BEWARE OF SCAMMERS AND FAKE MUSHROOM POWDER

PLEASE READ IN FULL Mushrooms have been gaining lots of hype for their health benefits. But with that comes the opportunity to make lots of money through SCAMMING PEOPLE. There is a lot of deliberately misleading labeling information on their packaging and websites, attempting to convince you to purchase their product, hiding the fact that they are selling you a bag of filler. They suck people into their scam with sneaky advertising tactics and mislabeling. 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 is 90% Oats. You might say, "well it can't have oats because it says gluten free" Well 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 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 or they do not even include the word oats on their label at all! Almost all mushroom supplement companies don't grow ANY mushrooms themsevles or know anything about it, yet on their websites and advertising they word things that make it sound like they are growing them, or buying from local mushroom grower suppliers, but it's a complete lie and deception at it's finest. So companies that want to get in on the medicinal mushroom hype will usually buy the cheapest mushroom powder they can to resale it. These brands might not even know they are buying fake mushroom powder, because the main oat powder suppliers brand it as pure mushroom powder. I have spent a lot of time talking with companies that sell the oat mycelium powder, either directly to the company or just on their social media advertisements where they have customer service sales type people hired to respond, and if you ask them for the ratio of mycelium, to mushroom, to oats, they claim they can not give it to you because “it is too hard to separate the mycelium from the oats” and therefore don't have a ratio to give. They are right, it is impossible to separate the mycelium from the oats, but they either do not know themselves because they are too ignorant and gullible and got sucked into the scam, or they DO know and are purposely deceiving with their only intentions of making money scamming people. Even holistic healer, naturopath type people are ignorant to this, and I won't name names on here so I don't get sued, but just know that even our local health stores that pride themselves on being organic, heathy, and trustworthy have fallen for the scam. I have had long conversations with some of the product managers at such local "health" food stores and it was very disappointing and frankly scary to hear their attitude and responses to me. They played it off as no big deal, and that it's the customers responsibility to figure it out on their own. PROOF Other than the fact I grow mushrooms and understand how this all works from hands on experience, and if you still do not believe me. I had the biggest Oat Mycelium farm in North America I admit to me in email “While there is no direct method of measuring the amount of pure mycelium and the amount of myceliated substrate (no longer oats, but not quite pure fungal material either), we estimate that the myceliated substrate content to be approximately 10%” So there you have it, they estimate it to be 10% mycelium, and their claim that the 90% rest is "no longer oats" is a joke. I can show you what myceliated oats like, and sure while the mycelium does digest the oats, and does somewhat change them, there are very much still mostly oats. regardless of what you wanna call it, it is still 90% filler. Why are they doing this?

The Mycelium Oat farmers do this, because it is WAY easier to grow mycelium on oats than to grow mushrooms. AND 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.

What You Don't Want- This is NOT a definitve guide to know for sure if the mushroom powder is real or not, it does provide some clues.

Anything that says "Mycelium", "Cultured on Oats" or phrases like” Full Spectrum” meaning it has both mushroom fruiting body and mycelium. Which means most of it is still oat powder filler. You don't want 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. A dose should be atleast 2g, a capsule usually can hold 0.2g so that is 1/10 the proper serving size, and same goes for tinctures. Again way overpriced for way less.

WHAT YOU DO WANT You want 100% pure mushroom fruiting body with no fillers or ingredients of any kind.

One way to validate this is to see if their product has been 3rd party tested. This is where the mushroom powder is tested for active compounds such as beta glucans. But it often seems like many companies claim it is, but when you ask to see the certificate of analysis they stop responding to you. That is evidence they are lying to you. So the BEST way is to find out if they actually grow any mushrooms at all. Easier said then done as the fraudsters advertisements often say stuff like " Our mushrooms" " We grow our mushrooms" Yet they don't grow anything at all. You can try and see if they have photos or videos of them growing mushrooms, but even if they have some media it could be stolen. You can see me in person at markets with fresh mushrooms, grow kits, or photos online of me and my farm. This is 100% proof I actually grow mushrooms, and by far the BEST way to know.

Please spread this message far and wide, so many people are continuously being scammed by these crooks,

If you see these companies show up on your social media ads, CALL THEM OUT

Let people know so they don’t get ripped off and make these scammers filthy rich!

Mush Love to all the non scammers out there!

-Dan The Mushroom Man