Return of the Buy Magic Mushrooms

Buy Magic Mushrooms, sometimes called toadstools, are fleshy bodies of fungus that grow above ground on soil or on a food source. They are separated from the plant world in a kingdom all their own called Myceteae because they do not contain chlorophyll like green plants.

Without the process of photosynthesis, some mushrooms obtain nutrients by breaking down organic matter or by feeding from higher plants. These are know as decomposers. Another sector attacks living plants to kill and consume them and they are call parasites. Edible and poisonous varieties are mycorrhizal and are found on or near roots of trees such as oaks, pines and firs.

For humans, mushrooms may do one of three things-nourish, heal or poison. Few are benign. The three most popular edible versions of this ‘meat of the vegetable world’ are the oyster, morel and chanterelles.

They are use extensively in cuisine from China, Korea, Japan and India. In fact, China is the world’s largest producer cultivating over half of all mushrooms consumed worldwide. Most of the edible variety in our supermarkets have been grow commercially on farms and include shiitake, portobello and enoki.

Eastern medicine, especially traditional Chinese practices, has used mushrooms for centuries. In the U.S., studies were conduct in the early ’60s for possible ways to modulate the immune system and to inhibit tumor growth with extracts used in cancer research.

Mushrooms were also use ritually by the natives of Mesoamerica for thousands of years. Called the ‘flesh of the gods’ by Aztecs. Mushrooms were widely consume in religious ceremonies by cultures throughout the Americas. Cave paintings in Spain and Algeria depict ritualized ingestion dating back as far as 9000 years. Questioned by Christian authorities on both sides of the Atlantic. Psilocybin use was suppress until Western psychiatry rediscover it after World War II.