BEWARE OF SCAMMERS AND FAKE MUSHROOM POWDER

Mushrooms have been gaining lots of hype for their health benefits, and rightfully so! They truly do have some magical healing benefits. But with the gaining popularity means lot's of companies are adding "mushroom powder" to their product, so they can claim their product to have some of the benefits and get in on the hype. BUT THERE IS A MASSIVE PROBLEM! COMPANIES CLAIMING TO HAVE MUSHROOM POWDER ARE UP TO 90% FILLER! They will claim their product is or has mushroom powder but most of the time the mushroom powder they claim to have is really just Mycelium On Grain (MOG) Before I explain MOG (mycelium on grain) keep this in mind. Almost all companies that have mushrooms in their product don't grow any of their own mushrooms or have any experience with growing mushrooms at all, therefore they lack expertise in the field as a whole and they don't know how to find a reputable supplier. They fall victim to MOG suppliers false advertising, So some companies might have just been ignorant and have a level of plausible deniability but I personally investigated many brands and found some of them to have been deliberately deceitful and were straight up lying. or even just believing their own lies.

There is a saying, it's easier to fool someone then to convince someone that they have been fooled. What Is Mycelium on Grain (MOG) Mycelium is the web like root structure of some Fungi, and some mycelium will produce Mushrooms which is also known as "The Fruiting Body". (Mushrooms are not technically a fruit but the mushroom produces spores which is similar to how a fruit produces seeds and why the term is used.)

The quick answer is MOG growers grow mycelium on oats then take the entire bag of oat mycelium, dry it, powder it which is then sold as mushroom powder. They claim that all the oats are digested by the mycelium and that there are no more oats left. but this is a ridiculous claim, When the mycelium has fully colonized the oat substrate, it looks very much completely white and encapsulated in mycelium, and to the untrained eye that there very well be no more oats, but as soon as you shake up the oat block, it becomes quite clear that there are still oats. It would look something like this, on the right you have mycelium on grain fully colonized but then if you were to shake it up it would look like the grain on the left.

Breaking up Mycelium on Grain to show there is clearly still oats

So FTR mycelium does have benefits, but the issue is that there are layers of deceit and mismarketing. These MOG suppliers are not upfront that there is any grain even in their product, and they will often claim their product to be superior, and will even claim it to be tested and have superior test results. Ok so in regards to the test results they claim to have, Go ahead and ask them to see the test results, I have asked many companies and always just get ignored. I have had companies claim the world to me, about their testing but then when I ask them for it they either ignore me or claim it breach a non dislosure agreement. Now what makes things even more confusing is that not all test results are the same either. So if they do show you a Certificate of Analysis (COA) was it even a legit test? Here are a few images to hopefully explain issue/confusion/solution

So essentially, even if they had testing done on their "mushroom powder" and give you results, do you even know what you are looking at? Did they even know what they were doing what they had their product tested or when they were listening to the MOG growers claims?

The Mycelium on grain growers/suppliers will sometimes say terms like Organic Mushroom Powder Mycelium cultured on oats, Full Spectrum But this means it's mostly grain with mycelium on it Any package that says the terms Mycelium on Here is an example of what you might see on a package. “ORGANIC MUSHROOM POWDER- Chaga, Lions Mane Mushroom Powder/ Mycelium cultured on oats. Organic, Gluten Free, Non GMO, Eco Friendly, and other buzz words. Did you catch where the label sneaked in the filler? It said "mushroom mycelium cultured on oats." That means that instead of growing and selling you mushrooms, they instead grow mycelium on oats, then dry and powder the bag of oats with mycelium on it, and label it as a mushroom powder. But the reality is it might be 90% Oats. You might say, "well it can't have oats because it says gluten free" Well Guess What? Oats ARE gluten free! The label in reality should read, “Oats, with Mushroom mycelium" This is basic common sense and the law for how ingredient labels work. You are supposed to put the ingredient with the highest amount in your product first, and the ingredient with lowest amount last. Yet somehow they get away with doing the opposite. Their advertising will often have the trendiest buzz words and even claim they are involved with growing the mushrooms, or sourcing from local/top quality sources But it's often not true, or partial truths. By partial truth I mean that they might buy "fake mushroom powder" from a local supplier and therefore when they say they source locally, it is true. Why are they doing this?

The Mycelium Grain growers do this, because it is exponentially easier and and cost effective to grow mycelium on oats than to grow actual mushrooms.

They can get 10x more dried product when using oats in their powder then if it were pure mushroom powder. They can sell their oat powder in bulk to other businesses who  rebrand it into their own mushroom supplement products. Business that want to add mushroom powders to their product line will get sucked into the false claims of the MOG growers and their cheaper price compared to the real mushroom powder products. FURTHERMORE I don't recommend any blends that combine mushroom powder with anything else. Companies are adding mushroom powder to anything and everything these days, and it is near impossible to validate if their labeling claims are true, and even if they are true, real mushroom powder is almost always the most expensive ingredient they include in their product, so even if they use real mushroom powder, it is often in such tiny amounts it won't be much benefit to you. This is the same reason I don't recommend capsules or tinctures. You pay a way more for them to capsule it or tincture it, and there it is such a tiny amount, it isn't worth it. Based on the literature I have read, a dose should be about 1 Tsp. or 1-3 grams,

capsules usually can hold only 0.2g so that is 1/10 the proper serving size. I feel the same way about tinctures and wrote another blog specifically on this subject in great detail.

I need to update this further but running out of time and have other things attend to!

Mush Love, and Keep Spreading The Good!

-Dan The Mushroom Man