So here's what I know and hope to explain the differences.
1) I used to make tinctures but felt it was just a tiny overpriced bottle of alcohol water and I felt like I was ripping people off so I stopped.
2) A) Tinctures use a small amount of dried mushroom powder soaked in the water/alcohol. The idea is to get water and alcohol soluble compounds out of the mushroom for you to conveniently take daily, often under the tongue where it can get absorbed into your body.
B) A very small amount of mushroom compounds are in the bottle and the dose they say to take is with an eyedropper. So the amount of compounds per dose is a hundredth or thousandth of a gram. Way too little as the dose amount from the literature is 2 grams per day.
C) Many tinctures say to take under tongue, and it will be absorbed into the bloodstream, this is the case for many other kinds of tinctures, but with mushroom tinctures the beneficial compounds are too large to be absorbed through the mouth membrane, so you are only going to absorb it via the digestive tract, the same method that the powders will take.
D) Alcohol/Water extracts only pull out the alcohol/water soluble compounds and suspend them in the liquid, but what about any other important compounds that are being left behind? Compare that to consuming the ENTIRE mushroom.
3) I have found no literature stating an alcohol extraction is necessary to absorb compounds, so why assume it to be the case and opt for a tincture instead of pure mushroom powder?
However cooking mushrooms with heat/water is necessary to make the compounds available for your digestive system to absorb, which our powders have been done, but again I have found nothing that says alcohol is needed but instead counter productive as this article states.
"I do not recommend tinctures of medicinal mushrooms for immunomodulation because that interferes with the activity, and actually the tertiary structure of the glucans. Foremost among the problems with tinctures for immunotherapy is that the fungal beta glucans are not soluble in alcohol!" -Christopher Hobbs, phd, lac, ahg: Mushrooms for Nutrition and Wellness
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4982645/#:~:text=Foremost%20among%20the%20problems%20with,instance%2C%20on%20the%20nervous%20system. 5) A small bottle of tincture is anywhere from $30-$60. Again this might only have a few grams worth of mushroom compound whereas we offer a 100g bag of mushroom powder for $50. The proper dose for taking medicinal mushrooms is easily found through literature online and is usually 2g per serving. So just do the math and it does not add up in favor of tinctures both economically and dosage per serving. Capsuled Mushrooms Powder This is a complete rip off. Again the dose should be about 2g a day and a large capsule can hold only .2-.3g worth. This means for a proper dose you should be taking 10 capsules a day. OR You can just take 1 tsp of powder a day in a nice drink. What is easier and more pleasant?Also you pay way more money to buy the powder in capsule form. Now if the brand is using a 10-1 Extract in the capsule then I would agree that taking a capsule is fair. But there are so many scams out there with mushroom powders being oat powder and full of fillers, how do you know the extract is even an extract of what it claims to be? In conclusion I advocate for and offer 100% pure mushroom powder, it has ALL the beneficial compounds in it, with nothing thrown away as what is done with alcohol/water extracts, tinctures etc. Again the powders have been cooked which does the necessary part of braking down the tough fiber like cell walls of the chitin allowing your body to absorb compounds. It is also far more economical in price, and easy to take the proper dose, just 1 tsp a day. It is also possible to identify and confirm it as it being what it is claimed to be where tinctures and extracts you have no way of knowing what you are getting. If you have any studies that show the body doesn't absorb alcohol soluble compounds in mushrooms please share it with me!
Comments