- Brown rice is an excellent food source for both humans and mushroom mycelium.
- Mycelium “cultures” the brown rice by secreting enzymes to break down the fibre and starch, making nutrients readily absorbable to the body. This process is like making yogurt from milk “cultured” by lactobacilli.
- Lab analyses show that mycelium digests and converts the rice starch into various highly nutritive compounds including arabinoxylans – immune-supporting polysaccharides.
- Rice allows for the harvest of both the mycelium and the culture metabolites that are storehouses of supportive compounds like enzymes and prebiotics. These precious compounds are lost when grown on wood.
- Rice is naturally gluten-free, and well-tolerated by most people.
How we grow mushroom mycelium
To grow mushroom mycelium, we use sustainably harvested mushroom cultures to inoculate and ferment an organic brown rice substrate. The fermentation process produces unique novel compounds that have been studied and shown to provide significant and complementary immune support properties.
Much like when growing mushroom fruitbodies, growing mushroom mycelium requires a different length of incubation for each different mushroom species. It takes anywhere from two weeks to two months to grow mushroom mycelium. At Host Defense®, we grow 17 different species. It’s important to know the specific incubation timeline for each mushroom species in order to reach peak efficacy.
While the timeline to grow mushroom mycelium for each beneficial mushroom species is different, the process for each is the same.
