Chaga Medicine

Chaga Medicine

The nutritionists I've talked to about my bladder cancer have emphasized the importance of consuming medicinal mushrooms.  The mushroom most often mentioned in this regard is the maitake mushroom, but I have never used it.  Thanks to some good friends I've never met, I've had a three year supply of Chaga mushroom, Innonotus obliquus.  Like Maitake, Chaga is a shelf fungus.  Its primary host is the birch tree and so is found in lands to the far north where birch is common.  it is a well known medicinal throughout Northern Europe and Russia and is also eagely sought and sold by mushroom hunters in the northern US and Canada.

 The pieces of chaga here were chopped from a tree in Vancouver, probably with an axe.  Most of that conk remains on its dying or dead birch tree.  I love the moss growing on the mushroom... what does that tell us.  The main mycelial body is the russet color tissue and that is extracted with hot water as a tea.  Apparently it can be extracted much more efficiently if the extraction is done with high pressure, so I will be trying that with these pieces.  The russet part is known to be highly immune supportive. Black parts of the mushroom (or chitin) contain the cancer killing properties and are extracted with alcohol. 

The extraction begins by soaking the hard piece in water for a day. The chaga floats, so it is weighed to sink.  The soaking water becomes a beautiful brown color and isvery mellow to drink.  After the soak the chaga can be chopped or ground for boiling and then strained and put into alcohol.   At first I used a lot of alcohol in the extraction and several time got "tipsy" consuming enough for my good health.  This is not standard practice.  Actually at the time of consumption the alcohol extract needs to be diluted to less than 40 proof so that the liver does not sense a need to remove it from the bloodstream.

Alexander Solzhinitzin (sic) wrote his famous "cancer ward" an autobiographical account of he treatment of his cancer with Chaga in Russia.   I'm sorry not to have read this yet, but apparently it cured him and Chaga is a big part of my healing.  What a beautiful thing.

It turns out that shelf mushrooms are not poisonous at all, but are often so hard as to not be considered as food.  I bet they are all medicinal.  I found a white conk on a dead and unidentifiable tree in Tulsa.  It was as hard as chaga and I managed to pull and pound off some small pieces which I boiled at home finding the mushroom to be edible and the broth to be hearty.