Chaga Mushroom Ground and Chunks

Chaga Mushrooms have been known to improve the immune response, lower blood sugar levels and combat abnormal cell growth.  Chaga is also anti-inflammatory, relieves pain and purifies the blood and the liver.  Chaga has also been used to prevent cancer.  Read more about Chaga and Cancer.  Chaga Mushrooms are a powerful adaptogen for the body helping to aid in the immune system’s ability to heal and multitask on so many levels. The Chaga Mushroom is an amazing fungus that supports our health and well being.

More than ever before people are looking toward the forest instead of the pharmacy when it comes to their personal health and well-being. The Chaga Mushroom is an example of how a relatively unknown medicinal mushroom, traditionally found in the forests of Russia and used by First Nations has become so well known throughout the health and wellness community in Canada and North America.    

The Chaga mushroom, Inonotus obliquus is an ancient folk remedy that has been valued for its health benefits for centuries. Chaga mushrooms are often compared to similar fungi like the Reishi, Shitake, Maitake and Oyster mushrooms. Chaga is a unique polypore fungi that grows on living trees. A symbiotic relationship is formed between the Chaga mushroom and its host that can sustain one another during their entire lifespan of up to 20 years. 

Chaga Mushrooms may be found on wounded or dying white birch trees in temperate forests around the northern hemisphere. Chaga looks like encrusted black formations; the sterile conk or mycelium grows out of wounds sustained after storms and other impacts that break branches.  Chaga covers the tree’s wound and protects it from invading micro organisms.  The host tree and the Chaga can co-exist for many years and the mushroom can be harvested up to three times over the course of its lifetime.     

The Chaga Mushrooms is known as the “King of Medicinal Mushrooms.”  Considered by many cultures as one of the most powerful healing plants on Earth and used for centuries in Traditional Chinese Medicine.  After it as been harvested, the Chaga needs to be air dried and broken into chunks or ground into a course or fine powder.  The outer cell walls of Chaga are protected by chitin and need to be broken down or extracted.  Over the centuries chaga has been extracted by steeping it in hot water to make a medicinal Chaga Mushroom Tea or matured into a potent Chaga Extract by soaking it in alcohol.  Both the hot water and alcohol methods over long periods of time help to dissolve the chitin protecting the valuable nutritional contents inside the Chaga.  Chaga can be consumed directly as a Chaga Mushroom Powder.  Chaga powder mushroom can be added to soups, stews, smoothies etc. to add nutritional value to everyday meals, and still maintain high concentrations of mushroom polysaccharides.  

Sustainably sourced in Northern Ontario, chaga is recognized for its antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and liver-protective activities.

The preferred habitat for this charred-looking fungus with its cork-like consistency are mature birch trees. The cork-like growth we recognize as chaga is not a fruiting body, but a dense nutrient-rich mass of mycelium. The mycelium taps directly into the bark and tree core to yield a rich source of polysaccharides. It also produces a potent therapeutic compound called betulinic acid, which is proven to kill cells that cause disease.

Chaga is a potent immune-system enhancer with additional properties as an anti-inflammatory. Animal trials have also proven chaga to strengthen endurance. Chaga chunks are the choice of consumers that prefer to make their own tea, to folks that grind chaga into powder for applications that span from herbal extracts to exotic vegan quinoa-chaga chili recipes.