Which is actually better: medicinal mushroom powder or extract?
Medicinal mushrooms as powder or extract. Which is better for your body? Or, to put it another way, what are the advantages and disadvantages of each? We'll show you the differences and what you should look for when buying. Medicinal mushrooms – powder or extract? Here's the surprising comparison.
What characterizes a good medicinal mushroom product?
Medicinal mushrooms, also known as vital mushrooms or medicinal mushrooms, support your well-being in many ways. In traditional Chinese medicine and naturopathy, they have been an essential part of treatment for centuries. While they are relatively new to many people in this country, their popularity is growing. Similar to most medicinal plants, vital mushrooms are considered dietary supplements. Many different products are available on the market, varying considerably in quality. Whether you choose mushroom powder or extract, you should pay attention to the following factors before taking them:
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Bioavailability : This refers to how well the ingredients can be absorbed and utilized by your body. If the active ingredients are bound to other natural substances, for example, the intestines absorb them very little or not at all. In principle, the majority is lost.
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Practicality for everyday use : Your medicinal mushrooms should be easy, quick, and pleasant to use; otherwise, you won't use them regularly. For example, if you have to prepare a complicated infusion with a bitter taste from dried mushrooms, that's not very user-friendly.
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Organic quality and analysis : Mushrooms quickly absorb environmental toxins and pollutants, therefore organic and clean cultivation is the best prerequisite for a high-quality product. There is absolutely no trace of pesticides or similar substances. To ensure this, we have all raw materials and every finished batch tested.
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Made in Germany: In Germany, there are strict regulations for the production of food supplements. This ensures that dangerous contaminants are excluded.
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A clever combination : Various medicinal mushrooms and medicinal plants complement each other perfectly. A powder or extract doesn't have to consist of just one mushroom. Reishi and Hericium, for example, make a great combination.
Furthermore, at smaints, we focus on enjoyment. Swallowing capsules daily can give you the feeling of being ill. Yet medicinal mushrooms symbolize the exact opposite: health, well-being, and vitality. That's why capsules aren't an option for us. Liquid extracts that you can stir into your favorite drink or enriched foods like Mushroom Cacao are enjoyable ways to easily and effectively integrate medicinal mushrooms into your daily routine.
What is mushroom powder?
A medicinal mushroom powder is easily explained: it consists of dried mushrooms that have been mechanically ground into a powder. For ease of use, it is often packaged in capsules. The advantages of powders : The products require only a few processing steps and are therefore very natural. All ingredients are preserved through gentle drying below 50°C.
However, there are also disadvantages : To ingest a sufficiently high amount of active ingredients, you have to take many capsules. Depending on the mushroom and manufacturer, one capsule contains approximately 400 mg of powder. For adequate dosage, the necessary intake is therefore between 10 and 20 capsules per day. Furthermore, almost all studies on medicinal mushrooms refer to extracts. This makes evaluating the powders difficult. It is therefore almost impossible to make a statement about scientifically proven efficacy or potential side effects. It is assumed that the chitin-containing cell walls block active ingredients. The valuable beta-glucans could thus be ineffective, as the body cannot absorb them in this form.
Here's what you should pay attention to when choosing mushroom powder
There's a difference between mushroom powder made from fruiting bodies and powder made from grain blocks. If you choose a powder, it should be made from the fruiting body; otherwise, the active ingredient content will be significantly reduced. We also recommend a very fine mushroom powder, as this has higher bioavailability.
What is a mushroom extract?
The production of medicinal mushroom extracts is somewhat more complex. It's often compared to brewing tea, but there's a bit more to it. Only purified water and air come into contact with mushroom grit (coarsely crushed dried mushrooms) or mushroom powder during production. These are the starting materials. For extraction, the mushrooms are mixed with about ten times their volume of water, causing them to swell. Only then is the mixture gently heated. At this point, the mushrooms release their water-soluble active ingredients into the liquid. Compared to brewing tea, this process takes about eight to ten hours. During this time, the chitin separates from the polysaccharides, making them readily available and increasing the bioavailability of the final extract. The liquid is then separated from the mushrooms and thickened or dried in several stages. Spray drying produces an extract powder, which is sold in various forms, including capsules.
This process offers several advantages : The bioavailability of extracts is significantly increased by separating the polysaccharides from the cell walls. The concentration of active ingredients is also considerably higher. Therefore, you can more easily absorb the required dosage for an effect when using extracts.
An interesting comparison: With one teaspoon of smaint's liquid extract, you ingest roughly the same amount of active ingredient as in 36 mushroom powder capsules.
In traditional Chinese medicine, practitioners administer medicinal mushrooms as hot water infusions, which closely resemble modern extraction methods. This allows the application of time-honored knowledge to medicinal mushroom extracts as well. Incidentally, extracts are also used in most studies. Therefore, scientific findings can be most effectively transferred to medicinal mushroom extracts. In our blog articles about various mushrooms, we also refer to studies using extracts. Want to learn more? Then check out our blog and discover useful information about Reishi, Shiitake, Maitake, Cordyceps, and more.
That sounds much better than a powder, but extracts also have disadvantages : Due to the complex production process, an extract is significantly more expensive. The necessary raw material justifies this difference: One kilogram of fresh mushrooms yields approximately 100 grams of mushroom powder, but only about 10 grams of extract. Another disadvantage is that the higher temperatures denature some proteins, meaning the enzymes they contain are destroyed. However, this would happen anyway in your stomach, as stomach acid also denatures proteins. Only the insoluble fiber and other water-insoluble components are missing from medicinal mushroom extracts, as these are still present in the separated mushroom meal or powder.
Here's what you should pay attention to when using medicinal mushroom extracts.
The polysaccharide content is a common indicator of the concentration of ingredients. A 10% extract is therefore weaker than a 20% extract, and so on. You can infer the beta-glucan content from this value, as it is difficult to determine precisely. Some manufacturers exploit this, however, by increasing the polysaccharide content with cornstarch. These polysaccharides do not have the same effects as those found in medicinal mushrooms. Therefore, pay close attention to the ingredient list. If starch is listed, the product is of inferior quality. Choose reputable manufacturers and inquire about the origin of the product!
What is dual extraction?
Put simply: After extraction with water, the dual extraction process involves further steps with the remaining mushroom material. This material is treated with ethanol for several weeks. This process dissolves even water-insoluble, i.e., fat-soluble, components such as triterpenes. Subsequent spray drying turns the extract into a powder, removing all the alcohol. The water-soluble and fat-soluble extracts are then mixed, or, in the case of our liquid extracts, dissolved in glycerin.
The advantages of dual extraction are obvious: The product contains all the valuable components of the mushrooms, which also exhibit good bioavailability. The process of alcoholic extraction is also found in traditional medicine. A mushroom tincture corresponds to this extract. Unlike a powder, these extracts represent the traditional use of mushrooms in herbal medicine.
Dual extraction minimizes the disadvantages . Only the enzymes and insoluble substances like chitin are lost. However, this is not a real disadvantage for the efficacy. The additional processing steps do, however, significantly increase the price.
Here's what you should pay attention to with dual extracts
A genuine dual extraction process cannot be produced cheaply. If you find products priced more like mushroom powder, something is fundamentally wrong. For example, the starting material, the mushroom powder itself, might have been adulterated.
Conclusion: Medicinal mushrooms – powder or extract?
For us, the winner of the comparison is clear: the advantages of medicinal mushroom extracts are convincing. The polysaccharides are present in a usable concentration and are highly bioavailable. The disadvantages of extraction are also significantly less compared to a powder. You will achieve optimal results with dietary supplements obtained through dual extraction, as all important active ingredients are dissolved.
Sources:
https://www.vitalpilzratgeber.de/vitalpilze-pulver-oder-extrakt/
https://www.bio-heilpilze.com/vitalpilz-blog/bio-vitalpilze-als-pulver-oder-extrakt
https://blog.vitalpilze-naturheilkraft.de/vitalpilze-pulver-vs-extrakte/
https://www.mycotrition.com/de/qualitaet/extrakt-oder-pulver
