Last summer, mushroom companies like Real Mushrooms and Everyday Dose signed a Citizen Petition with the FDA to ensure you’re getting mushrooms in your mushroom supplements, and not grains with mycelium on them. (Here’s an interview with Real Mushrooms’ CEO Skye Chilton about the petition.) Think of the mushroom we see above ground as an apple and the mycelium are the roots of the apple tree. You wouldn’t grind up the roots and call it apple juice, sweets. It’s cheaper. Fruiting body medicinal mushrooms are an increasingly expensive raw material. It’s faster . Why wait on flushes of fruiting bodies when you can grind up half your substrate and call it a day? Tastes like the great whiskey reveal of 2022… It’s sexier. For some U.S. buyers, “Made in America,” is a powerful psychological tool. But… medicinal mushrooms are not a Western game, whereas Asian countries have been farming mushrooms and using them for adjunct medicine for centuries. 100% fruiting bodies . Mycelium isn’t the worst thing, but buyer beware of the ratio of fruiting body to mycelium. Dual-extraction . Medicinal mushrooms need to be broken down to get the good stuff. While a single hot water extraction is good for a shroom like turkey tail, both a hot water and alcohol extraction is best for a hardier shroom like chaga. Active compound testing . Brands happily supply this, but you may need to ask. Because mushrooms are a natural, organic material, their beta-glucan content can change from one crop to the next.