Credi: fightlaunch

This glorious mushroom has been studied and used for at least 2,000 years, and there are millions and millions of satisfied (and healthy) users all over the world. It may be called the spiritual mushroom, the immortality plant, Reishi, Lingzhi, or Ganoderma Lucidum, but whatever you want to call it, this superfood is coming now, and it will have a significant impact on Big Pharma as we know it today—perhaps not tomorrow, but it will happen eventually.

I’m not going to deep-dive into Big Pharma, as this subject is a whole nother story and needs a few long posts of its own, but here is a short version of my argument.

– Big Pharma develops new medicines, which it then patents
– Reishi is a wild plant and, therefore, can’t be patented

– Big Pharma sells overpriced medicines to sick people
– Reishi is easy and cheap to grow and prepare

– Big Pharma medicines have severe side effects
– Reishi has no side effects

– Big Pharma medicines are . . . well, medicines
– Reishi can be part of your healthy diet, just like orange juice or coffee

People in Asia mainly use natural products, and almost without any exceptions live longer than other people in the world despite generally poor living conditions. That’s why you can’t find any Asian companies on a list of the top 10 biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world, even though 60% of the world’s population live in Asia. People there don’t need medicines from Big Pharma.

Reishi cures many ailments. It is one of the world’s most comprehensive treatments for the human body. Whether you are young or old, boy or girl, athlete or couch potato, dreamer or achiever, Reishi is perfect for you.

Health benefits of Reishi in a nutshell

Reishi is an adaptogen, so it helps the body adapt to various kinds of stress:
- temperature
- trauma
- sleep deprivation
- exposure to toxins
- radiation
- infection
- psychological

Reishi causes no side effects with regular or even intense consumption, and it is quite effective in dealing with an extensive variety of ailments, as well as having a balancing effect on the body and its organs. Reishi boosts the body’s immune system to respond better against pathogens, such as viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi that may cause disease. It also has many cardiovascular benefits, including lowering “bad” LDL cholesterol, lowering blood pressure, and improving blood circulation.

Credit: Missy_Schmidt

Modern medicine has adopted Reishi as an adjunct to such conventional cancer treatments as chemotherapy and radiation, and it has also been said that it eases the unpleasant side effects of these treatments.

More interesting still are its anti-cancer properties. We still don’t quite know what causes cancer (although scientists have some fascinating theories ), but what we do know is that Reishi has scientifically proven anti-cancer properties.

When you look at these benefits and consider that Reishi has no side effects, it is easy to see how beneficial it is to add Reishi to your daily diet. Oh, and how much Big Pharma should be afraid of it.

Konnichiwaeveryone, and welcome to the Four Sigma Food blog (if you are a first timer), and thanks very much for coming back (if you have read the FSF blog before). We hope you enjoy this first part of a two-part article about the Reishi mushroom.Before discussing the history of Reishi, let’s clarify its various names.－ Scientific name (i.e., Latin name) is Ganoderma Lucidum
－ In China it is called Lingzhi and written 灵芝 (simplified is used in China) and also 靈芝 (traditional is used in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan)
－ The Japanese call it Reishi and write it 靈芝 (which is the same as traditional Chinese)

The Internet shows many different translations of Reishi/Lingzi, and all suggest a different meaning. The truth is (feel free to disagree with me) that Asian languages, especially Chinese and Japanese, are so different from Western languages that usually you can’t translate them word for word. This means that all of them or perhaps none of them might be correct.

Credit: marlith (flickr)

The most common Chinese translations found on the Internet are shown below:

– Auspicious plant
– Auspicious mushroom
– Divine mushroom
– Immortality plant
– The Elixir of ImmortalityAnd finally as exact translation of the Chinese characters as possible:
– 靈 = quick / alert / efficacious / effective / spirit / soul; spiritual world / departed soul / coffin
– 芝 = sesame; a purplish or brown mushroom thought to have miraculous powers; “a divine and felicitous plant”.Now you can understand why there are so many different translations. I also like to give my two cents in it and translate it to “Spiritual mushroom”.

I will still call it Reishi, though, as this is the most common, the shortest, and I also like it more than the others.

History

Some sources state that Asian cultures have used Reishi for more than 4,000 years, but I haven’t been able to verify this anywhere. The first known written records of Reishi are from the Han Dynasty (200-25 CE), meaning that it has been used for at least 2,000 years. Reishi is definitely one of the oldest and most precious herbs used by humankind anywhere on earth, and several Chinese emperors have valued it as a source of longevity and vitality. In the Western world, Petter Karsten, a fellow Finn, was the first person to officially name Reishi when he identified it as being from the genus Ganoderma in 1881. Historically, Reishi is one of the most scientifically researched medicinal plants and has a well-proven track record of its medicinal benefits.

Popularity

Reishi is extremely popular in Asia, especially in Japan, where it is more common to use it than not. People in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, and South Korea know it well, and many use it as a normal part of their diet. This is not an overstatement. I have lived in Shanghai and Hong Kong, traveled to more than 20 different locations in China and Taiwan, and the same pattern is repeated everywhere:
1) I can go to a traditional Chinese pharmacy and buy a whole Reishi mushroom or pieces of one, or even Reishi powder. I can take these items home and boil a bitter-tasting concoction.
2) I can also buy fairly inexpensive, poorly branded Reishi capsules from local dietary supplement shops, but I never do because I don’t trust their quality.
3) I can go to a large health/wellness chain store and buy easy-to-use Reishi capsules that come in fancy (by Chinese standards) packages, with a quality guarantee and exorbitant price tag.

In North America and Europe, Reishi is still quite unknown. You can buy it from some places, such as the webstores iHerb.com and vitacost.com, but otherwise it is almost nonexistent.

Credit: Randy Pertiet

Future

With all the empirical data of traditional Chinese medicine, as well as new scientific data of modern medicine, I hope and believe that Reishi will make a global breakthrough and become part of the daily diet of men and women everywhere. Because Reishi has so many health benefits and no side effects, I’m confident this will happen. When it does, Big Pharma will have to start searching for new sources for revenue, because people will be healthier.

Credit: Clear Wal-Mart

This opinion may appear to be quite bold and exaggerated, but in Part 2, I will explain why I think this will occur.

- Mikko