellular metabolites found in our product, which is not found in liquid culture mycelium. Almost all of the research done in the last few years has shown that the greatest biological activities take place in the extra-cellular compounds (metabolic exudates), as compared to compounds from the mycelium or fruitbodies.

The proprietary Full Spectrum™ process that we have developed is this:

• Select species-specific substrate (or target-compound specific, as the case may be) for the mushroom in question.

• Select the growth parameters of temperature, light, O2, etc. for the results desired.

• Grow for lengthy periods of time (20-45 weeks) in glass containers, capturing all of the metabolic exudates. (This is the hard part; to grow the mycelium in their own metabolites without stunting the growth.

• Fruit the mushrooms in the glass container at the end of the growth term. (Yes, even including Cordyceps sinensis, see photos)

• Harvest the whole thing. Mycelium, fruitbodies, primordia, all of the extra-cellular compounds which have been produced over the entire life cycle, and even some spore mass in many cases.

• Dry, powder, package, sterilize and supply

Question: Are you looking to buy Medicinal Mushrooms or are you looking to buy rice flour? There is no residual grain as is the case with all of the other domestically produced, solid substrate grown mycelium. Our products have less than 2% residual grain material. We non-solvent extract that 2% to achieve a 100% mycelium ingredient. Typically, our testing revealed 60% to 80% residual grain from some of the other American suppliers of mycelium products.

Some manufacturers are saying "Standardized to contain so much of this or so much of that." but there is actually very little information on the 'most important' compounds. Nature is a very complex wonder. The truth is that as far as extracts go, science does not know enough yet to know which compounds to take out and which ones to leave in.

* Some definitions:

Fruitbody - This is the mushroom that you see. It is the spore producing portion involved with reproduction. Basically, the fruitbody is equivalent to the floor of a plant. Fruitbodies ONLY form in response to some stress in the environment... heat, cold, fire, flood, running out of food, that sort of thing. The mushroom that you see is NOT the growth form of the organism. Strictly the reproductive portion.

Mycelium - This is the growth form of the organism, the stable state in which all of the life processes occur; eating, growth, competing for food, some forms of reproduction, etc. In cultivated mushroom products, the mycelium can be grown either in a tank full of liquid (unnatural growth condition) or it can be grown on a solid substrate of some material that it would normally grow on (natural growth conditions). For industrial production of many pharmaceutical drugs, the compounds are extracted not from the mycelium, but from the broth that the mycelium is grown in.

Extract - This is either the mushroom or the mycelium, extracted with some type of solvent with the intention of concentrating some desirable portion and eliminating or at least reducing some unimportant portion of the mushroom. There are a number of solvents which are used, depending on which compounds are desired. The two most common are Alcohol or Water. Extracts are more expensive and can be better or worse than the raw feedstock, depending on a number of factors. If the compounds that you need are in the extract, then that is the best form. But how do you know?

THERE HAS BEEN ENTIRELY TOO MUCH HOCUS-POCUS IN THE HEALTH SUPPLEMENT INDUSTRY BY UNSCRUPULOUS SUPPLIERS. AS A BUYER YOU MUST DEMAND TEST RESULTS TO BE SUPPLIED WITH YOUR PRODUCT! FAILURE TO DO SO HARMS THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY! IF YOUR SUPPLIER CAN NOT OR WILL NOT SUPPLY THESE TEST RESULTS, GO TO ONE WHO WILL. WE WILL BE GLAD TO SUPPLY THE DETAILS OF OUR TEST PROTOCOL TO ANYONE WHO ASKS. OUR TEST METHOD HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN AN INTERNATIONAL PEER REVIEW SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL IN THE SUMMER OF 2003.