EcoEcho Shiitake Mushrooms - a Community Supported Agriculture farm
Thanks for your interest in EcoEcho Shiitake mushrooms. Forest cultivated Shiitake started in China around 1100 AD and is a highly honored traditional Chinese medicine. Japan has a multi-billion dollar a year forest shiitake business with an annual "reward" for best Shiitake. Natural forest Shiitake in the cold morning fruits with a "flower" or "donko" cracked intensified flavor - these are sold for twice the normal price. I can not guarantee how soon an order will be completed - Mother Nature is in charge. haha. Sometimes I get "donko" or flower Shiitake - so I just include those with the other shiitake at the same price - as part of the unpredictable nature of farming.
Please email me at eco echo cultivation (all one word) at gmail dot com - to place orders.
Shiitake grown naturally in the forest have been tested - showing over twice as much "Lentinan" the Beta-glucans (1-6) that is highly medicinal - killing tumor cells (see comments for medical details). Also Shiitake grown outside have much higher natural Vitamin D levels from the sunlight. Shiitake is also a complete protein with excellent trace minerals, vitamins; Shiitake is also antiviral and antibacterial due to terpenoids.
I do small batches of dried forest-grown Shiitake - from northern Minnesota on 5 acres of mini-forest with some ancient big Mother Trees watching over things. I transport the fresh shrooms in a thermoelectric cooler - powered by the car battery. This keeps the shrooms fresh for the three hour plus drive.
I save the stems (stipes) for myself and slice the caps to dry out the shiitake better. I dry them at around 150 degrees Fahrenheit - until they are crispy. (This takes eight hours or so). So the order you receive is 2 pounds of just the sliced caps - dried down to 1/4 pound into a "lunch" paper bag.
I also give instructions to soak the sliced dried caps in water in the frig overnight for at least 8 hours (preferably 10 hours). The drying and soaking of the Shiitake shrooms greatly increases the Umami flavor. When soaked the shrooms swell back up to the fresh amount of 2 pounds only now with three times more Umami flavor!!
Thanks again,
drew hempel, MA
p.s. your type of recipe will also enhance the Umami flavor - and there's a plethora of Shiitake recipes online.
Here's a comparison of a "sawdust substrate" grown Shiitake that fruited from some left over inoculation spawn I set outside - with a slow grown log forest Shiitake mushroom:
beta-glucan, a water-soluble polysaccharide, activates immune cells and proteins and macrophages, T cells, natural killer cells, and cytokines that attack tumor cells [10].
ReplyDeleteMushroom cell walls contain two important compounds, chitin and β-glucans. Of these two, β-glucans β(1→3), β(1→4), and β(1→6) make mushroom of significance in health and treatment of various diseases [18–20]. In addition to these compounds, there are other important components in mushrooms. They include polysaccharides, polysaccharide-protein complexes, agaritine, ergosterol, selenium, polyphenols, and terpenoids.
The receptors of β-glucans, Dectin-1, are expressed on dendritic cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and monocytes [57, 58]. Binding of Dectin-1 and β-glucans leads to signal transduction which in turn activates T cells, mitogen activated protein kinases (MAPK), and nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB), resulting in cytokine production [59, 60].
Probable immunomodulation mechanism of action of mushroom glucans. They utilize Dectin-1, CR3, and TLR-2 leading to activation and signal transduction of T lymphocytes, MAPK, and NF-kB, in turn leading to chemokine production and activation and stimulation of lymphocytes, macrophages, and NK cells, which results in inhibition of cancer proliferation through either direct toxicity, apoptosis, and cancer cell cycle arrest or hindering angiogenesis and metastasis of cancer cells.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5937616/
Following an oral uptake of mushrooms/mushroom compounds, intestinal immune factors are activated, that is, dendritic cells and macrophages that secrete cytokines that initiate local or systemic immunity. Intestinal epithelial cells are also stimulated to secrete IL-7, an important cytokine in cancer immunotherapy [73, 74]."
Wow - that sounds powerful.
"Specific receptors of beta-glucans are the Toll-like (TLR) and
ReplyDeletethe C-type lectin-like receptors: within the latter, dectin-1 is the best characterized one
and is predominantly expressed on the surface of monocyte/macrophages, neutrophils,
and dendritic and natural killer (NK) cells [11,12]. An intracellular signal transduction
follows the receptor recognition step and results in activation of the nuclear factor k-lightchain-
enhancer of activated B cells (NF-kB), transcription of inflammatory-immune genes,
production of cytokines, nitric oxide (NO), and reactive oxygen species (ROS) [2,13,14].
Other pattern recognition receptors (PRR) are implicated in beta-glucan recognition and may
act in cooperation with dectin-1/TLR [15], or even directly [16]. During injury, beta-glucan
receptors may be blocked, but a strong immunomodulatory response, independent of
these receptors, can be stimulated, for instance, by beta-glucans from a fungal pathogen, with
expression of high levels of the interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1RA) [16]. Lentinan
has been shown to upregulate cytokines in mouse macrophages and to attenuate IL-1
secretion resulting from Listeria activation of the absent in melanoma 2 (AIM2) inflammasome. Importantly, lentinan was able to reduce endotoxin lethality in mice despite
the up-regulation of cytokine expression, most probably via inhibition of non-canonical
inflammasome activation [17]."
Edible Mushrooms and Beta-Glucans: Impact on Human Health
Chiara Cerletti 1,* , Simona Esposito 1 and Licia Iacoviello
Impressive Lentinan action!
The measured β-glucan content ranged from 20.06 ± 1.76% to 44.21 ± 0.13% in the pileus sections, and from 29.74 ± 1.40% to 56.47 ± 4.72% in the stipe sections. The results of this study indicate that the variance in β-glucan content dependent on the shiitake cultivar, and that the β-glucan content is higher in the stipe than in the pileus."
ReplyDeleteToo bad the stem or stipe is not very edible. I cook them and drink the tea and then put the stipe in the Vitamix blender!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4206800/
"Schematic effect of beta-glucans on immune and cancer cells. beta-glucans are captured by the macrophages via
ReplyDeletethe Dectin-1 receptor with or without TLR-2/6, internalized, fragmented into smaller fragments, carried to the marrow
and endothelial reticular system and subsequently released. These small beta-glucan fragments are eventually taken up by
circulating granulocytes, monocytes or macrophages via the complement receptor (CR)3 and the immune responses turned
include phagocytosis of the monoclonal antibody tagged tumor cells."
Wow - truly stunning!
Edible Mushrooms and Beta-Glucans: Impact on Human Health
Chiara Cerletti 1,* , Simona Esposito 1 and Licia Iacoviello
Shiitake: Lentinula edodes Stimulate secretion of IL-1, IL-2, IL-6, IL-8, TNF-α, and TNF, cytotoxic and cytostatic to breast cancer cells, inhibit proliferation cancer cells, inhibit DNA synthesis
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5937616/