Mushroom Coffee Is The Latest Health Craze That Allegedly Prevents Sickness —This Recipe Puts That Theory To The Test
Don't let the whole "fungus" thing throw you.
weheartit That's right, health nuts of the world, myself included, have found yet another way to transform something as simple and lovely as coffee into something incredibly odd, though potentially rife with healing nutritional benefits. The are the people who have now taken to drinking mushroom coffee, which is, well, exactly what it sounds like.
Countless companies (or at least, more than one) are quickly establishing themselves as potential Starbucks rivals by selling packets of instant blends and/or mushroom extracts to use in your own delicious recipe.
To get one thing out of the way upfront, I feel it's important to state explicitly that these recipes do not call for the drugs kind of mushrooms.
I know this coffee does not call for the drugs kind because when I paid a visit to my local Whole Foods to acquire some ingredients to try making my own, I earnestly asked the cashier, "Be real. Is this drugs?"
The cashier in turn replied, "Ma'am, this is Whole Foods. We don't sell drugs at Whole Foods."
Fair enough.
The most commonly used medicinal mushrooms that are definitely not hallucinogenic drugs and that you're the most likely to find in the ingredients on a package of your preferred mushroom coffee vendor's offerings include cordyceps, chaga, Lion's mane, turkey tail, and reishi.
Each type of mushroom contains a wealth of its own potential health offerings, although more research is needed before a skeptic such as myself will be either willing or eager to chomp down on all of these fungi with the confident, carefree abandon of a health and science nerd who has been shown boxes and boxes of research.
That said, if mushrooms are capable of the magical wonders their fans currently promise, everyone will be jumping on the mushroom coffee bandwagon before you can say "cordyceps".
For example:
- There is evidence that chaga mushrooms may be able to kill cancer cells, stimulate the immune system, reduce fatigue and inflammation, and increase mental sharpness.
- Oyster mushrooms are considered to be a good source or iron.
- Raw crimini, cooked shiitake, and raw white button mushrooms contain high amounts of selenium, which has found to be a protect women (and men, but to a lesser degree) from bladder cancer.
In general, mushrooms are high in antioxidants which help boost your immune system and keep you from getting sick as a dog. Mushroom coffee is also believed to enhance the health of your liver and provide your system with digestive support.
THERE IS NOTHING THESE MUSHROOMS CANNOT DO AND YET THE CASHIER IN WHOLE FOODS SEEMED SO UNIMPRESSED WITH MY PURCHASE, THE PHILISTINE!
For me, perhaps the best thing about potentially trying mushroom coffee is the fact that it also contains coffee.
Unlike other health drinks (I'm looking at you, Kombucha), the folks behind mushroom coffee don't deny the potential health benefits of drinking normal caffeinated coffee, which include reductions in depression, suicide and cancer risks. What they are just saying that by tossing mushrooms into the mix, you gain additional benefits while reducing negative side effects such as the jitters and anxiety that can come when you drink too much coffee.
To make your own delicious cafe-worthy mushroom coffee at home, you can try the one I found on Running on Real Food, then tweaked to meet my own tastes.
What resulted was this recipe for a scrumptious dairy-free Pumpkin Spice Mushroom Latte.
Ingredients:
- 1 Four Sigmatic Mushroom Coffee mix (or 2 oz. pulverized, dried mushrooms of your choice, 2oz coffee, mixed with 6 oz hot water
- 2 tbsp full-fat coconut milk
- 2 dates
- 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 2 tbsp pumpkin puree
Once you have these things together the actual cooking process is simple: Dump it all in a blender and blast for 60 seconds or until it's nice and foamy.
I ended up putting my immersion blender into my (very sturdy) mug and it couldn't have worked out better if I'd planned to make it that way the whole time.
I am not going to try and pull one over on you here. It does NOT taste "just like" regular coffee.
It tastes kind of like if coffee and Scotch got together and gave birth to a baby beverage, and then the baby beverage grew up, joined a holistic wellness cult, and is now in the process of brain washing nut jobs health nuts like me into believing we enjoy its weird, earthy-tasting flavor.
It does taste somewhat like coffee, but coffee isn't the only flavor that exists within this brew.
There's definitely a smack of the ol' umami, although if I'm honest, I don't know that I could legitimately have told you there were mushrooms in this concoction if I hadn't known that from the get-go. That said, it definitely does taste like you're drinking something that must be very good for you, and it also happens not to taste exactly like a dead horse's taint — so there's that!
They say you need to stop drinking regular coffee for at least a month before you will notice any positive effects of the mushroom coffee, and I'll be honest, a month seems unreasonably far away.
I don't know that I'll make this my full time alternative to coffee (lol, let's be real, I definitely won't!), but I can also see how adding the mushroom-ized version to the rotation of other healthy beverages I make an effort to partake of could yield some pretty stellar and rewarding results.
Time will tell!
Rebecca Jane Stokes is a sex, humor and lifestyle writer living in Brooklyn, New York with her cat, Batman. She hosts the sex, love, and dating advice show, Becca After Dark on YourTango's Facebook Page every Tuesday and Thursday at 10:15 pm Eastern. For more of her work, check out her Tumblr.